S1-23 : FILM OPENING PROJECT 2008/9

Final Piece of Opening sequence

2009-03-09T02:09:00.000-07:00

Original Practise shots

2009-02-13T05:46:00.001-08:00

These are practise shots that two members of our group filmed in Long Road's Library, these shots pretty basic and are unedited. We've decided that we need smoother movement rather hand held effect, as this cheapens the quality of our film.

Target audience

2009-02-12T03:48:00.000-08:00

Our target audience are of no particular age group, although teenagers would be able to relate to it more than a younger/older audience would; as our characters are all teenagers. They might also have the feeling of pressure in social classes and stereotypes more so. Therefore may be easier for them to empathise with the main character.
Most recent and less temporary films that have been out during the latest decade, have been using a lot of political issues, such a serious orientated topic will obviously give an intresse to a more aware generation,some of these may educate young teens. Amazing masterpieces such as "This is England",

Costume

2009-02-09T01:58:00.000-08:00

A prop which contains good imagery is clothing. Our opening sequence projects modern day society,gender and age.
Most of our costumes may just be day to day clothes,reason being our sequence introduces the main character's average, boring typical day. However our main character must pursue a vibe which judges and influences members of an audience to associate him as a weary and sceptical person.
Our main character shall wear so called "lower class" clothing eg: sports clothing which includes hoodies,tracksuits and reebok trainers.

The mp3 player also adds to the modern appearance of teenagers, and we will use one as a prop to display chisanga's style a lot clearer to the audience.

Location

2009-02-09T01:42:00.000-08:00

In order to create a specific style type in order to reflect our genre;being British social realism, image is essential.
In our observation of location and mise en scene, we have decided to film our opening sequence mostly in Cambridge,simply because Cambridge has a strong social class influence, even if there may be some exceptions.
On a plus side Cambridge is easily accessible to all members of our group. Our genre and main focus is to reflect ethnic and social minorities, good images and locations are neccesary.
The two main locations are the housing estate and a Cambridge niversity . These show the contrast in the life our character leads and pursues.Between our most important shots a few shots should be taken in unidentifiable streets which could belong in any city or country until the icebraking shot of our chosen University. Our main plan is that our chosen locations will be situated in outdoors;there are the issue that we have no control on light, space or weather but these are just things we have to deal with.

Feedback from other groups

2009-02-09T01:38:00.000-08:00

Positives :
* Effective and detailed shot list
* Useful research into soundtrack ideas
* Research into director
* Everything is there
* Good shot list, detailed mentions props etc.
* Good sypnosis
* Good shot lists, very detailed
* Lots of colours, detailed shot list
* Lots of notes

Areas for improvement :
* No animatic on blog
* Mood board rather empty
* Not much practical information
* Mood board is weak (not many images)
* Analysis of 'This is England' should include video of opening sequence, not just a picture.
* Not many posts
* No animatic sequence
* Only 3 or 4 blogs
* Lots of videos but not much analysis
* Undetailed mood bored
* Not a lot of posts

Our group has learned that we have a very strong shot list, which has been a positive comment many people have made. However there are many improvements that need to be made, which we can see from the feedback, e.g - create more blogs, improve our mood board (adding more images and commentary about our ideas and reasons for designs it that way), and writing more about how we plan to interpret our ideas and inspiration from our research into creating our sequence. We also need to add our animatic storyboard onto our blog, as without it the people giving feedback found it harder to understand our ideas.

Shot List

2009-01-30T05:32:00.000-08:00

Here is a summary of the shots that will appear during our title sequence.

Shot 1: Long shot - Chisanga walking down the middle of a quiet street listening to music - For props we need a quiet street and an actor

Shot 2: Close Up - Chisangas face

Shot 3: Medium Shot - Car or ped driving past - For props we need a car or ped

Shot 4: Medium Shot - Chisanga bumps into his mate - For props we need 2 actors

Shot 5: Close Up - Chisanga breaking into a car (Flashback) - For props we need a car and the actor

Shot 6: Medium Shot - Back to present day, with chisanga listening to music - For props we need a phone

Shot 7: Long Shot - Longroad sign - For props we need the sign

Shot 8: Close Up - Enters the library sees the please be quiet sign and turns off music - For props we need a sign

Shot 9: Medium Shot - Chisanga pulling out a chair and taking out his ear phones - For props we need a table and chair and ear phones

Shot 10: Close Up - Books - For props we need some books

Shot 11: Close Up - Open book - For props we need a book

Shot 12: Long Shot - Girl looks at chisanga with his books - For props we need a girl actor and books

Shot 13: Close Up - Bus driving past - For props we need a bus

Shot 14: Over the shoulder shot - Chisanga looking at the cambridge uni - For props we need to go to cambs uni

Shot 15: Hand held shot - Chisangas face looking at uni - For props we need cambs uni

Sound Track reasearch

2009-01-29T04:12:00.000-08:00

Bashy-Feelings
We feel that this is the type of genre of music we would like to produce for our final title sequence as it is grime and this is the type of music that the people in our title sequence would listen to.

Lady Fury- Furious Ghetto
We feel that this song suits our title sequence as it talks about having a 'hard life' and these our the feelings that we are trying to promote.

Mike Leigh

2009-01-29T04:02:00.000-08:00

Mike Leigh is a famous director, for his creative approach in filming towards our modern day society.
He's style creates a lot of opinion and thought into people when they watch his famous pieces. Leigh has created an influence into our desired effect into our project, modern day struggles and peoples are our biggest focus's.
From watching clips of his films, we have established a style.

Synopsis

2009-01-29T03:01:00.000-08:00

Main character is found walking down a neighbourhood, a working class neighbourhood just another common one of Britain. Character is described by a voice over of a female voice, the character becomes aware of his surrondings as he walks throughdifferent class neighbourhoods, through the civilised area an envy vibe is reflected to the audience. As the voice over describes events of the main characters life and past experiences the audience is brung to a new reality of life. A second shot uses more background props such as a car driving by;the desired effect to give a sense of real life and real day routines, the scene is a low angle shot revealing more of the main characters face. As the character has his life been taught to the audience,jump cut shots are used fo the effect of flashbacks of those links such as his rebelious behaviour; such as stealing a car, beating an unknown character or dealing low class drugs used by our modern day teens eg: Canabis and E's.
The voice over brings back to reality the main character carries on his walk to an unknown place. Until he comes to a stop greeting a male character with a friendship approach. Both characters have elements of laughter as they describe there day. until they go there seperate ways. The main character finally arrives to a destination, being his sixth form college, he arrives to a library, alone. Shots of him walking past book shelfs will be eye level shots with a moving camera as he walks along.
A final shot is at a completly different area in Cambridge, infront of the Cambridge University, he lowers himself and sits down on the white steps infront of the glass building. The shot contains no non diagetic sound.

Moodboard

2009-01-29T02:26:00.001-08:00

This is our mood board.
We feel that this mood board represents the feelings that we will be trying to get across throughout our title sequence.
The graduation hat and certificate represent that the main character in our title sequence wants to do well in school, however the police man in the opposite corner shows that our main character does not want to show everyone that he cares about his education as he would find it embarrassing if his friends found out.

Feedback from Mood board
Although our feedback from other groups has criticised our mood board, we decided not to make any alterations because of the deadline given we feel we need to use our time on other aspects of our project. We also feel that although its quite, it portays the main idea of the film very well - showing the mise-en-scene of conventional crime of today and way of life, and education on the other side, which is seperated by a target inbetween.

Genres

2009-01-29T02:23:00.000-08:00

Genres

Social realist drama

 ‘Real life’- The aim is to represent life and all it’s difficulties.
 A certain social class usually faces a struggle.
 There is an existence of a conflict, large scale (political-war) and small scale between individuals.
 Example of such a Movie is Land of freedom.

Adventure
 Has a Family and Comic element.
 Characters often in pursuit of something or completion of a puzzle.
 May involve more than 1 leading character.
 Set in an unfamiliar environment.
 Example of such a film is Harry Potter.

Super Natural Thriller
 Story usually evolves around the main character.
 Horror element.
 Dark lighting.
 Isolation.
 Claustrophobia.

Teenage Romantic Comedy
 A humorous movie about a love story that ends happily(about a teenage relationship.
 Stereotypical character’s are Geeks, Jocks, Conventional attractive girls.
 These stereotypes present a social boundary that the characters have to over come in order for a happy ending.
 Audience expects an emotional ‘pay-off’.

Crime Capper
 Ensemble cast.
 Main character commit a crime.
 Light hearted/comic.
 Criminals get away with the crime.

Analysis of 'This is england '

2009-01-23T05:57:00.000-08:00

Director: Shane Meadows
Released: 2006

the beginning of this opening sequence immediately captures the eye of the spectator, showing a clip of Magarette Thatcher, immediately bringing a sense of British life in the 80's Society to the film as everyone would know such an important figure in British society.

Shane Meadows continues this theme of showing a serious of clips portraying the life of Britain in the 80's for example, clips showings old fashioned TV's, run-down housing areas, graffiti, Rubix cubes - all imagery that relate to the 80's in some way - relating to the audience and their knowledge of this period in time.
It also cleverly potrays the contrast of people, social attitudes and behaviour by showing clips of Princess Diana's and Prince Charles' wedding and Magarette Thatcher giving out a speech which are contrasted against clips showing events such as riots, soildiers the falklands war on the war front, which also engage the spectator more as they are all real clips, when played together, help distinguish the difference of ways of life and attitude in the 80's.

The lack of editing makes a bigger impression of the film to the reader as they are all real footage so it may make it look less realistic, therefore less relateable to an audience. It also doesn't distract the spectator from the mise-en-scene, which focuses the spectators attention more on micro- elements such as costume, setting, behaviour etc.

Shane meadows doesn't involve any diegetic sound in this sequence, he only uses very upbeat music throughout the sequence, which in comparison to the lack of editing, also helps to focus the spectator on the mise-en-scene which is powerful enough without the music, and with it, it may be more chaotic and confusing when the sounds of the different clips are played because they are all quite short clips which may be harder to follow for an audience. The contiunous music relates to the continuous theme of aspects of british society in the 80's.

2009-01-19T01:37:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our first blog, our group members are Chisanga, Ashlea ,Charlotte and Tiffany and we have been given a project to create a film opening of a certain genre. The different genes we have been given to research are ;

We first had to create an ident to be at the beginning of our opening, which we did by using Photoshop. We decided on the title of the productions 'Scratch' and decided to having quite a grafitti-like background, so we used a brick wall image (which we found on google) as the first layer and the spray tool on the second layer to resemble spraypaint. Here are a few screen grabs of the proccess of making our Ident -

Here is a picture of the graffiti-like wall we created using photoshop:

Our chosen logo which we found off a website that allows you to make your own style of font:

Our final Ident:

S1-23 FILM OPENING PROJECT

2008-11-28T04:08:00.001-08:00

Welcome