Title sequence Evaluation

final media as level coursework - forever

- This is our finished title sequence lasting 2 minutes, I hope you enjoy!
After you have watched this please could you take the time to fill in my audience response survey, as this will greatly help me in my evaluation -

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D6MM3XT

Thanks!

Final Editing

We have now got all of our footage, and are nearly finished. There were however gaps in editing so me and Emily decided to stay after school, we expected to need to stay behind for two hours. We needed to:

• Fade the sound when Jack leaves the room.
• Put in transitions.
• Make sure our titles ran smoothly.

Which normally would not take very long. However, when we tried to fade the sound we used the audio editor and accidentally faded the music out, which is not what we wanted, we wanted it to simply become quieter.Once this was saved i could not undo it, therefore I had to come into school the following morning to put all of the audio back in. This was not as simple as it sounds because the audio clip does not last the whole two minutes, and so it was repeated but cut up and put in place so that you could not notice this transition, however this was done by Prada and she was not there so I was not sure how to do that. Finally, with help from Mr Michie I managed to get the audio back into place and faded when Jack leaves the room.

Establishing shot

On our list of improvements, an establishing shot of the location was discussed. However we only had the chance to film this once, and the shot was not of good quality, so therefore we decided to go with out this shot.

Shoot 10

In this shoot, we shot 3 more scenes between Jack and Shauna sat down, these were:

These are the same type of shot to create continuity, however the first is at the beginning of the performance before it starts and the other two are during. This was a suggestion by Mr Michie, and after having placed it on premier it is really effective, and involves the viewer more rather than just having the shot of Tiffany on the piano, it also speeds the sequence up, whereas one shot of Tiffany would have slowed the pace down and bored the audience.

Improvements

After putting all of the footage we had together we showed this first cut to Mr Ford and Mr Michie, here are the improvements they suggested:

• The titles needed to all last the same amount of time, we decided on 3 seconds.
• There needed to be some shot reverse shots showing the couple watching the piano.
• An establishing shot of the location.
• Our title sequence was too full, and we were trying to put too much in to two minutes, therefore we should delete the scenes between Jack and Simran handing over the money, and just meet Simran at the end of the sequence when Jack gets in the car with her.

Order of titles

This is the order titles should appear in a title sequence:

• The logo of the production company should appear first.
• Followed by the studio.
• "A Film By" should be next, for us this would be - A Film By 

                                                                                     -Jade Dockerill

                                                                                     - Prada Nayar

                                                                                     - Emily Hardy

                                                                                    - Tiffany Leung

• This is then followed by the name of the film - "Forever"
• Then the actors should appear on screen in order of importance.
• This will be followed by:
• "Filmed By..."
• "Edited By..."
• Produced By..."
• And "Directed By..." - This title should appear last because it is the most significant.

                                                     

My research into the order of the title sequence has helped because we would loose marks for having these in the wrong order, because this is a very significant part of a title sequence.
                                                                         

shoot 9 and decisions

In this shoot, we shot Shauna dead, and Jacks shadow killing Shauna.

- these are the shots we are using of Shauna, we decided on the mid shot showing both her neck and face because it makes it more personal, and the viewer is questioning why Jack has killed the woman that he was on a date with, who looked so in love with him. Therefore they would want to watch the rest of the film. Because of Shauna's necklace, and convenience, we have decided to rename the film 'Forever', therefore the close up on Shauna's necklace is a graphic match to the title as we tried to get the closest font to it as we possibly could.
- We also shot Jack and Shauna's shadow. We experienced problems with this but did in the end get a good shot. The problems we faced were:

• The floor lamp in the drama studio had been taken by someone else, so we could not use it.
• We therefore had to use a small lamp and a Phone torch to create the shadow - this worked and could be seen.
• However, it could not be seen very well on camera, therefore we positioned the actors nearer the wall so the shadows could be seen.
• But this meant thee actors heads could be seen in shot.

We overcame this by having the actors kneel, so that there heads were not in the shot, and tilting the camera upwards.

Shoot 8

In this shoot we shot Jack wiping the blood off the knife and walking away, and Jack walking to the light switch.

WHAT WENT WELL	wHAT did not GO WELL
-          We re-shot the wiping the knife scene and were pleased with the results, we also decided to include a POV shot, which we think adds to the atmosphere of the sequence, as the viewer can see what the murderer can see.	-          - We were not very time effective, as we decided to take our time over the wiping the knife shot because we had already had to re shoot it. However this paid off because it was a good shot.
-          We also shot jack walking to the light switch, and the close up of it, and were also pleased with this.

We have decided to have a piano track playing for our entire title sequence, it is non copyright as we are recording it ourselves; this is the same for all our audio - including the scream.
We will not be getting any of our audio online, and will record it all using sound recorders from school. We are also going to record some of the dialogue in our sequence so that we can delete the audio in the video, thus reducing the crackly sound in the background.

Shoot 7 and decisions

This shoot did not go particularly well at all, we wanted to film the shot were Jack wipes his knife, however we realized that at this point we did not yet have any shadows in our title sequence, which is a key convention of Film noir. Therefore we decided to have low key lighting in this scene. 

However, although this looked okay on camera, when we played the scene back on the Mac this did not look at all good, and the floor light was too bright on Jack's face, therefore the shadow looked good but we could not see Jacks face at all, meaning that this was not an effective place to have shadows. 

Therefore, we made the decision to show the shadows of Jack and Shauna when Jack kills Shauna instead of it being completely pitch black for the entire time. 

Shoot 6 - Car scene.

- These are the shots we are using from shoot 6, we are happy with these shots and have shown them to Mr Michie and do not need to re-shoot them, thankfully, as the classic car broke down whilst we were filming, meaning that it has now gone into the garage and we cannot shoot anymore scenes using it.

Titles

- This is the logo I created for the producing company of 'Blood Money', Hoyile is Tiffany's - a member of my group - name in Chinese, which is the country she comes from, therefore this name is relevant to us as a group and it meant that nobody else had this name.

- This is the logo I created for the studio that distributes  'Blood Money', P.E.J stands for Prada, Emily; Jade- all the members of our group excluding Tiffany, as her name has been used for the production company.

Both these logos are quite simple, but I think this benefits them and they stand out.




- This is Mona Lisa typography, this is the font we have decided to use in white for our other titles. We think this font works well with our title sequence because it is elegant and the serif style makes it formal - like the event our characters are attending. The uniqueness of this text stands out as its not the normal font you would see, it is dramatic and draws the viewers attention, however it is not bold enough to draw the viewers attention away from the action on screen, making it perfect for a film noir thriller. The sharpness of the text creates tension as the viewer can therefore infer that something is going to go wrong, and that not everyone in this film is good.

Footage evaluation from shoot 5 and editing

We were successful in getting all the shots we needed from this shoot, and so have begun to edit it.

We have put all the footage we have got so far in place on premier and put transitions in, so that now we need to film 7 more scenes, put our titles and music in; then show Mr Ford and Mr Michie to get their impression.

Shoot 5

On shoot 5 we finished filming Jack and Shauna's scenes together.

WHAT WENT WELL	wHAT did not GO WELL
-          We finished all Jack and Shauna’s scenes together.	-          The camera ran out of battery whilst we were filming so we had to charge it using an extension cable so that we could continue filming, this meant that we had to spend time hooking this up, and the camera tilted towards the plug slightly so we had to hold it still whilst we filmed.
-          We were happy with the footage
-          We were time efficient

The issue with the camera meant that we learnt the hard way about charging cameras, all though we were not the last one to use it, we now always put our camera on charge when we are finished so the same thing does not happen to another group.

Shoot 4 - Shooting Tiffany on the piano

- These are the two shots we have of Tiffany playing the piano, we're really happy with both and so they will both be in our title sequence. The second shot of Tiffany's hands was not story boarded but we decided to try it whilst filming; when we evaluated it on the Mac everyone thought it was beneficial to our sequence, so we have included both these shots.

Footage evaluation from shoot 3 and a decision

After shooting our Jack and Simran scenes we watched these scenes on the Mac, and were quite pleased with what we had got, and noticed that our camera technique had improved. Also because we had put makeup on our actors faces the quality of the red left in, however it was still not perfect. Therefore as a group we decided to make our sequence all black and white, this was a shame because leaving the red in would have been beneficial to our audience, foreshadowing that something was going to go wrong because of the danger red connotes, thus creating tension, which is a convention of a thriller film.

Shoot 3

On shoot 3 we had the drama studio from 4 - 6, with Jack and Simran. WHAT WENT WELL	wHAT did not GO WELL
-          we re-shot what we needed	-  However, Jack had to leave early so we did not finish all of the scenes.
-          Our camera technique had improved.
-          we put makeup on our actors faces so that we could leave the red in.

Editing

Since we have now done two shoots, we have some footage to edit. Therefore in lesson we began to edit together since it was our first time editing and so we all needed to know how to work premiere. We put in cross fades and decided when to have this transition, a dip to black or a straight cut - as these are our favorite transitions. We also decided to work on making our sequence black and white, leaving the red in. However, after the advice of Mr Michie we have learnt that this may not be as easy as we thought. Therefore if we want to do this we will have to re shoot our scenes that Jack and Simran are in and make them wear makeup to cover up the red on their skin, as this can be seen when we try to put the red of their clothes back in, as Premiere leaves all the red in and it would take too long to remove every color other than the red frame by frame, so therefore we must cover up any other red on screen. This means that we will have to re shoot the scenes we have shot with Jack and Simran in.

New storyboard - please excuse my drawing!

Redoing our storyboard to make it more detailed has really helped us as we now know exactly what we want and it is not at all vague. This means that we will be more time effective when filming because we will not have to muck around trying to figure out what camera shots we want, because we already know.

footage evaluation from shoot 2

After our second day filming we looked at the footage on the Mac, and begun to edit what we had got. Mr Michie showed us how to stabilize the tilt shot on premier, however the camera was not quite still enough so it actually made it more shaky. Because we had spent so much time trying to do the tilt shot and had still not succeeded we therefore decided to scratch that shot, because it was not necessary and if we could not get it right we would loose marks, and we did not want to waste anymore time on it as time is of the essence.

2nd shoot

The second time we filmed we filmed Simran's scenes because none of the other actors were free. wHAT WENT WELL	wHAT didn’t GO WELL
-          We got some good shots and could follow are new storyboard so were more time effective, meaning we got more shots done.	-          Although we took a lot of shots we could not get the tilt shot right, however we may be able to stabilize this in editing.
-          We took more shots because we did not want to have to re shoot like before

Footage evaluation from shoot 1

After our first experience filming we sat and looked through the footage. There were some bits we needed to re shoot, for example, Jack looked at the camera in one scene and the camera slightly moved in another. Therefore we will have to re shoot these scenes. From this experience i have learnt that when we next film we need to do lots of takes to make sure that we get something useful out of our time and do not need to re shoot. Therefore all though we have not used any footage from this shoot, it was useful because it gave us more of an idea of what we wanted/needed to do.

1st day filming

We began the filming process by shooting the scene between Shauna and Jack watching Tiffany.

What went well	What did not go well
we got some good shots	- We were not very time effective
we all had a go at filming and got a feel for the camera/technology	- We realized we wanted extras and did not have anyone
Our actors were briefed on their characters and we spent time helping them get into role.	Made us aware that our storyboard was not anywhere near detailed enough, as we had to spend time figuring out the exact shot we wanted, something we should not  have needed to do.
We set up the studio exactly how we wanted it and know for future shots how to quickly set it up.

Overall our first shoot was not a disaster, but it did highlight things we need to improve on to make our next shoot run smoother.

Filming schedule

- This is our shooting schedule, we will be filming in the school's drama studio. This shows when we can use the studio and who is free to film then, this will help us as it means we can keep on time with our filming and we know when everyone is free and do not have to continuously keep asking.
- We are no ready to begin filming, however our planning process will still be involved with our filming, as whilst we film we may decide to change things because of the way they look on camera.

Props and costume

These are the decisions we have made regarding props and our actors costume:

Costumes:

Jack

• Dark coloured suit
• White shirt
• Red tie
• Smart shoes

Shauna

• Floral dress
• Cream fur coat
• Black kitten heels

Simran

• Black fur coat
• Red blouse/ top
• Black skirt
• Black tights
• Black high heels

Props:

• Briefcase filled with banknotes
•  knife
• Fake blood
• Classic red car
• Piano

Costumes explained:

• Jack's costume: we decided that our male antagonist should wear formal clothing, as our title sequence is based at a formal event; so therefore this increases the verisimilitude of the sequence. We decided that Jack's tie should be red because of our decision to have red as the only color in our film, as Jack is a dangerous antagonist.
• Shauna's costume: We decided that Shauna should be wearing a floral dress as this is a very 50's style, which is the time period in which our title sequence is set, a floral dress is also a very innocent style, which is the perception we want the viewer to gain of Shauna's character. Shauna will be wearing a cream fur coat, which is also keeping with the time period, and contrasts with Simran's black fur coat conveying the difference in the characters personality. It is also very formal similar to Jack's costume, because of the setting.
• Simran's costume: Simran's costume is relevant to her femme fatal character and time period. Most of Simran's costume is black, this color connotes Simran to be black-hearted, which is  the perception we want to give of her. The black fur coat is a common item of clothing in film noir films, as it makes the character seem more mysterious and confident. We decided to put Simran in a red dress because of our decision to have red as the only color in our film, as Simran is also a dangerous antagonist.

Props explained:

• Briefcase filled with banknotes - Simran will offer Jack the briefcase of money for killing Shauna, when she does this she opens the briefcase to show him the money; therefore this briefcase needs to be full of money.
• Knife - Jack is going to kill Shauna, and a shot will show him wiping the blood off the knife, so that the viewer is certain it was him who killed Shauna, since she will be killed in the pitch black.
• Fake blood - this is to go on the knife, as well as around and on Shauna and the money.
• Classic red car - this is for the end scene of our title sequence, where Jack gets in the car with Simran, it must be a classic car so that it fits in with the time period of our film.
• Piano - this is for Tiffany to play; this is what Shauna and Jack have gone to watch.

the color RED

As a group we have thought about our film noir thriller title sequence, and decided that the color red is a very common feature in thriller films because of what it connotes. Therefore, after watching 'Sin City', we have decided that we would like our film to be black and white, other than the color red, which will be seen on Jacks tie and Simran's top as they are the antagonist of our film. The color red will also be seen as Shauna's blood. We think that this will be very effective and from the beginning of the sequence will create tension.

Locations

We want to film our title sequence in an auditorium, which looks like this:


We have two cinemas that we could do this in, these are the Odeon in Gerrards cross|:


And the Empire in High Wycombe:


Which we have been told has been known to let students film there before.

However, it is not 100% that we could film in these locations as the Cinemas may oppose us being there, or we may not be able to sort out a schedule in which we could film.
In the event that we can not film there, we could also film in the drama studios at our school, as it would not be obvious on screen that is where we filmed. This is a picture of the drama studio, and the school hall which we will be using to shoot the scenes of Tiffany playing the piano, which Shauna and Jack are watching.-




           

Blood Money

We have made the decision to name our film 'Blood Money', as the plot includes an assassination. From making this decision we have come to a further development in our storyboard, as we had already story boarded the money around Shauna's dead body with her blood on. However with the development of a name we have decided that at the beginning of the title sequence when the name cross fades in, we should have a shot of the money with blood, over the top of the scene in which the title is already on. We will create this effect by placing both scenes in the work area, and changing the opacity of the shot of the money, so that the shot of the two characters feet is more prominent but the blood money can also be seen, creating tension as the audience therefore knows that something bad is going to happen.

My duch tilt practice

As promised, here is my own practice dutch tilt shot:

- - This is a normal shot.


- This is the same shot as a dutch tilt.


I am glad that I did my own practice of a dutch tilt, as even if we do not use it in our title sequence this year, I have learnt another skill that will better prepare me for my A2 media coursework.

enhanced storyboard

After our lesson on storyboarding we decided to make our storyboard more detailed, this is our enhanced storyboard:


It is more detailed and the arrows explain which way the camera will be moving, Our storyboard includes:

1. Introduction- The logo of our production company (Hoyile Productions) 
2. Footsteps walking along a bright red carpet towards something.
3. Shot of the theatre, with people scattered around; preparing for the movie.
4. A couple in their early 20's sitting down watching the movie.
5. Curtains close for an interval in the play/ movie.
6. The man glances at his watch, realises the time and gets up assuring his girlfriend he'll be right back.
7. Exits the theatre.
8. Woman dressed in red awaiting his in the lobby.
9. They meet and proceed in a silent conversation, including the exchange of money.
10. The man quickly departs, walking towards the electrics supply and turns the theatre lights off.
11. It is pitch black and her scream is heard from his girlfriend.
12. The girlfriends dead body, with banknotes scattered around her covered in blood.
13. The man exits the theatre, whilst wiping a blood covered knife with his pocket square.
14. Enter his car and drives away into the distance.

Redoing our storyboard has meant that when we film we will be better prepared and we will have saved time because we know what we are doing.