Media Evaluation, Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

In the preliminary task we had to create a continuity sequence which included different props within the set and some different cinematography shots such as match-on-action. We had little and basic knowledge on how to film and we only planned briefly which we learnt was not a good idea as the filming process was slowed down and took longer than it should have, from this I learned that taking time and drawing out a full storyboard and production log will save time in the long run when doing my actual title sequence.  

We then learnt that after filming we had to upload the clips we had which took some time so when it come to title sequence we left time just for uploading the shots onto the macs. I also feel i have learnt a lot about the editing process as when we started the preliminary task I knew nothing about editing until Jack the technician gave us a quick tutorial on it so that we had the basic skills to edit the continuity sequence since then after using it most days trying out new things to help improve my title sequence I have learnt lots of new things which I didn't know before and i'm now able to use final cut pro with a bit more ease than I had before.

Also filming our continuity sequence let us look at some of the equipment we would be using for our title sequence such as the camera and tripod, since the preliminary task I am able to use the DSLR camera a bit more professionally by using the zoom and also focus pull to gain a depth of field this was all improved while filming the title sequence so gave the title sequence a more slick feel compare to the continuity sequence where it was our first time using the cameras, our use of the tripods also improved the more we used it as it became easier to move about as we found out which ways it could move.

When editing the preliminary task we did it individually where as when editing for the title sequence we was in a group so things became more difficult we decided the best way to edit was give everyone in the group a role such as; the editor, the sound and music person and the person who creates the titles needed for the sequence this was good idea and helped with the time management as we could work on three different things at the same time instead of all trying to do the same thing at once.

I have also learnt the importance of typography and design within a title sequence showing me how important it is to the audience and how different the typography can be depending on the film. Also since the preliminary task I have gained a more of an understanding on the audiences of films as well as the audiences of the genres mainly focusing on the genre of Rom-com as this was the genre of our film.

In summary I have learnt a lot since the preliminary task as to get to the final full product I had to improve my skills as well as learn lots of things I didn't know about before so from this I would say I made lots of progression since the continuity sequence so that i could be able to create my final title sequence.  














      

Media Evaluation, Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

 

Media Evaluation, Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Media Evaluation, Question 4

What would be the audience for your media product?

This is a screen recording on a presentation I made for the target audience for my media piece:

Media Evaluation, Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As a group we wanted to choose the best company, or studio to help us distribute our film so that it would be more successful. To find the best one for our film we researched into which companies had already produced and distributed Rom-coms such as Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures we looked at what films each company produced and looked at which were more successful such as how much money each made in the box office which shows how popular the film was and how well distributed it was as well.

 

Universal have created and distributed films such as; Love Actually, Knocked up and Along Came Polly. All theses films are average big budget films as they have quite a large budget and all the films made a lot of money such as Love Actually which had a budget of $45,000,000 and made worldwide a total of $247,472,278 which was a big profit, the film itself was a big hit with its audience and is to date one of the biggest Rom-com films to be released. Universal pictures is also one of the six major movie studios.

Warner Bros. have also help create and distribute some Rom-com films such as Valentimes Day, Author and most recently Crazy Stupid Love these films are also average big budget films for example Crazy Stupid Love had an estimated budget of $50,000,000 however only made an estimated $142,700,000 worldwide in the Box office which was much less than Universals Love Actually and we believe that these two film are the most similar to our own and this shows that Universal made a larger profit with a slightly smaller budget. This is why we have decided we will be using Universal Pictures and not Warner Bros. Pictures.

Another reason we selected Universal Pictures was due to how well marketed and distributed Love Actually was through the use of TV advertisement, posters and trailers showing in cinemas before other films. The main reason we selected Universal was because the studio itself is under a big conglomerate and uses vertical integration in lots of their films this helps because it means we will only have to use one company which does everything we also believe that Universal distribute to quite a wide range of countries so that means that more people will see our film. In conclusion the media institution we will be using is Universal Pictures as we believe this best suits our film genre and budget and will also help us make a greater profit through the distribution.

Media Evaluation, Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Media Evaluation, Question 1

In what ways does your media product Use, Develop or Challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Media Evaluation and Initial Brief

The brief of this coursework was to create a title sequence for a film we have made up ourselves with a specific genre and to be at least 2 minutes long. The title of our film is Delayed the title links in with the story behind the film and the man character in the film is known for being Delayed or late for things such as meetings and dates as he always gets trains, on a whole the title sequence is about two people one being the very attractive woman who has everything going for her and the other a man who is a bit dull and clumsy. The title sequence is following these two people around London, showing them in different ways and contrasting the two people to show how different they are, there is lots of colour change throughout to also help show this for example nearly all the shots of the man are in black and white while all of the woman are in colour. The title sequence starts the film off as it shows that love can overcome lots of obstacles starting with the first one at the end of the title sequence as the man is hit by a vehicle and we see a close up of the his face while this happens. The genre of the film is a Rom-com, we was able to follow nearly all the codes and conventions like it being in a big city, a man and a woman being the main characters, having humour and by having some upbeat and happy music within the title sequence.

Delayed (final copy)

Final Editing

Tuesday 25th, March:
The last bit of editing needing to be done so me and Hayley decided to stay after school and finish it off, the first thing we needed to do was to complete the ending, after talking about it we decided to use some of the old clips we had of me crossing the road, Hayley then sped this up so that it looks like the bus is about to hit me, she then cut it to my face in a surprised and shock expression which is to show me about to get hit as the realisation hits me. After this we then had to put the sound we found of the crash in time with clip so that the sound happens just after I am hit to create a dramatic effect. Also the last thing we needed to do was add the black and white effect to the scene so that it fit in with the rest of the title sequence.

Disaster

Monday 24th, March:
In this lesson we went back onto final cut pro to finish the editing of our title sequence only to discover because we was logged on when the system crashed on Friday, all our work from the title sequence had been wiped and deleted. Fortunately the technicians were able to get some of the older files back however most of the files are unusable and had been mixed up. So we tried to use our first draft which we had already exported onto a memory stick and import it back into final cut pro, this worked but we still had a problem that now certain things could not be edited such as the titles in the title sequence have to stay as they were when we exported the 1st draft as every part of it is added together. Because of the crash we had to re-edit all the stuff which had been done after the first screening such as the black and white effect on my scenes. We stayed longer after school so that we could get back to where about we was before.  

Editing

In this time we started to change my scenes, by changing the colour filter to black and white we did this because it was suggested in the feedback we got from our screening, and helped to suggest to the audience the influence of colour and difference between the lives our two main characters live. We also finished off all the transitions we needed to finish so that the whole title sequence ran more smoothly, the only thing left to do now was to change a few of the titles to make them bigger, also to finish off the ending so that it fit the genre of a rom-com at the end. Lastly I also needed to finish off putting in our production company's logo.

This all should be able to be done in the next hour we spend editing, and the title sequence should then be complete.

Feedback sheets

These are the feedback sheets which were filled out after watching our title sequence when it was screened to the class:

Feedback from the screening

After the screening of our first draft of the title sequence to our class we received lots of positive feedback but also 3 main points on which we can improve on, the main things in which they like about it was the split screens and also the colours within the split screens, they said it worked well with the genre that we are using and helped to create an atmosphere, they also said the music helped to do this as well because it is happy and uplifting which a rom-com normally is.

The first main improvement which was suggested was the colour of the males clip, they said that we could make them all in black and white so that it contrasts to the woman's colourful scenes also it shows his life is dull compared to hers.

The second improvement which was suggested is the speeding up of some of the clips as some of them go on for a little to long.

The last improvement that was suggested is to change the ending as it does not work compared to the rest of the title sequence, we can change this by using lots of the clips from me crossing the road making it quicker and cleaner than before.

We started editing theses straight away and we was able to change the ending so that it looked better:

1st Draft

This is our first draft which we will be screening to the rest of our class:

Last editing before the 1st screening

In this lesson we was told that we would have an hour to complete a 1st draft for the first screening of the title sequence so in this hour we was able to complete all the transition between the clips so that the whole thing ran a little more smoothly, we also made sure all the titles had been imputed into the sequence correctly and then we insured the brightness of all the clips were similar so that the continuity of the title sequence looks better.

The last thing we did before exporting the clip out of final cut pro into an Mp4 was add in one of the production company's logos which was universal studios.

When gaining this clip of the production company's logo the sound was not in time so we had to slow down the clip slightly so that it fits perfectly.

Editing and an idea

In my time at home I have been thinking about different effects which could make the title sequence feel more like a  rom-com and after remembering a title sequence I have seen before I thought about a type of an effect that was used which was a screen split into 3 of 4 parts showing the same clip either staggered or at the same time in different colours or tints.

During the lesson I explained my idea to the group to see if they liked it and thought it would be a good idea, from this both Hayley and Laxmi both said they though it was a great idea. We started putting it on some of the clips of Hayley when she is walking through a crowd of people so that it makes her stand out and look colourful we have also tried to add it to the shot where Hayley is walking along with her bright pink bag. Using final cut pro we was able to split the screen into three and change the colour of each individual one however we had difficulty trying to get the timing right for each split screen.

Here are some screenshots which were taken to show the effect:

    

Filming Take 3

Thursday 13th, March:
In this lesson we was going through what we had so far and also let Leanne have a little look at what we had. After discussing what was good about it we also spoke about what it was missing and the main thing happened to be the cinematography there was not enough shots of the same thing which meant that the shots we had were to long. The way of changing this and improving was by going back out and filming however none of the shots required the landmarks up London, this meant that we did not have to go all the way up to London to film again. So during some free lessons me and Hayley went out to film some shots from different angles to add to the cinematography the shots were mostly of the two of us walking in different places. The last shot we got before heading back to school was me walking out into the road then another shot, a close up of my face as I see a car or bus coming towards me.

When me and Hayley got back to school, Hayley converted the files and uploaded them straight to final cut pro where she started to cut them down and put them into the title sequence.     

Titles done by Laxmi

Laxmi was in charge of creating all of the titles for the title sequence she did so mainly by using the programme Photoshop. The first thing Laxmi done was find out what titles we was going to need and use and also in which order they will go in after researching this, Laxmi started creating the titles but first she had to put Photoshop into a film and video template so that she could be sure that the titles fit properly.

Laxmi then used DaFont to gain different fonts for the titles and started to put them in to the template, she used the grid to align the titles in the correct place, then made sure they what the right size. Laxmi then took the backgrounds away so that she could save the titles as a PNG so that they could be placed easily into Final Cut Pro.

While doing this Laxmi took some screenshots to help show what she did and in which order:

Another quick editing + a review

12/03/14
In this time we have added some more split screens in to gain some comparisons between the two characters of the film. We have also made sure each and every clip has the same or similar lighting to assure the continuity of the clip. After this we had a little discussion within the group and felt we was missing little shots throughout the sequence, we decided to ask the opinion of Leanne after watching what we had she spoke to us telling us that there was not enough cinematography in the title sequence to which we all agreed so after this as a group we wanted to film some more clips just to add to what we already had as well as coming up with a better ending that what we have at the moment. So in our free lessons tomorrow me and Hayley planned to go shoot some more clips of the walking by me and Hayley and the ending of the title sequence.

After discussing this we had some time left over at the end to start putting in some transition for at the  beginning of the sequence to help make it feel more clean cut.

Editing again and sound

Friday 7th march
Finally decided on which music we will be using after short-listing a few, the group decided that we was going to use Racing Heart as it has a good tempo and is very upbeat so fits the genre perfectly. I then had to try and record the voice-overs which I was able to do in the 2 hours we had, I recorded 2 so that we could choose which one would be better for the title sequence. In this 2 hour lesson we was also able to talk to jack the technician so that he could give us a quick tutorial on how create split screens in final cut pro. Also in this lesson Hayley and Laxmi was able to change the brightness from some of the clips so that they all matched up.

1st Editing after re-shooting up London

After filming Hayley had all the files on the DSLR so she had to put them onto the Mac and them convert them into DV. so that they can be used on final cut pro. After filming on a different day we realised the lighting was completely different on the 2nd day up there so we took away most of the shots from the 1st day and replaced them with shots from the 2nd day. We went through them seeing which bits needed to be cut down or edited after doing this we finished creating a first rough cut with all the new clips. After creating it, as a group we sat and watched it together and discussed how much better it was and how more happy we are with it. A massive improvement from the other rough cut. Leanne and Sinead's advice really helped improve our title sequence as now it has a lot more conventions of a rom-com genre.

Title- The finished design

For the main title of our film, Laxmi created a mini question or questionnaire to decide and narrow down what font we will actually use. The fonts are all from a programme called "DaFont" and have been downloaded. As a group we narrowed it down to 8 options that we think are good enough
for the title.




















We gave the little questionnaire's out to 22 different people, Laxmi then took all the results in and added it all up from this she created a graph so that she could present her findings in a graph so that it is easy to understand.

Theses results show that the most people like the font of title number 7 and then title number 2 as a close second, it also shows that no one who completed this question liked title 4 and 5. I believe font number 7 was chosen as it is very simplistic and works well with the genre of rom-com.

So the final title which was chosen is:

It will be white and the biggest title throughout the title sequence, it will also be central as it will stand out more.

 

Filming Take 2

We decided Wednesday would be the best time to film and all three of us had a double media lesson and a free lesson last, so we could leave school early to go up London and film, we got permission from Leanne and headed straight up to London to get the shots that we needed. We went back to Waterloo station and got some shots of me almost falling down the stairs on the way out, we then filmed me walking/dancing to music and then checking myself out in the reflection of some office windows these are all shots we need because they are comedic and light hearted, after getting some more shots of the London Eye we walked up Southbank  towards a McDonald's so that I could get a burger for a extreme close up shot where I get all ketchup down me to show the clumsiness of the character I am playing, we then use an extreme close up on Hayley to show her putting lip gloss on so that then we can use a split screen to show contrast between the two.

We then filmed some different walking shots, one being Hayley walking through a crowd and others just the camera following the legs. Another shot we got was me walking along and then suddenly dropping my umbrella and having to pick it up this was also quite a comedic shot. The very last shot of the day that we got was me walking out into the road as a bus is coming, to try and show me getting hit by the bus, we got a few different shots of this as it was very difficult to get a good shot.    

Our Typography and Titles

The Typography and the titles are really important in the title sequence as it lets the audience know who created the film and who is in it. Also it gives key information about the film such as the genre just from the typography because of the font. Different fonts make you think differently about the title sequence and what it is about. This means that the font we use for our title sequence has to personify the genre of our film which is rom-com so we will look at lots of different fonts for the titles and pick the ones that best show our genre in the way we think also we might ask some class members and other students which ones they prefer.

This is the short-list of the fonts that we like and feel could be used for our titles:

Journal- Review of filming

03/03/14
In this lesson with Sinead we looked over and reviewed our almost complete rough cut, we asked Sinead if she would watch it and give us her opinion on what she thought about it. After watching it Sinead told us that she felt it was not comedic enough for a rom-com and felt a bit to serious and the main reason for this was that the voice over is quite melancholic and serious as well as their being not being enough comedy involved within it. Her suggestion was to re-shoot some of the scenes making it more funny with some comedy moments which in turn should create a light hearted atmosphere to portray the genre of rom-com properly.

Creation of a Voice-over

For the voice over we decided to put into the beginning of our title sequence I wrote a monologue to be read for it. Using my knowledge of music technology I was able to record two different people speaking it in the recording studio, using the microphones, pop filters and the X32 Behringer mixing desk also by using logic pro. I bounced both tracks and created two Mp3 tracks:

Number 1:

Number 2:

After listening to both voice overs as a group and asking other students in the sixth form we decided that number 2 is more suited for our film as the voice is more suited by the way it sounds more enthusiastic.

The 2nd Editing

In this double lesson we continued editing and doing all of our other shots, since the last lesson Hayley had added some more of the shots to the rough cut in her free lessons also when I was with her for an hour she changed the speed of some of the clips. The first example of this was with when I bump into her on the main concourse me and Hayley changed the speed of the shot to 15% so that it has a slow motion effect and now you can really notice when they first see each over and makes this part of the title sequence stand out from the rest. Hayley also changed the speed of the traffic shots up to 600% so that they have a fast motion affect and shows time passing also I think it gives a cool feel to the title sequence showing off London's busy streets in a different way to what they are normally looked at in.

We started by looking at the changes Hayley had made to the title sequence, we discussed what else we needed to do and went straight back to where we left off, Hayley carried on cutting the clips and finishing off the rough cut, I went straight back to finding some music for the title sequence, I was able to refine the search so that only happy and cheerful music came up in my search which we need as it is a convention for a rom-com. After looking through lots of the copyright free music I wrote down the ones I feel would best suit the title sequence so that I had a short-list of songs, Hayley was going to use the short-list to see which sounded best with the rough cut we already had, after finding all the main music that we needed I then focused on some of the sound effects that we would need like a heart beat for the bit after the accident also the sound of the a clock tower for Big Ben and the last sound that we would need is the sound of the car/bus skidding and then hitting me. Laxmi was still looking at the best titles to use she started to create a question with lots of different fonts for the title and you tick the one you like best these will probably be given to our class mates.

Editing 1st time for everything

First lesson back after the half term, after looking at the shots we got again we discussed them a bit more and thought there was some good shots for one day of filming I then helped organise the roles for everyone, Hayley was put in charge of the actual editing of the clips we got, her job was to make the rough cut of our title sequence but first she had to import and convert the MOV. files into the DV. files which final cut pro uses, this is the editing programme we are using to create our title sequence as is quite easy to use and we have already been taught how to use most of the functions for it. Laxmi was put in charge of the titles deciding what fonts to use and where each tile should be placed, only planning this until she come up with the final ideas. I was in charge of the sound and the music, I decide to put music as the priority over all the sound as I believe the key to creating a great title sequence is the music and I think especially in a Rom-Com. Using the web-site called audio network I was able to look for some free un-copyrighted music to add to our title sequence so I started by searching different types of music to see if any would fit better with the feel to our music after searching for about 30 minutes I could not find what I was looking and we had run out of time for this lesson so i would have to find some in the next double lesson on wednesday.

Journal Entry for the 27/2/2014- Final Logo

Final Logo Idea

After talking about our production logo in depth and talking to Sinead about it she said she liked what we had but agreed that it was little to basic and that we could try and create one ourselves using a hand drawn heart which we already wanted to do so from this we set Laxmi the task of creating by hand as she does Fine Art as an A-Level the production logo for our company- Romway Films she started off by just drawing the heart to how we wanted it and to effect we wanted so that it looked hand made, we then scanned it into the computer where the production company title was put in using Photoshop. This is our finish product of our production logo:

1st Day Of Filming

17th of February
This was our first day of filming, Me, Hayley and Laxmi all met on the bus going to Bexleyheath station. When getting to the station we made sure we had all props and items needed for filming then waited for the train that was taking us to London, whilst on this train we filmed some shots of trains passing by our train and also some of the view of London from the trains windows, we also was able to film some shots in the actual train of me doing different things and even the reflection of myself in the window was a good shot. As we arrived at our destination which was Waterloo east station we walked out onto the main concourse but on the upper level we discussed the best place to shoot and which shots we could get, from this we decided we was going to do some gorilla filming from above onto the lower level of me and Hayley walking in between the commuters on their way to work. Once getting into London we got lots of different shots of famous landmarks like Big Ben and the London Eye then we walked across the south bank getting more and more shots all the way up to Trafalgar Square where we got our last shots before going home.

18th of Febuary      
On this day we didn't go up London for that long we got some more shots on the train and some different shots of the traffic all around London which we are going to speed up when editing them to create an effect, we also got a few more shots of just me and Hayley walking around up there.

Change of the film title

After discussing the title of the film for a couple of weeks we decided Train Affairs was no the title we wanted for our film so after discussing more and different titles as a group we decided that Delayed would be a better choice as it links in with trains but also the fact he is delayed on the way to their date by tragic accident but does eventually make it there. So links in lots of different factors within the movie. Also i believe it has a better feel to it as a film title compared to train affairs. However we will still put out some questionnaires about the title to try and improve it.

Results of the Questionnaire

After the questionnaires back we come up with these results:

From this question we can see that from the plot people can see it will be a Romantic Comedy as they are the most commonly selected from the questionnaires. 

From the results of this question we can see that we was right to change the name of the film to Delayed as that is the most liked title.

After explaining the movie it was clear that more females wanted to fill out the questionnaire as they are more likely to go see this film.  

This shows us people are more indecisive then decisive on whether they will go to see this film.  

This graph shows us from results that people aged 17-20 are most likely to go and see this film.

Split Screening

Our group are focused on using split screening throughout our title sequence as we feel it will create the perfect feel for what we want for our title sequence. Theres lots of different way to use split screens such as this way which out group took some ideas from:

 My group took lots of inspiration from this short split screen film just by the way it is filmed using the contrasting cities but in ours we are using contrasting objects to help show the differences between the characters. This is a great way of using split screen however my group will be using split screen in different ways.

Questionnaire's

On the Wednesday we created some questionnaires that we though we could give out to some friends or the general public to get some feedback on the piece as a whole. These are the questionnaires forms that we created, there are just some general questions on each and one being a change in title which the group feel the movie needs anyway. We will take all questionnaires into mind after them being filled out and discuss any thing we feel needs changing after we get the results back.

Production Log

In this lesson we designed a production logs to help us keep track of the dates we are filming along with other things such as the props that we will need for each day, we have also hired one the schools DSLR cameras and a Stedi-cam for before we break up for the half term so that we can use it for filming up London. We decided which dates we would film on and which dates we would use to edit the film, find music and create some of the titles, this is only a type of plan so if we then decide to change dates for different reasons we will be able to as it is only a plan. From this we have decided as a group to film during the half term between the 17th and 21st of February because this is when we are all free as a group also the time we want to go up London to film is from 10 am to 3 pm so that we miss the peak times and will cost us less for travel.

From this we also discussed all the different props that everyone would need so we organised who was bringing what props-

Aaron (Me):
- Smart suit and tie
- Watch
- Umbrella

Laxmi:
- The briefcase or laptop bag

Hayley:
- Glasses
- Watch
- Handbag
- Lipstick

Also I will be keeping and transporting the camera and stedi-cam to location and back.

These are the first drafts of the production logs and what we started during the lesson:

These are our finished production logs after completing them in our own time as a group:

2nd story boarding

After discussing ideas again for our filming we decided our first idea and story boards were not as good as they could be so we decided we would change them, first by changing where we was going to shoot, after thoroughly going through this and discussing different locations we realised most romantic comedies are set in big cities like NewYork and London so we thought, we are only a train away from london so why not film up london which would give us a great location to film and lots of other ideas can come just from the location. From the location we decided to use different things such as a london cab to represent london a little bit more, so we thought we could start the title sequence as a black screen just the noise of a women inside the taxi with the engine running from this we were going to have her step out of the taxi and film her legs walking across the street.

From this we will be using a split screen by bringing across another screen with a males legs walking down a street. From this we will be introducing different props which both characters will have and they will be similar and will be compared using the split screen, during this they will both be walking to the train station and there will be different shots, one shot will be an over the shoulder shot of the male where we will see the female crossing the street. Then when they finally get to the train station they meet and the split screen will become one.

    

A Lesson On Typography

In this lesson we spoke about the importance of typography, we looked at three title sequence in particular; "Catch Me If You Can", "Lord Of The War" and "Forest Gump".

First of all we spoke about the normal and conventional order of the titles which are as the following:

- Production Company's (normally big production company's first then smaller ones follow)
- Then the name of whoever's film it is which is normally the director
- Stars of the film or talent in the order of who is the most famous
- Title or name of the film
- Crew members
- Editor
- Writer
- Producers e.g. Producer, Executive Producer and Co-producer
- Then at the end the Director should appear.

  Typography for Catch Me If You Can:

- The titles appear as if its been done by a typewriter or and old cheque format.
- There are two types of font, one being Serif which is formal and the other being San-serif which is more informal so this tells the audience that there is maybe two characters, one that is more formal and another which is less formal.
- Has quite a big Saul Bass influence on it, you can see this from the shapes and objects making up the scenes and that it is animated.
- Most of the titles attach there selves to objects and things within the animated scenes to hint and show that one of the characters which is Leonardo Dicaprio, disguises himself within his surroundings to help hide from the man chasing him.

Typography for Lord Of War:

- The titles are bold and masculine, and are all done in block capitals to add the effect that they are important.
- Sharp edged and medium sized but mostly all centred to show again their importance.
- The title of the film is separated so that Lord and War are not seen as the same thing it creates the effect that they are two different things.

Typography of Forest Gump:

- The typography in this title sequence is very conventional and classic.
- Serif shows that the titles are formal.
- White writing and white feather connotes it being peaceful and elegant.
- The text is all centre but because it is in white it does not draw to much attention, and it fades in and out very calmly.
- Old style text with the use of capital letters.

Audience Profiling Presentation

This is our audience profiling presentation explaining the types of people or audience which will want to watch our film in the cinema or other platforms, through the genre which is rom-com. On this presentation is also some more information about the conventions and our production logo and the steps we took to make it.

   

Media audience profiling from shiyanil

Starting of the story board

In this lesson we started to plan and draw out some possible storyboards for our title sequence, first we started drawing some ideas on some scrap paper, the first idea the group was able to come up with was filming the dress of a bride tracking forward down an isle as she is getting married the isle would then fade into a railway track so that it shows the bride walking across the tracks. This would be an interesting way of doing it but is quite complicated and time consuming, also however it did not quite hold the conventions of a rom-com as it was a little to serious, also we discussed this idea with other members of the class and they also said that maybe it did not follow the conventions.

The next idea we came up with for this lesson was filming the women or bride getting ready for her wedding day using a vanity table and all the makeup for all different kinds of shots for example close ups of her applying lipstick or mascara also there would be some basic shots of her doing her hair. The lipstick would be dark red which would help give suggestions and hints to the audience without us giving to much away, through the connotation of red which suggests sex appeal and love. The camera would then pan round towards the table showing the train tickets which gives the title sequence a train reference but not obvious. There will also be other shots such as a tie wrapped around the bed post, and pictures of happy couple placed faced down all suggesting she is having an affair with someone who she is not marrying there will also be a close up of her finger where there should be a an engagement ring where it will pan to the ring on the table.

The last idea we spoke about which was using a old camera, or a polaroid camera and taking pictures of the man and women and putting them in a scrap book or floating them onto a black background putting the titles below them. This seemed a little to basic and easy so we spoke about it and agreed that it was no the best idea to go with this one.

After discussing all three we decide to try and draw out our second idea and these are our first draft for the sequence and storyboard but not our final idea as not all the group were decided on it.

Codes and conventions of a Rom-com (romantic comedy)

There are codes and conventions for all types of genres for title sequences and you can see this through watching lots of different title sequences  it gives you an idea of the codes and convention which you should follow for each genre. Although it is smart to follow the codes and conventions you don't have to stick to every one of them as it may be difficult to include every single bit, because of the story of our film.


This is the code and convention for a Rom-com or romantic comedy:

RomCom brainstorm from shiyanil

Of these conventions we will only be using some of them and not all as we do not believe some will be beneficial to our piece of work.

Production Company

Production Logo/Company  

When creating out title sequence we realised we needed a production company of our own, for the title sequence we came up with lots of idea such as "xoxo productions", "Romline films" but there was only one that really stood out for us as we felt it matched the type and genre of the title sequence that we are creating, it is called Romway Films and from this we started to create logos for our chosen production company this was quite a long process as the group had a little trouble deciding on the 1st design we chose which was this:

The group together described it as simple and lets the audience know what the film or title sequence will be about, i disagreed and thought that it was a little to basic and had no colour, so from this I thought it was a little dull so I asked Laxmi who is currently doing Graphic Design as an A-level to create a new logo for our production company. A logo which would create a desired affect for the audience.

Journal entry- 24/01/2014: The Changing Of The Genre

In this lesson me, Hayley and Laxmi decided to change the genre of our film from Romance to a Rom-com film we did this as we thought it would be easier to film a title sequence for a rom-com compared to filming a title sequence for a romance film. Also the film idea we have could be better suited to a rom-com as in our film the main characters are shown to be quite geeky so we could show a clumsy side of this in the title sequence.

Plot of our story now:
The film is called Train Affairs, the plot of this story is about a male and female city office workers, who encounter each over on the way to work on a bust train to Charing Cross Station. At this point they have not met or spoke but can see one another, and feel a strong attraction towards each over, which is portrayed through voice overs of both the man and the women's thoughts. After getting the same train for a few mornings they eventually end up seated next to each over where the male character finally plucks up some courage to ask our female character out on a date. When the female character says yes the male character does not show up for this date so the female is left feeling disappointed and angry that the man did not show up for their date however the twist in the plot is that the man actually had a tragic accident which meant he could not make their date and the accident left him with some memory loss, so the man was unable to remember the women. As the years past by the man started to regain parts of his memory and eventually remembers something massive, which happened to be the girl he fell in love with on the train. The man has a thought that maybe he could find this amazing women in the same place he met her years ago, so he takes the chance and ends up finding her on the same train, same carriage as she was all those years ago. He feels he needs to talk to her and apologise to her for not making the date. He goes over and she looks angry but also shocked to see the man, he explains what happens to which she forgives him and has some understanding and sympathy towards him. The problem is that the woman is now grown up and is getting married to another man, but their love for each over is still their so they arrange to meet and have a TRAIN AFFAIR.



Also in this lesson we created a big brainstorm of our film idea and title sequence to show all the things we will need and how we want the overall title sequence to pan out.

Karin Fong Group Presentation

This is our slideshare presentation on Karin Fong this explains all about Karin Fong and what she does within the title sequence industry and how she differs to other title sequence creators, she was our chosen person as she uses alot of animation within her title sequence i like this as it gives us a good understanding of the film before it even starts.

 

karin fong(Aaron,Hayley and Laxmi) from shiyanil

Saul Bass's title sequence, Oceans 11-analysis

This title sequence starts by showing us the production company which is "Warner Bros. Pictures" which is probably one of the most biggest production company's even in the 1960's. This then turns into a black screen from where lots of yellow digital dots appear which then flashes and moves until it forms a big 1 which takes up most of the screen while this is happening the music being played is like a thinking/computing theme tune and then when the 1 is fully formed there is a sound which is celebratory, the digital dots on the screen then turn purple and start to takeover the 1 and turn into a 2 while the music is being played again, when it is formed it does the same noise and changes to a different colour which is blue. From this point the audience can tell that it is counting up to a number which is probably 11 if the audience know the title of the film.

However next to the number 3 is the first title of the sequence which happens to be the lead actor which is Frank Sinatra one of the most famous faces of them times as he was also an amazing singer. The digital dots continue to change colour and count up however when a title appears next to one of the numbers which is one of the actors a different sound is played after the number which represents that character, I believe this is done purposely by Saul Bass to try and give the audience a little hint about the characters in the film or maybe just about that person in real life.

The numbers continue to go all the way up with titles until it reaches number 11 where the title of the film kicks in as number 11 is in the title. Then some happy upbeat jazz music kicks in and the digital dots start to create different shapes against the black background in like a maze shape and in the middle of this maze some other cast members appear in a list, I think that maybe this could be another hint to the audience about the storyline. Then some interlinking circles are made up using the digital dots and in the holes there is some more cast members shown. After this there is some more maze type shapes made by the dots, this is where Saul Bass has put his own stamp on it with all the shapes giving the audience hints at the storyline of the film they are going to watch yet again.

This carry's on but starts to show other people other than the actors and cast such as the screenplay people, director of art and film editor and lots more. We are then shown two cards a king and a queen this tells me that the film could have some sort of trick in it and then a slot machine appears which gives us another hint that a casino could be in the film, so again lots more hints left by Saul Bass for the audience to see but is done very discretely.

Then we see another big shape made by the digital dots which then disappears and more dots come across the bottom to create a flat surface which a pair of dice role along which means that i then no for sure that a casino has something to do with it. Then finally on the dice after they are put back out with no dots on the directors name appears and they are then dragged off a table from which the film then fades in.

I enjoyed watching this title sequence I think it was well thought out and ran really smoothly, I believe the animation was simple but yet quite effective in the message hints it was trying to get across, so in my opinion it did the job that it was meant to and has lots of Saul Bass elements in which would let me know it was Saul Bass's work if I didn't already know it was his.