Screen shots of timeline

This screen shot shows the first scene of my opening sequence which was also the first scene I captured.

In this next screen shot I have added a few more scenes and all the sound is still there.

I have added more scenes here and also cut out some of the sound.

In this next screen shot It shows that there have been many more scenes added and all the sound that isn't needed has gone.

I then added the titles.

And this is the completed version after I added in the chosen music.

Shot List

Medium close up - girl talking on the phone
Mid shot – girl walks into frame and sits down
Close up – hands typing
Tilt
Close up – hands typing
Mid shot – used in flashback of the girl reading then receiving the text
Close up – used in the flashback to show the text message on the phone clearly
Close up – hands typing
Wide shot – packing things into bag – shows surroundings
Zoom – during flashback, closer to the girls face for next shot
Reaction Shot – also during flashback, reaction when a threatening text is read
Pan – walking down the stairs
Pan – walking out of the school doors
Medium close up – flashback in toilets, phone call
Medium close up – taking off hat and walking out of shot
Following shot – walking across the bridge
Zoom – crossing road
Extreme close up – used in flashback, text message
Medium close up
Wide shot – from behind subject
Wide shot – in front of subject
Reaction shot
Close up – of the clock to show she doesn’t have much time left

Final Opening Sequence Story Board

Script

My script is very short, there is not much dialogue as there is only one main character and the only dialogue is when she is on the phone.

Script

(On the phone) girl at school: “Mum I’m staying late at school tonight, to catch up on some work.” (Pause for 3 seconds) “I will walk back when I’ve finished, I’ll be fine its not far.” (Pause again for 2 seconds) “Ok, see you soon bye.”

(Flashback, also on the phone) girl: “Who is this?” (Pause for 5 seconds) “This isn’t funny, stop ringing me!”

Final Pitch (Opening Sequence)

My third and final pitch is similar to pitch 2 but I have changed the location and the events that take place. The beginning is going to be the same but the person following her will not enter the school but will follow her as she walks home. I want it to be obvious that she is being watched. When she leaves the school it will be late and dark. This makes us suspect that something is going to happen because of the tense atmosphere. At the beginning when she talks to her mum on the phone, her mum will be worrying and she will say something along the lines of ‘don’t worry I will be fine’. This creates irony, as we know she will not be fine because of the events that lead up to it, foreshadowing the future events. The title for this opening would be ‘The Unexpected’. I think this title fits well as an unexpected event happens on an ordinary school day. I want to end the filming with the unknown character slowly approaching the young girl. This will leave the audience wanting to know what happens next. At the end I want to show flashbacks. The girl had been receiving threatening texts and phone calls, the texts will also say that she has done something to provoke who ever it could be and that she wont be the only one to suffer for it. I will show that these are memories by showing them in black and white and also adjusting the sounds to make them sound more distant. The texts were not taken seriously and this was a big mistake. 

Pitch Two

My second idea is very different but I still want a scary atmosphere to be created. I want to show the girl on the phone to her mum explaining why she is staying late at school, because she needs to catch up with work.  I want to get a close up shot of her hands on the keyboards and then of the clock to show how long she has been there for.  I will then skip to another scene of a hooded person walking up the stairs. I want to create a tense atmosphere and I will do this by choosing the right camera angles and the right music. I want to make most of the scenes pretty dark to show the character of the girl’s vulnerability and to show that the other mysterious character is dangerous. I want to do a long shot of both the characters as the hooded character walks up behind her. I want the scenes with the hooded character to be slower than the rest, to show that he is in no rush as there is nowhere for the school girl to go. 

Pitch One

My first idea for the opening sequence of a film was set in the future. 2012 June 14^th. We’ve all heard the rumours about the world ending and in my film it will, but someone has survived although they are not sure where they are or what happened. They keep getting random flashbacks of a classroom and some ones face looking over them. I want to show these flashbacks in black and white to make it clear that they are just memories. Towards the end, there will be a big realisation for the character and they will realise they are not alone as well as remember what happened. I want most of the scenes to be set in the school, but after school hours so nobody is around. And I want the flashback scenes to be filmed elsewhere. The first scenes will be of a news report about what is happening and the situation, this will fill the audience in on what is going on. 

Preliminary Task

Evaluation of the opening scenes of ‘Matilda’

The opening of ‘Matilda’ starts with the opening credits on bright backgrounds that change from yellow to green to orange, the text is in a childish font and it gives the impression that it could have been written by a young child. The credits change quickly and go to the main title of the film ‘Matilda’.

The scene quickly changes to a close up of the babies eyes. As the camera zooms out the voice over starts and we can see that the baby we are looking at is a baby girl in a hospital cot. This is an example of non-diegetic sound in the opening of this film. The voiceover is used to introduce the characters aswell as give us an idea as to how the stories going to carry out. As we listen to the voiceover we learn more about the story line, which we can see is the life of this baby. Before the voice over starts the music is calm and slow.

We get a good understanding of what this film is going to be about when we see the nurse show the baby to her dad through the window. The reaction the character of her father shows us is not what we expected to see. The camera angle at this point is important because it shows us all three characters and we can see their reactions.

We get a good idea of the story and life of the characters when the voiceover says “for better or for worse”, as this is said, the camera angle changes from the baby, Matilda, to her father. The voiceover then stops and the parents are shown talking about Matilda. They are walking towards the camera as the camera moves backwards away from them.

Once they are in the car we see a close up of a foot hitting the brakes and then a bird’s eye view of the car, skidding around a corner in the car park, we are shown this so that we know the character is careless and impatient. We can see this from the way he is driving.

Evaluation of Juno opening remake

In our group we decided on the film ‘Juno’ to remake the opening scenes as a practise piece. We tried to match our surroundings to the film as best as we could but we had to work with what we had a lot of the time, therefore we had to make a few changes according to what was possible to film and what wasn’t.


To act out the parts of Juno we made sure that I had all the same props and was dressed the same to make it as identical to the original thing as possible. Most of the scenes were quite easy to film but it was hard to find places suitable to film. We managed to get most of the important scenes done but a few were missing. We improvised with the missing parts by using some of the same shots twice but zooming in so it looks completely different.
Before we started filming, we make a timeline of every shot and everything that happens in that shot so that we knew what we were doing and how long every shot had to be. We also made a storyboard to take around with us when we were filming so that we could draw sketches and label them to make what we had to do clearer. We also watched the original opening scenes many times before hand. We had a few ideas of how we were going to film certain parts but we had to improvise a lot a think of ways to make it more effective whilst we were filming. The timeline and our planning helped us a lot.


We filmed the whole thing over two days. This caused us a few problems because the weather was different and you could see the difference when comparing the shots taken on either day. However, it would have to do as we had a limited time to do it in. When we were editing, we managed to make this change in weather less obvious by changing the brightness of the scenes.


When we were editing the scenes we found that we could match it to the timing of the original video quite well as when we were filming we had got most of the timing right. However, because we had a few scenes missing, this affected the timing a great deal. Although, we did make up for this by changing the scenes to make them look different and the using the same ones twice.


We found it quite difficult to make the text look the same when adding in the credits as in the original film, the writing changes colour and is in a very original font. We made the text look as close to the actual thing as possible by having the same text but in different colours appear one after the other to make it look like it was changing colour. It was hard to make sure the text was in the same place as the one before so sometimes the text looked as though it was moving but we thought this added to the effect and made it better.


On the rare occasion that we had a scene that was not timed correctly, we fixed this in the editing by speeding up or slowing down the scene to make it fit. We also corrected the camera zoom by zooming in when editing where appropriate.


Overall I thought the planning, filming and editing of our remake of ‘Juno’ went well, as we were able to fix any major problems with our scenes in the editing and make the less important mistakes less obvious. If I were to do it all over again, I would have taken more time to film it, to make sure the weather was the same and all the shots looked as good as possible, but as this was just a practise piece, I thought we did well, working as a group and getting the task completed.

Juno Remake Final

Analysis of the opening scenes of The Little Vampire

The opening scenes of ‘The Little Vampire’ start of in the characters dream. At first we do not know it is a dream as there are no clues to tell us that this is not actually happening in the movie. It only becomes obvious that we are seeing inside the dream when we are shown the character Tony in his bed watching the scenes we are being shown happening, he then wakes up and we know he was having a nightmare.

In the beginning scenes of the dream are dark and at times confusing to watch because the edits change so quickly and there is a lot of movement. This is done to show the confusion and fear of the dreamer. The mood and atmosphere change straight away as soon as we are out of the dream and everything changes and we see a normal family and child who has bad dreams, immediately giving us the impression that the dream was just a product of a child’s imagination but the dream is also foreshadowing future events. This is shown by bringing certain effects from the dream into the bedroom. We hear the wind and the thunder and also see the lightening. This reminds us of the atmosphere in the dream.

We learn more about the families situation and also that the dream was not a one off in the next scenes. We learn this from the dialogue between the characters. There are a lot of wide shots at the very beginning so that we can take in the whole scene and goings on of the dream. The music starts of slow and mysterious but as the dream goes on it gets louder and more urgent to exaggerate the urgency of the situation. As soon as the dream is over the music gets a lot softer to give us the sense that the danger has gone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEY_gHG-_Pk

Story Boards - Remake Juno Planning

Film opening analysis - Madeline

Detailed Analysis of Film Openings Madeline


The opening scenes of the film ‘Madeline’ start off as an animation, this particular type of animation looks like someone has drawn the scenes, the images are drawn the way a child would see them, telling the audience immediately that this is a film which would appeal to children.


In the first scene we immediately know where the film is set, in Paris, the first image scene is that of the Eiffel Tower. Our second clue as to where they are is in the next scene, where the French flag is shown. Transitions are used at the very beginning of the film when the scenes change, the particular transition used makes us imagine the pages of a book being turned, and a story being told.


The music being played is very upbeat and relaxing, this is an example of the non-diegetic sound in the film. We also hear a lot of sound effects and synchronous sound. We hear footsteps as the girls are walking, cars beeping and a dog barking. We also hear the sound of water rushing whilst the image of the fountain is shown. A good example synchronous sound in the opening scenes of Madeline, is when the gates open and we hear a squeaky creaking noise as they open. Even when the scenes change and the transitions are shown, we hear the noise that could be associated with a page being turned in a book.


In the fourth scene we see the animated image turn into a real scene of the house. In this particular scene we see, the gates to the house, the grounds surrounding the huge house, the children walking down the path and we can also see the Eiffel Tower in the background, reminding us again of their location.


The scene then changes to a medium long shot of the girls walking from the house down the path. It is shot from behind and focuses on the empty space where Madeline should be standing. We then hear Madeline’s name being called and see the other characters reaction as they turn around to face the camera. The scene then switches to a big close-up of Madeline’s feet and also the hat that she is looking for. This shot is taken from under the bed and there is a tilt upwards, as Madeline looks under the bed, to show the characters reaction better.


In the scenes after this, the voice over starts. The voice over is used to introduce the audience to the characters and their lifestyle. Everything the voice over says rhymes, showing another way in which this film appeals to children. There is also dialogue between characters, which shows us more of that particular characters personality already.
The opening credits come up often during these scenes but becoming less often as the scenes continue. The title of the film is shown is the biggest font and appears in the middle of the frame in a colour that will stand out. This title is not shown right at the beginning but as the animation turns into a real scene.

Trainspotting Mood Board

Every Picture Tells A Story

For this task we were sent off with a camera to experiment with different camera angles and come up with six images that told a short but clear story.

CityScape Practice Piece

CityScape Editing Sequence Evaluation

In this editing sequence different shots of London were used to make up the video. I broke up the scenes using the razor tool and moving them around, making the clips more interesting and putting them into, what I thought was a better order. Some parts of the video I sped up by changing the speed/duration of that particular clip. I felt certain parts had to be either sped up or cut as they were too long or showed too much of the same scenes, I changed them so that the video wasn’t repetitive or dragging on. I also slowed certain parts down, so that they almost look like they’re in slow motion. I also did this by changing the speed/duration of the clip.
My edited ‘CityScape’ video is approximately 30 seconds long, which I think is long enough to get many scenes of London included. Some of the clips I chose to use, showed the scene from different angles. In these scenes I chose to split it up where it changed the angle, again using the razor tool. I broke up these scenes so that it wasn’t the same thing being shown all at once and it made it look like there was more to see.

Transitions

I used quite a few transitions between the different scenes. These include; Cross Dissolve, Centre Split, Wipe and Cube Spin. I think the Cross Dissolve was the most effective transition that I used because it slowly fades into the next scene, making it clear that we are being shown another part of London. I also thought that the Cube Spin was good and I chose to use it between two different scenes of two different crowds. I did this to make it clear that this was a new scene.

Music

The piece of music that I chose to use is called ‘Modern Jazz Samba’. The main reason I used this is because I think it ties the different scenes in together well. I also think it goes with it well because it is quite upbeat and relaxing at the same time. I slowed down the music slightly and made the duration longer so that it would fit in better with the pace of the video.
I chose to add a title in at the beginning of the video.

Title

I named the video ‘CityScape’ and chose a font and colour that could clearly be seen over the background of the video going on behind it. The font is quite large and in the top middle of the frame so that it easily catches your eye but doesn’t draw your whole attention away from the video which is already playing. I put the title over the video instead of showing it before the video had started playing because I thought it was important that the title wasn’t made to be more important than the actual scenes of London City.

How I Would Improve The Video

If I was to re-do this task I would make the music slightly longer so that it carried on a little after the video had finished, as I think this would make the whole video seem more effective overall and at the moment I think the music ends very abruptly. I would also make the scene of ‘Commuter shot of feet’ shorter as I think it goes on for a little bit too long.

Katie Media