Title Task

For This task we had to analyse film opening title sequences on Art of the Title and talk about the length of the titles for the production cast, actors and directors on screen. for this task I am using the opening for Captain America; Civil War.
 
Captain America: Civil War - Main Titles from Michael Burke on Vimeo.

All of the titles have the same font and style, they are a shiny silver font which is on top of a dark cracked concrete backdrop.

From 00:00 to 00:03 the directors of the film are on screen.

 

From 00:04 to 00:06 the screenplay writers of the film are shown.

From 00:07 to 00:09 the producer is displayed on screen

From 00:10 to 00:17 the executive producers is on screen displayed over 3 frames

From 00:18 to 00:20 the makers of the Captain America comics are shown

From 00:21 to 00:23 the co-producer is displayed on screen

From 00:24 to 00:26 the associate producer is shown followed by a tracking motion of the camera compared to the normal jump cut.

From 00:27 to 00:29 the director of photography is on screen

From 00:30 to 00:32 the production designer is shown

From 00:33 to 00:35 the editors are shown on screen

From 00:36 to 00:38 the costume designer is displayed

From 00:39 to 00:41 the visual effects supervisor is shown on screen.

From 00:42 to 00:44 the visual effects producer is displayed

From 00:45 to 00:47 the music editor is shown on screen

From 00:47 to 00:49 the music supervisor is displayed.

From 00:49 to 00:52 the Casting crew is shown

From 00:52 to 01:40 all the actors are shown (few examples)

From 01:41 to 01:44 the Production company is on screen

The main title is then shown on screen from 01:44 to 01:49

From this film opening I have learnt that a opening sequence doesn't need to be titles that are on top of live action footage but can be fully edited. This opening sequence is good as that font stands out well from the back ground the spacing between each titles is just enough so that you can read and so that you don't get bored staring at it. But it is very uncommon that a film opening sequence has the film title at the end. 



Inspirational Films

DeadPool was one of the inspirations for our film because it mixed amazing action scenes, that ended both negatively and positively for the main protagonist, thus creating the anti-hero which was a specific aspect that me and my group loved about this movie. Essentially a hyper action film driven by the sarcasm and humor of Ryan Reynolds. Much of which can also be heard in many other Ryan Reynolds movies. Including his early teen geared films and especially Blade Trinity, No one does witty, ribald sarcasm better than Ryan Reynolds.


In DeadPool, he portrays a grossly disfigured anti-hero from the Marvel Universe. One capable of regenerating body parts and healing instantly from any external damage. A character bent on very singular revenge as well. The violence seen in this film makes every other Marvel film seem like a romp in the park. DeadPool is very different from all the others in the Marvel line-up.  Something you will not ever find at Xavier's School for Gifted Children. Moreover, DeadPool is definitely not an X-man. Yet apparently certain of the X-men want to recruit him.

The popular game that is Halo was created into a film in 2012, it received terrible reviews and was a downright overall failure. The basic plot is this: In 2525, as mankind has begun to colonise space, a group of cadets are training to fight against human insurrectionists. One of these cadets, Thomas Lasky, has doubts about his abilities as a soldier and his convictions for this war. Whilst he struggles with himself, the planet is invaded by an unknown alien race. Reeling under the assault, Lasky and his squad mates are rescued by John-117, one of the UNSC's legendary SPARTAN-II super-soldiers. John must inspire Lasky to fulfill his potential as a soldier and a leader to fight against an enemy deadlier than any that humanity has faced before. The specific inspiration we got from this film was the way they presented the weapons because we thought they were really cool and suited our ideas exceedingly well.

conventions of action/thriller genre

Deadpool is a good example of a action film that has elements of comedy. Deadpool's opening even has comedic elements as the titles are not opening titles are not done seriously they are done so that they don't include the names of the actual people who worked on the film but instead insults or over-exaggerates qualities about them. Deadpool's opening scene is an ideal example of a gore heavy opening that has been neutralised by the comedic effects.
Hot fuzz is another action comedy film that is similar to Deadpool but less gore. Hot fuzz has more comedic aims than Deadpool as it uses action camera angles to enhance the light-hearted scenes. As the opening continues the scenes become slightly more action packed and include more gore.

No Country for Old Men is a purely action film and the opening portrays this. It is a very bland and stale opening that shows just a barren wasteland with who we can assume is the main protagonist. The opening scene shows us its action by making it tense as the man speaking is doing so very monotonous which makes the scene tense and can make the audience worry for whats to happen.

The Road is a thriller/action film that has sci-fi elements. The film opens with a nice flashback scene from the past before the fallout. When it suddenly switches to the fallout world we are shown the man and his dad trying to survive walking along a road after waking in a cave, this helps convey the thriller/action genre as it adds and eeriness to the scene making the audience worry.

In conclusion these film opening will help us build are opening scene for our film as they all include elements that we wish to include, for example heavy action from Deadpool, the lonely walking of The Road.

Music Research

For our film opening task we decided that we would like to include music in our final piece and make it a key part of the opening sequence. Therefore there was a lot of importance in choosing the right piece of music to use and took hours of research. We sat down over three days and simply listened to all sorts of different music tracks. We cannot use Copyrighted music due to the rules of our exam board (OCR). Therefore we had to look through Royalty Free Music and music that was over 50 years old as these songs are not copyrighted.

After looking through Royalty Free Music we found a large amount of them sounded very cheap or poorly instrumented (yet still impressive for a 'one-man band') and they simply did not suit the music style we had in mind. Therefore we began listening to music over 50 years old and found to our surprise that a lot of popular and great music is of the previous generation. We came to a conclusion of three songs that we felt would suit our action-comedy genre/film idea. These were the three songs that we felt were good.

The Rolling Stones - Paint it Black


The Animals -  House of the Rising Sun


The Monkees - Daydream Believer


After listening to the beat of the songs and to how we felt they would contrast or match with what was going on onscreen we decided that the Monkees - Daydream Believer was the song we were going to use as it suited the ironic comedic element of our film opening, the happy music contrasted to the killing that ensued on screen, much like in the Deadpool [film] opening.

Deadpool Film Opening Credits


We felt that 'Paint it Black' had been overused by the existing media and despite it having a good rhythm to it and sounding like a good match, we decided not to go with it. As for 'House of the Rising Sun', the overall feel of the song was great but the beat of the song seemed like it would be hard to match with what was happening on screen. Therefore we decided that 'Daydream Believer' was the best song to use. We tracked the scenes to certain points in the song and felt they matched perfectly.

Shooting Schedule

For our Film Opening Task we had to create a Shooting Schedule so we could organise the date, time and location of which we would be shooting the film opening. We also had to list the props, costume, sets, cast and credits we would be using. As well as this we gave a brief outline of timings throughout the day so we had a schedule of when we could shoot specific scenes, when to take breaks and when to check footage etc.


Link: Shooting Schedule  <---- Link to Shooting Schedule document


Overall, having a shooting schedule makes filming much easier as it outlines all of the props we need, and is a basis for timings and dates, it can also be handed out to the cast and crew so everyone has the same information

Costume Research

For our film opening we had to research costumes for our characters to wear, we did this so that we could get a better idea for the specific items of clothing that all of the characters will be wearing. Having a page of costume research helps the actor and producers get innovative ideas for costumes and how to make them look better whilst allowing them to picture the scene better.   

Costume Research  <---- Link to Costume Research document.

Overall having a document of costume research helps solidify final costumes and also helps to create a clear images of all the scenes that will be recorded.

Outlaw Video Storyboard Evaluation

For our storyboard we drew and wrote down what scenes we would need to record we at the location of filming. After recording these scenes we decided as a group to re-record the scenes in a different way. We did this by changing the plot. This was done by removing all the excess characters like enemy 1 or 2 for example. We did this because we felt like with all the fighting scenes it would take away form the final fight and make it less appealing to watch. it would of also made fitting the in the titles difficult as the scenes were shot or would only stay on one camera angle for a few seconds making the titles hard to read.
So we scrapped the old story plot and made a new one that would take less time to record, require less people and the final fight would be more satisfying to watch as the build up doesn't have constants fighting which ruins the final fight as the audience is then used to the fights taking place.
It would take less time to record as we didn't need other actors, so we didn't need to choreograph the fights which meant we saved a lot of time and that we could successfully over-record so that we would have plenty of scenes to choose from so that we can have different angles for each shot which can help create a more intense effect to the film opening.

In conclusion we decided to scrap the old story plot and make a new one as it allowed us to make a better quality film opening that would take less time to record, so that we could over record and give us opportunities to make better scenes due to the wide range of camera angles.   

Outlaw Video Stroyboard

This is a video representation of our storyboard which we used to plan making our film opening.
We used a storyboard to help plan out the scenes we will be filming so that we don't end up recording wrong scenes which have no relevance.

Film Opening Storyboard

Opening scene presentation Evaluation

We also received feedback from our classmates who commented on the theme, genre, narrative, target audience, institution and whether they would pay to see the movie and any other comments they have on the idea.


Some of the comments we received:

'The idea is really ambitious and sounds very exciting. Credit to them if all of the effects on after effects work out. Sometimes super ambitious projects can be a let down. I have confidence in you if you're willing to put in the time for the special effects."

"Keep in mind the idea of props and special effects i.e. fire/gunshots etc."

"This film takes influence from Deadpool with the anti-hero and a comedy-action genre throughout so I like the idea and would see it, it certainly sounds interesting."

"The target audience suits the film well as the action and comedy appeals to a teenage audience."

"The film sounds intriguing, I would definitely watch this film."

Overall, our presentation seemed popular amongst our peers, we received no negative comments and everyone showed clear interest in our project and our ideas for the film opening. We have learnt that they like the editing style and our ambitions for the project so we intend to keep the use of special effects and want to continue experimenting with Adobe After Effects so we can achieve a high standard, professional-looking film opening.

Opening scene presentation

We had to display our Opening Scene Ideas on an online presentation software and present it to our classmates and explain our main idea for the film opening to them. We also explained what props we would use and how we would edit fight scenes and edit the scenes in post production to get a realistic 'film-look' to our film opening. We also showed an example of the special effects that we would use (below in Prezi) which I made when learning how to use Adobe After Effects and whilst experimenting with the different effects achievable.

We also asked our peers which name they think the film should be called, we asked them to write down their favourite name idea based from a list presented (below) and we came to the conclusion that 'Outlaw' was the most popular name voted for by the class. Therefore our film will be called 'Outlaw'.

Something that was not outlined in the presentation was how we were to present the titles of the film, we intend to slow down shots and 'engrave' or embed the credits onto walls and into knives so that they become a part of the scene.

Prelim Task Evaluation

Final video of Prelim task.

Evaluation:

Overall I feel like the finished piece was a success. The footage capture is long enough to keep the viewer watching, it also has interesting visual and a good storyline which makes the audience want to watch.

If it was to be done again, I would write exact timings for the shots because some clips had to be slowed down so that they matched the voiceover.  

The camera recorded in 720p so that could be upgraded, and sound was an issue, after each shot there was a click of the camera closing.

Prelim Task

For the Prelim task we were put into groups with a genre that was picked form a hat. I was put into a group with Jess and Phoebe and we got the genre of Documentary.
At first we thought it was going to be difficult but after some thought and research we decided to do the documentary instead of asking to change because we had an idea about doing a documentary on serial killer because this allowed us to add other genre aspects into the documentary.
We did some research on female serial killers as we decided we should make a documentary on a female serial killer instead of male as male seems to be the norm for documentary's. We decided on Leonarda Ciancuilli - The Soap maker of Correggio.
Source
http://www.the-line-up.com/9-female-serial-killers/

This website shows the stories of female serial killers. Leonarda was an Italian female serial killer who murdered 3 women between the years 1939 to 1940. Once she killed she killed the victims she boiled the bodies down to soap and made the blood into cakes which she fed to our neighbours.
This interested us because it was different from the usual serial killer stories.

We made storyboards so that when filming we didn't lose track of what we were meant to be doing and then start making scenes up on the spot. We also made a production diary so we could keep track of what we have and haven't filmed 

Juno Opening Scene

For this task we had to recreate the opening scene of Juno.

We chose the best locations which were the most similar to the locations from the original clip and filmed our actor walking in the same style as the film opening. The original opening was edited in a way that it looks like she is walking in a cartoon world, So we attempted to recreate this effect in Adobe Premiere by changing colours and making certain colours stronger or lighter making outlines thicker so that the main character stands out.

We placed the original opening in the bottom-right corner of the screen so that we could see how close our version was to the original scene. 



Overall, this task taught us how to use some adobe premier is a different way to help us learn how to use it. It also taught us the importance of the mise en scene, editing and post-production.

Juno Storyboard

For this task we were told to study the opening scene of Juno and were put into groups to remake the scene.  

First we had to plan how we would do the filming of our Juno opening, so we analysed the opening scene and created a storyboard.
On the storyboard we included a step by step analysis of the opening scene. we included camera shots, effects and sounds included. 



If I wanted to improve the storyboard, I would of added timings for every shot as we had to slow down shots as they were to quick.

Student FIlm Opening and Mark Scheme

 

Level 1 0–23 marks The work for the main task is possibly incomplete. There is minimal evidence in the work of the creative use of any relevant technical skills such as:

• • Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task;
• • using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;
• • using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;
• • shooting material appropriate to the task set; including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;
• • using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.
•  

Level 2 24–35 marks There is evidence of a basic level of ability in the creative use of some of the following technical skills:

• • Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task;
• • using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;
• • using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;
• • shooting material appropriate to the task set;, including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;
• • using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.

 

Level 3 36–47 marks There is evidence of proficiency in the creative use of many of the following technical skills:

• • Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task;
• • using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;
• • using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;
• • shooting material appropriate to the task set; including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;
• • using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.

 

Level 4 48–60 marksThere is evidence of excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:

• • material appropriate for the target audience and task;
• • using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;
• • using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;
• • shooting material appropriate to the task set;including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;
• • using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.

 We used this mark scheme in class to mark multiple student film openings. We looked at both good and not so good opening scenes. We also looked at the film opening that won the BFI from last year. 
 
This film opening was marked as level 4 with a rough average of 56 marks by the class. It actually got 57. It had unique shot and good editing when adding the titles. The titles where done in a way that they came into the environment which was very different to other film openings. The music that was used really solidified the opening scene as a action as it added lots of suspense.