Media Evaluation on Prezi

Media Evaluation on Prezi

Question 7

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

From the last project of the Preliminary task to this task of creating a full product we changed the way our group went about doing things because we already had the experience and went through the things that could go wrong, this time planning it better and making sure that we controlled what we were doing.

One of the main things that our group progressed in is actually getting down to film the shots that we needed and doing it fairly quickly. I think the reason we managed to get this done was because we planned extensively to guarantee getting the right shots, making sure to organize dates and times with the actors, booking out the camera and filming scenes through a few times to give us back-up shots in case something went wrong. We also produced it quicker because we all had experience with the camera and how to put together shots, basically just more knowledge of how to create a film.

Blogging/Research also helped us to be better prepared as we had a better idea of the type of thing we had to produce and a rough guide to what we were aiming our film to be like, by looking at existing film openings and analysing what was good about them gave us a better image of what audiences look for and interest them. It also made us see what shots and music go together well to get the best reaction from the audience which in the long run helped us a lot during filming. It was important for us to research other films so that our final product looks realistic and fits to our chosen genre, it was also important for us to understand what components make a film and how we could include and stick to what a real film opening looks like. All of the research helped us make the film but also helped us to manage our time and control how we wanted the actors to behave and be seen on screen.

One of the obvious things that I’ve learnt from the preliminary task to creating the project now is how to edit on Adobe Premier Pro, it was hard the first time round as most of our group had never used any sort of editing software before so we didn’t really know what we were doing but because we all had a go in the last task it gave us a better say in this film opening task because we all knew what we had to look for and how we could edit it to make the best version of the shots and sequences that we could. Now that we have completed the film opening I feel more confident with the software and understand how to make the material we film flow and play how we want it to look, right down to the smallest details.

Overall I think that the this second task has worked better because the group has worked better together, even though at times we each went off and did separate things when it came down to putting together the final cut we all had a say and made everything from planning and filming come together. I think that we’ve all gained different skills from the first task as we’ve all learnt what it means to make a film, we’re a lot more confident in getting the shots and directing the actors to do what we imagine the outcome to be, we’ve also gained skills in putting the film together as in the first task we made a few mistakes in not getting enough film to work with but having more shots gave us the chance to experiment and create exactly what we first planned out in our storyboards. I think the group was a lot happier the second time round bringing it all down to having the experience, skills and research to back up what your doing.

Question 6

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

During the project I have used a lot of different types of technology to create our final project, examples of these would be Adobe Premier Pro Suite, Adobe Photoshop, held hand video camera and Digital SLR Camera, all of which help me find new ways of presenting the project.

By using Adobe Premier Pro I’ve learned the tools I need to put together music and sound to create a final outcome. Using tools like the razor I could import and cut the shots we had to create scenes that would later be put together with the titles, I also used this tool to create a loop with a short piece of music that needed lengthening to fit with the scenes. It may have been easier just to find a longer piece music but we felt that using the music we liked was worth risking it sounding jumpy rather than using a version that didn’t fit aswell, however after a lot of attention and time making sure it flowed, right down to  each millisecond it ended up working very well with the film. After researching how title sequences appear in film openings I was able to create title stills with the appropriate credits that we needed, these were put slots wear time was supposed to pass between scenes, this is were I learnt about transitions and by using a cross dissolve going into and out of the credits it helped to create the illusion of time passing.

For the opening flash sequence of the company title we used a DSLR Camera to take pictures of the images I had drawn, importing these photographs onto Adobe Premier Pro allowed me to crop and cut the images down to appropriate amount of times to make the images flash into a sequence, overall creating a small anamatic presenting the name and logo of our “film company”. We also used this same technique of photographing drawing to create our anamatic of the film title and the very end of the opening; however we used a secondary programme to fill colour before putting it together on Adobe Premier Pro.

Adobe Photoshop was the programme that enabled me to fill in colour and also variate with colour on our line drawings of the final anamatic. Using simple tools such as the fill bucket to make block colour into the lines but some of the less structured images meant I had to use selective tools to fill in colour where it was needed. I also used a tool called Hue to quickly change to colouring of the images and saving each one for a range of colours. This meant when I imported them into Adobe Premier Pro I could make a sequence pattern with the colours and repeat it so we could lengthen the time of the title (doing this meant we had the reverse the middle sequence to make it seem as though it goes back on itself to loop round to the final still). This software made it easier to show the story of the anamatic because if it didn’t exist we would have had to draw out lots of the pictures over and over again colouring them all which would have been a very long drawn out process.

Overall I feel that all this technology makes it simpler and easier to create and tell a story, each type of software makes it easier for the creator to have as much creative design and influence as possible, from the basic shots to creating whatever it is they want. From having previous experience with all these technologies also helped because I have used a digital camera in Photography and Photoshop in both Graphics and Photography, making it easier for me to show the story in my head and put it on screen.

Question 5

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

The audience of our film would be young women and couples aged 13 -25 so when thinking about how to film our product and what to put in we made sure to try and find elements of normal life and make the relatable to this age of audience.

The settings and costumes were kept very simple and normal to give the audience a cushion of normality and a picture of a happy idyllic lifestyle. Using an everyday affordable house and car and making the couple go to regular dates and hang-outs such as the park promotes an image that you don’t have to be rich and perfect to have the “ideal life” of love and happiness that most romcoms promote. The actors were dressed in regular teenage clothing which helped address the audience and make them see themselves within the characters, it also kept them looking the part and showing the youth in a positive way, it also shows them being interested in fashion which for a lot of women is a relatable factor that they can link themselves with which is why for each scene we considered different outfits for each occasion, hoodies, leggings and Ugg boots for casual scenes and even for the wedding scene we showed a flower patterned wedding dress instead of a traditional white one keeping the youth shown and again showing an interest in fashion.

Other ways in which we tried to address our audience was to create situations that they are familiar with such as simple dates, meeting up with friends, having relationships and then future events that may attract the audience into wanting such as moving in with someone, getting married and having a baby. All of these factors helped us connect the audience with the characters and by keeping it simple the actors are able to give a believable performance. Throughout the scenes the actors appear to mature which attracts the slightly older audience and also appear to have a closer relationship which strongly links with couples of all ages.

The titles and music was done to directly attract the attention of the audience, the decorative font for the credit titles is quite girly and romantic which was done to address the younger ages in the audience and also to project the youth of the characters. As far as the music goes it was picked by our group to target the emotional high and low points of the characters performance to help address the audiences emotions directly.

Overall I think all elements of films are there to address the audience because they wouldn’t be the target audience if their expectations, likes and dislikes weren’t taken into consideration. All of which we tried to do looking at mise-en-scene, performance, sound and even the way the editing was cut to create shots that emphasise the scene.

Question 4

4. Who would be the audience of your media product?

When we chose the genre Romantic Comedy we researched and found out that the main audience that romcoms are viewed by is couples and women this is when we decided to base the storyline around a young couple going through stages of their lives, this way it would appeal to a range of age groups.

 Romcoms typically are about love and the common arguments and incidents that happen during a normal relationship, this is why it gives a comic effect as the audience has something they can relate to. Ideology shows us that love, flowers, marriage, babies the “ideal life” is what women want out of their lives which is why movies aimed at that sort of audience normally conclude with happy ending and situation that the audience can relate too and also aspire to have. I think if you only looked at the “target audience” with mainstream ideology in mind then most of the couples would be there for different reasons, the women for the romantic happy ever after of the plot and the men there for the irony and comic factor of how similar some of the situations are to their own relationships.

There are certain things that the audience expect when going to see a romcoms and all of these qualities are what help narrow down who the audience is, for example the main characters are normally the “perfect” guy or girl with the other being a lot more down to earth and normal giving the audience a very relatable character in the everyday settings that we live in ourselves. This being the expectation means that the audience would vary in ages from about 14-30 and is most likely to appeal to women because the “ideal life” of being in love, happy, secure, have a family is stereotypically linked to women.

As most film studio companies are American the nationality that is most likely to be the audience is American and British citizens, this is because the two countries are closely linked in the film industry and also obviously because they both speak English and would be no need to dub the actors into a different language. Other reasons for it being targeted to these audiences is that they normally use main stream ideology in Romcoms for example a white, straight, couple, normally married in a church, starting a family after wedlock these are just a few example of what the film industries see the main audience being attracted too and expect to see.

From looking at the expectations and other audiences for different romcoms I would say that our media products audience would be young single women, men and couples aged 14 -25 because it’s all about the prospect of what might be and what they can aspire to have. It’s also because they would most likely be attracted to the characters and be able to identify themselves within the characters and scene around them.

Question 3

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

The first stage of distribution would commonly be by a film studio screening the product to an audience in cinemas it would then be pushed through the distribution system going to DVDs sold in supermarkets, rental companies, internet purchasing sites such as Amazon or Play.com, then making its way to downloadable software such as iTunes, quite a lot of movies now go to TV with companies like Sky and Virgin Media giving people a chance to watch it (a bit like renting)  and then there is torrent or streaming sites that people can just play off the internet for free.

Starting at the top of the system with the film studios I think our film is quite mainstream to age-groups and sticks to structure that most Romantic Comedies have making me think that a company like Universal or 20^th Century Fox could potentially be a main distributor of our film as they both show a wide variety of films in many different genres, I chose these in particular because from our research of different films quite a lot of them were produced by these film studios, examples of these films would be 27 Dresses, 500 days of summer and Wild Child. However if you take into context that this is a extremely “low budget film” then I would maybe say that Paramount could be a distributor as they take on a lot of lesser know writers producers and films and help fund and develop them to become better, for example Twilight and Paranormal Activity both filmed, written and directed by non-famous people.

After films are released in the cinema they progress forwards to DVDs which are sold and rented in a variety of places, supermarkets are a big seller of DVDs as they can sell them at “new-in” exclusive prices which overall creates a larger profit, a lot of music and video stores also do this such as HMV and Zavvi which are sometimes overpriced but also sell exclusive offers and special editions that the supermarkets do not have. The DVDs are also largely distributed over rental stores that pay to watch and then have to give back giving audiences a larger choice in the film they watch.

Other new ways of buying cheap films and keeping them is websites such as Play.com and Amazon where they come out on pre-order and then lower in price once it has been released for a while this would play a big part in the distribution of DVDs however new technology has created ways to buy products as files and download then straight to your computer making them portable and easier to watch, software like iTunes is the largest distributor of legal downloading.

After a while illegal copies of the film would start to come out looping back round to the film studios which would initially stop making profits from that film as people can get hold of it for free this is why film studios create multiple movies at a time.

Overall I think that a bigger company like Universal would be the best distributor as they are well known, trusted and create movies that attract a large audience, and even if the movie is unsuccessful they continue with films to DVD and lower the prices to bring in more interest.

Question 2

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film the main ways in which we represent the social group “Young Couples” is through costume, performance and sound. In each of these we researched which things would complement the viewing for this group and being in our teens our self gave us a head start to what sorts of things we could use to represent our own social groups.

The costumes that the actors wear were picked to suit the character and to fit in with the scenes being acted. Scene one is showing a casual meeting scene at a party at the male characters house, this is why we have chose to dress him in a chequered shirt with jeans and the girl in leggings and nice top as these are the sorts of clothes that are worn to casual “gatherings”. Scene two is the date in the park where the couple start to like each other, Ben is wearing again wearing jeans and shirt but this time we see his bold trainers which are generally linked with young boys as these colours might look strange say on a working man, Alice is wearing leggings, top, long cardigan and Ugg Boots which particularly in the last couple of years is considered a “fashionable” casual look for teenage girls. During the moving in scene and a shot before that the couple also wear hoodies in, which is a classic ideology of teenagers and particularly male teenagers which normally seen as making them more intimidating to elders and children but here it is just worn as a comfortable outfit for being outside.  In a later scene wear the couple are seen to be getting married we tried to keep the costume fashionable and young by making Alice wear a pink flower patterned dress instead of the traditional white wedding dress; we also thought it kept the youth even though they are meant to have aged slightly, Ben is also kept slightly more casual and fashionable by wearing a shirt and waistcoat rather than a full suit. In the final scene Ben and Alice both wear tracksuit bottoms and baggy tops as “home” clothing which keeps them being seen as a young couple because an older couple (30s+) wouldn’t necessarily be going round the house in hoodies and trackies which are again strongly linked to a younger age and social group.

During the scenes the actors appear to age and act more grown up, at the beginning the couple appear more youthful and in love for example when they fall on the floor laughing after Ben proposes to Alice. They also are quite shy and nervous which obviously for a young couple starting a relationship this would be the case, normally confidence is shown in adults which towards the end the performance starts to show this. The scenes where the couple get married is where we see them as a true couple arm in arm walking out of the church, all of the classic cutesy romantic bits like this are the things that are classically linked with couples; holding hands, kissing, hugging etc. 

The music that goes with the film was researched to fit in with the Romantic Comedy genre that appeals to the social group of “Couples”, the fact that we picked the ones that appealed to us make it youthful as well as fitting to a wider audience. The reason behind the piece was that it had low and high points in the music that fit well with the performance of the actors. The piece is called “Road Trip” which we thought fit well with the idea of the couple growing up and starting their lives, which also fits well with the social group of couples because most people don’t go on a road trip alone. The other sounds and folio that represent young couples would mainly be the giggles in the date scene and the speech during the final scene of the male lead (Ben) in the pregnancy scene.

I think overall each element of the film has to represent the target in some way because we made sure to link everything back to the idea of our target audience and how the viewers would perceive things, especially the way that male and female roles are performed and seen so that the audience can engage and link themselves with the characters on screen.

Media Evaluation Question 1

1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

At the start of the project we did a lot of research into the different qualities of romantic comedies, which included films like 27 dresses, 500 days of summer and Wild Child. The biggest plot points are male and female couple, they’ll generally meet and fall in love but something gets in the way which quite stereotypically is normally the male that has to try and get back the women by making her want to get back together and prove his love. As well as this there are sometimes secondary characters that play a large part in getting the couple back together or maybe even creating a sub-plot of their own. By looking at these types of plots we then decided to base ours around a straight couple who have enjoyed the start of their lives together but after getting married the women becomes pregnant, the rest of the story then being about the pregnancy and having the baby, all the things that go wrong and the arguments between the couple that eventually sort themselves out just in time for the baby arriving, creating a predictable “happy ever after” ending.

With romantic comedies the audience has a certain expectation of what they’ll see, which is why we decided to stick to what they’re used to seeing and following a certain plan that to help us do that. By following this plan it meant showing certain things at certain times, but because we only made the opening for a film we decided to make the plot work around the short time limit we had, fitting in as much as the audience would expect as possible.

At the beginning we show a couple falling in love one of the key factors of a romantic comedy, we then developed the opening by speeding up their lives together we show them, go on a date, move in together, get engaged, get married and then finally get pregnant which is where the main film would start and the problems begin. This might be considered as straying away from what a romcom would normally show but by challenging this and showing more to the audience before the film starts I think it gives them a back story to help them further relate to the film.

The credits were also a part of our research, we looked into which order most credits/titles appeared in popular romantic comedy and took note of the most common patterns which we then used as our basic plan of order of credits. The order of credits  made a lot of sense, firstly giving the audience the names of the less known employees working for the film such as the makeup artist and costume design, then working its way up through producer, director and then finally giving you the names of the main stars before taking you straight into the main action.

As far as the music goes we listened to a few samples of music from well know romcoms and decided that we would try to find a copyright free piece of music that would help us link to the way the famous films capture the audience.  I feel that the piece of music we chose fits well to the plan of romantic comedies as it helps the audience to feel the high and low points of what they see the actors doing on screen.

I think that films have structures for a reason, that being to make your feel as popular and relatable to the audience as possible, however I do believe that by breaking this structure and challenging what is the “norm” works very well for certain types of films and target audiences because by breaking the plan it makes it more specific and targeted to a certain group. I feel that our opening does link to a real media product in many ways because we followed a structure but if we were to have challenged it in more ways than one I think we would have had to have targeted a specific audience within the social group we had already chosen.

Final Film Opening..

Here is the final edited version of our film opening. I am very pleased with the outcome as it has gone according to our plan. We decided the best way to make sure that the passing of time was clear was to use cross dissolve in and out of the credits this assures that the audience has a stage where they can process what they've seen and match it to the next shot. Other than that all the editing was fine so it didnt take us long to put everything together.

Scene Stills

These are the stills that we were supposed to upload earlier to show how the scenes will go together so after a while of waiting for them to be taken of our phones we have finally uploaded them...

This is the lounge where we planned the proposal scene to be but instead moved this and the first date to a bench in the forest.

This is the church which we used to shoot the wedding scene. We chose this as the door is just like the one we imagined in our storyboard.

This is the path which they walk down after the couples first date. We chose this because we liked the way the couple could disappear round the corner.

We used Ellie's house for the moving in scene also using her car for the part where the actress unloads a box to take inside.

We used Ellie's dining room as a pretend dinner/party meeting scene for the couple.

This was Ellie's bathroom which is what we used for the pregnancy scene aswell as the hallway outside for introducing Ben into the scene.

Editing

Now that the final scenes are uploaded I have edited them into the film. I have cut them so that the shots flow and cut appropriatly, the first extra shot to be edited in was the walking scene which we used to shots to make the camera seem as through its zoomed in. The second shot to be edited in was the moving in scene which again using two shots we created the illusion of the camera following the actress even though it was two seperate shots, the last shot to complete the film was the pregnancy scene which we broke into two clips firstly Ben walking into the scene and then to an over the shoulder shot to see Alice with the pregnancy test.

The animatic at the end of the film was too short and closed to quickly so by repeating it three times it made it longer and easier for the viewer to read, the middle repeat of the three is in reverse which makes it look like it plays, rewinds and then plays again fading to black to end the film.

When we put in the credits we worked out which gaps they should go in by fitting them into the right time slots where the scenes are supposed to have jumped in the time throughout the couples life. To make these transitions flow nicley we chose to add in a cross dissolve to go in and out of credit titles. On the title we decided black was the best colour for the background as it would make the font we chose stand out more and be read easily for the time that it is on screen.

After making sure all the video flowed right we tried to edit the audio music to fit in with the shots, making sure that the low and high notes went well with the emotion behind each scene. This means that the audience will feel what the actors are feeling at the exact time that we want them to see it.

We also added in the Totton Title page which we are required to have to tell the examiner who the film is by and what it is.

Finished Shooting..

Ellie went out last week with Ben and Alice and got the final scenes done so that we could put them onto the computer ready to be edited. They are all fine, none of them need to be re-shot as she filmed a couple of versions for each scene which gave a choice of which one we could use or a backup if we needed to blend a few together. Now that we have uploaded them we can edit them into the rest of the film so far.

Chosen Music - Road Trip (full length) Robert Neary

We have selected a piece that we feel matches and represents the piece well, its called Road Trip (full length) - Romantic Alternative Pop Rock. Pop; Happy. Medium Tempo. Robert Neary (BMI) and its exactly the genre of music we were looking for. Its happy and calm which suits the shots of the couple well making there emotions seem more alive. I tried putting it with the shots we already have in Premiere Pro and it works well but the track itself is very short, using the razor tool I have cut it and repeated the track so that it goes round and round making it sound like someone has it on repeat.

Search for Music

For the opening of our film we have been looking for copyright free tracks. We have found few pieces of music that we liked but when I tried them out with the shots that we have something about them didnt seem right. The type of music we are looking for is upbeat, cute romantic songs that show the story of them falling in love just as well as the opening itself. I think that its important we find the right music because that will help the audience to link in with the characters and feel the emotions that are shown through the video. One problem of the copyright free music is that they are quite short, this may be difficult when editing as we might have to repeat the track to form a continuous song. We will try to look for full length tracks but I think if we do find the right one it will sound good even if we do have to repeat.

Production Name

So far we havent decided on a production name we were trying to think of exisitng film company names that we could base it on but were stuggling for ideas. Our media teacher said that it could be an in joke within our group which made us think of "Oh Sure Studios" because Ellie is addicted to saying this which makes us laugh and we thought could be quite good. We also thought a mixture of our names or intials could be good something like "CMES" for example. We will probably end up deciding once we add the first shot of credits onto the film opening.

Extra Group Member

Today we were told that we had an extra member joining our group (Shannon) which means that we had to fill her in on what we've been doing. We updated her on what we've done and what still needs to be finished so that she can blog about it and fully join in with the group. When filming is finished tomorrow she can help out with the editing of the new material which will help her to understand our film so far.

Animatic - Final Rough Cut

This is our final cut of the animatic, we've edited the colouring of the shots so that it flickers through colours whilst playing. Putting the drawing together like this makes the images look like they are moving and brings across a cute slightly child-like feel to our film. We really like this as it will suit our genre of film but we think it is a bit too fast and short so when putting it together with our film opening we will check it to see if it needs making longer and slightly slower. The pictures in the animatic represent the last scene of the film opening which will be the shock pregnancy scene. Throughout the clip different baby objects appear and also a stalk with a bundle of a number (+1) which ends up completing the title of "Our Life +1" (the couple + baby).

28/03/2011 - Monday's Lesson

Today I looked over the work that the group did last lesson, they discussed with me what they thought worked and what we have left to do, which is to film the rest of our shots which we plan to do tomorrow after college, we also need to plan out the music and credits for the opening. We did start looking for music the other lesson and decided an upbeat happy song with no lyrics would be best to suit the genre of the film.

Last Lesson

I was away last lesson but group filled me in on what was finished. They went through the animatic and checked that the editing was in the right timing so that each image went together properly and they also checked over the edited film that we have so far. Ellie discovered that during one of the first scenes the actress looks at the camera and this had to be cut out but looking back it actually makes the clip look better.

14/03/2011 - Next Filming Date

Today our group discussed when we can next film the shots we need to complete our film, We've spoken to the actors and they have said they are free on Wednesday so we will film then after college. We will make sure we get some extra shot that we can use in case some don't fit including movement shots to fill gaps and maybe a few variations of scenes to give us a choice.

First Rough Cut

Today me and Ellie uploaded the filmed shots that we had and made decisions about which ones would work best. Once we had chosen the ones we liked we edited them so that we had a rough flow of shots to get an idea of what was missing and what could be done to the ones we had to make the story make sense. The shots that we had are the meeting scene, first date, proposal and marriage scenes which so far works well. We managed to cut together the two shots of the couple moving towards each other on the bench with a closer back shot of the couple holding hands, this flowed together well and kept the right feeling of the scene that we wanted to show. Another scene that flows well is a long shot of Alice walking up to the church and then a closer shot from her torso upwards, cutting this together so that it creates a zoomed effect, getting this to flow so she was on the same leg was the problem as we thought it would be slightly off balance but in the end actually flows well from shot to shot making the continuity match. Once we shoot the final scenes for our opening we can concentrate on the end anamatic and credits that will end our opening.

Filming

Wednesday 9/03/2011, Ellie went out with the actors and got most of the scenes that we need for our opening scene. They went and shot the marriage scene at Netley Marsh Church, the bench date and proposal scene in a bench behind the Woodlands Hall then going back to Ellie's house to shoot the meeting scene and a dance scene that we've decided to add in as a flashback towards the end of the opening. The reason we have changed the proposal scene to the bench is because we thought it would be more romantic to have him do it where the first date was. The final shots to complete the opening will be shot soon when the actors are next available to film, the shots that will be filmed then are a long shot of the couple walking home after the date, the moving in scene where the Ben walks to the door opening it for Alice who will "move-in" carrying a box of her things and then the last shots will be in the bathroom showing the couple being shocked by Alice's pregnancy.

Changes to Script

Romantic Comedy Script

Opens with Birthday scene (Boy and Girl 1^st meet)

Boy and Girl shake hands as if they have just met

Skip forward in their lives

Boy and Girl sat on park bench (long shot)

Boy and Girl slide to sit closer

Boy and Girl hold hands (match on action to above shot of the hands)

    

Skip further into the date

Boy and Girl walk away down path holding hands (establishing shot)

Boy and Girl get further away throughout shot

Skip forward in their life

Girl is moving in with Boy

Long shot of Girl walking up to the house carrying a box

Skip forward in their life

Boy and Girl sat in living room

Boy gets down on one knee and pulls out a ring, she agrees and they hug

Skip forward in their life

Girl stood outside church in wedding dress and veil

She takes a deep breath then opens the doors

Skip forward in their life

Boy and Girl come out of church and confetti is thrown over them

Skip forward in their life

Boy and Girl in bathroom with Pregnancy test

Boy walks in – Girl turns around with pregnancy test looking shocked

Boy : Whats going on?

Girl : I'm Prengant!

Ends with an anamatic of the title “our life” and then a stork comes with a package which falls open, as this happens baby toys appear and the last shot with reveal the title “Our Life +1”

END

Filming Date - Wednesday

We've set a date to film the opening of our film, the actors are free on wednesday so we will be filming after college in Southampton, we will first film outside the church in Millbrook and then into Southampton to film the park scenes after this is done we will go back to Ellie's house to film the party scene and the bathroom scene then hopefully we should be finished and wont need to re-film anything!

Cinema : Just Go With It

I went to see Just Go With It a couple of days ago with some friends, which is a romantic comedy like the film opening we hope to do. The film is about a guy that uses a fake wedding ring to hook-up with girls, after falling for a girl that he met whilst using the ring he wants to try to make it work by faking a divorce to stay with her. Using his assistant as his "wife" he tries to show the girl that its a real divorce but she finds out about the children and they end up going to Hawaii for a holiday which is when Adam Sandler and Jennifer Anniston slowly fall in love and he realises that he has to break up with the other women. The plot is very predictable from the beginning you can tell that the male lead will end up becoming very close with the kids and eventually fall out of love with the girl he's there for in the first place. It has some typical Romantic Comedy features in it which are the factors that make the plot, there's the other woman or man, the situation and the problem and the main ending which is usually a happy one.

Wild Child Date Scene 59:25 - 60:28

^ Close the advert and click play, drag the bar to 59:25 and watch until the couple are sat on the ground at 60:28.

In this film there is a certain clip where the couple go on a date, within this they also have a bench scene which is simular to the one we are planning. During the date scene the couple show playfulness which tells the audience they are having fun we hope to bring this across whilst filming our own scene.

The characters in this scene are also young like our actors so this will give them an edge as we can show them how we imagine the scene (this clip) and then they can interpret it into their own act on screen.

500 days of summer screen shots of holding hand scene.

17/02/2011

Today me and Charlotte went through romantic comedy openings on YouTube to find inspiration for ideas when we come to filming.
We tried to look at opening that included scenes from our script such as weddings, park scenes and pregnacy tests.
We found films like The wedding planner, the wedding date, the wedding singer... you get the idea lots of wedding scenes, we also found a paticular short shot from Wild Child in which there is a scene very similar to our park bench scene.

Another film that I think we need to look further into is (500) Days Of Summer as this film is a very good example of the types of shots we need to film.

Pregnacy Test scene from Knocked Up

To watch this clip close down the advert and the press play drag the bar to 26:00 and watch from this point for a minute.

This clip from 26:00 - 27:00 shows a panicked pregnancy test scene between two sisters. The scene relates to our film as towards the end we plan to show a scene where the female role is shocked by finding out she's pregnant.

The clip shows lots of fast movement to make the jump cuts seem even quicker, it also shows the high energy from the actresses in the clip which tells us that within the storyline the characters already know what going on.

The camera movement is like we are following the character and experiencing what she's going through while its happening, we get that sense of urgency and stress while we're watching.

The music in the background fits in with the scene really well because the drum beat in the background gives us the impression that it could be like a fast heartbeat because the characters are rushing around it also makes the scene quite contrasting as the song is quite uplifting but the characters are stressed out. The dialogue also brings out the tension in the main character as she mumbles to herself ("oh no" "no no no") which tells us she knows whats going to happen but she really really doesn't want it too.

This sense of urgency and shock is what we would like to bring across in our scene as it will close the opening and leave the audience wanting to know what happens next.

The Couple..

Our actors that will be staring in our film opening are friends of Ellie's so we know they will be trustworthy and turn up unlike the last attempt at finding actors. Because the actors are a couple their acting will be believable on camera as they wont feel awkward about sticking to the script. We hope to start filming after half term, we are trying to film in the shortest amount time possible so that we can use the rest of our time editing and making sure the opening flows well.

We found some actors...!

After being let down by our potential actors we have found a couple who are willing to be in our project. Because no-one in the couple is from our group it means that we can concentrate of getting the correct shots. Another good point about having these actors is that our group can make sure the shot is exacly how we want them to look so that we do not have to re-shoot as this would be difficult for the actors to have to try and fit it in with their own time.

Actors??

We were having a few problems in finding actors to be in our film, in the end we've decided to use actors that are not in our media group so that me, charlotte and ellie can all be behind camera and help direct the film so that everything goes to plan. Using these actors will make sure that all of our group can direct and help out with each stage of filming whilst letting the actors get of with showing the story.

Practice Animatic - Jelly Baby Story

Here is our final draft of our jelly baby animatic. Blending the stills to create a moving image, it could have been made better by adding some speech bubbles and maybe a few more shits to make it flow better but overall for our first practice attempt I think that the group did very well.

Problems with the practise animatic

When we were making the practise anamatic with the jelly baby stills we had a few problem with the program in that we couldn't figure out why it kept zooming in on all our stills when putting them together. But after playing around with the programme we you could change the size of the images by clicking and dragging them to original size. We had to do this to each still until they were all back to original size it was a drawn out process but quite simple to do. Now that we can use the programme properly we will be able to upload out end credits sequence of our film and complete this to add onto the end of out own movie.

Practice Anamatic Stills

The stills are what will eventually be our practise anamatic, using jelly babies we created a story that could easily be represented through a few simple stills.

Still 1 : Here we are introduced to the yellow jelly babies dancing at a party.
Still 2 : The green jelly baby goes to join but the yellow babies turn away.
Still 3 : One yellow baby goes and meets the green baby.
Still 4 : They fall in love on the dance floor.
Still 5 : The other yellow jelly babies dont like this and go over an confront the green baby.
Still 6 : The green baby gets punched by one of the yellow babies.
Still 7 : The green jelly baby gets up to leave but the yellow baby is unsure whether to leave her family or not.
Still 8 : The yellow baby decides she wants to leave with the green baby.
Still 9 : The yellow and green baby get married, the yellow baby is walked up the aisle.
Still 10 : The yellow and green baby are married.
Still 11 : Confetti is thrown over the couple.
Still 12 : The yellow baby is pregnant and giving birth.
Still 13 : The yellow and green baby now have their own baby.

Male Costume Plan

Here we have planned out each outfit for out male actor.

Costume 1
This needed to be quite casual to match the female actor so we decided everyday jeans and shirt would look best.

Costume 2
For the wedding scene we needed to make the actors look like an actual wedding so therefore as a "groom" he needed to wear a suit.

Costume 3
This is for the pregnancy test scene in the bathroom so again he needs to match the female actress by wearing similar pajama like clothing.

Ellies Costumes

Here we have planned out what ellie is going to wear for each part of our opening scene.

Costume 1:
She needed to wear everyday clothes so she will be wearing black leggings, pink and white baseball t-shirt and ugg boots.

Costume 2:
This is for the wedding scene in which she will wear a white dress, white heels and a viel.

Costume 3:
This is for the pregnancy test scene, she will be wearing navy trackies and a navy hoodie to make it look like she's just got up.

Nearly ready to film...

We were planning on filming after collage tomorrow but one of the actors cant make it so as a group we've decided it will be better to wait until we have a definite actor and a date set for when they can do it. We also need to finish uploading the pictures of location and making sure everything we need in our shots can be taken to those locations.

Costumes : Mostly normal clothing apart from the marriage scene which needs to be a white outfit for the girl and a black smart outfit for the boy, the other scene that needs different clothing could be the last shot of the pregnancy test this could be shot in pajamas as if they had just woken up or just about to go to bed or it could be done in regular clothing. This can be decided before we start filming.

As far as location goes we will defiantly be using Ellie's house for the party, proposal and pregnancy test scenes and we have also decided on a church and park for the other remaining shots.

More planning...

Today in lesson we went to Ellie's house to take pictures of location. We took a few pictures of her lounge and dining room to match the shots on our storyboard. Tonight I will upload the photos and we plan to upload the rest of location shots soon. Next Tuesday we hope to start filming as most of our other planning is finished.

Romantic Comedy - Script

Romantic Comedy Script

Opens with Birthday scene (Boy and Girl 1^st meet)

Boy and Girl shake hands as if they have just met

Skip forward in their lives

Boy and Girl sat on park bench (long shot)

Boy and Girl slide to sit closer

Boy and Girl hold hands (match on action to above shot of the hands)

    

Skip further into the date

Boy and Girl walk away down path holding hands (establishing shot)

Boy and Girl get further away throughout shot

Skip forward in their life

Girl is moving in with Boy

Long shot of Girl walking up to the house carrying a box

Skip forward in their life

Boy and Girl sat in living room

Boy gets down on one knee and pulls out a ring, she agrees and they hug

Skip forward in their life

Girl stood outside church in wedding dress and veil

She takes a deep breath then opens the doors

Skip forward in their life

Boy and Girl come out of church and confetti is thrown over them

Skip forward in their life

Boy and Girl in bathroom with Pregnancy test

Boy walks in – Girl turns around with pregnancy test looking shocked

Ends with an anamatic of the title “our life” and then a stork comes with a package which falls open, as this happens baby toys appear and the last shot with reveal the title “Our Life +1”

END

Research - According to Greta

In this opening of According to Greta we were looking at the notebook parts that show doodles and text moving, this was to try and link in with our title.

Obviously it is a lot more proffesional than we want it to look and too advanced to actually produce but it gives across an idea of what sort of thing we might like to do.

Our title is very simple nothing as complex as in this sequence but that sort of doodle/images in this clip was what was behind the idea of our title.

Research - Scrubs Clip

This clip from an episode of Scrubs was some inspiration for our opening, although its not a clip from a film it matched our idea quite well.
Ignoring the actual storyline of the show we like the way the characters life are shown on a tv, in this clip its showing what the main character wants the future to be whereas our idea is to show how the past happened up untill the present day.

We also like how the film has old flickering effects to show time pasing (1.59), this could be one way to consider showing it in our opening when editing.

Because the story shown in this clip links in with our opening storyline we thought it would be good to use as research to help improve our own project. We are also looking into more animated clips to show how we might like our title to move.

Romantic Comedy - Storyboard

For our storyboard we have designed the opening sequence, we've decided that it will be like a flickering old film that shows the couples memory of their life up until present day. Obviously looking at the storyboard now it looks like lots of random pictures but when we put it together with music and editing we will make it look more like a flashback and should make more sense to the audience. The end title sequence is like a cartoon that at the moment we hope to make into a small animatic but if that doesnt plan out then we can just use the last shot as the title.