When making a film opening sequence planning is essential in order to get things the way i would like. I think planning consists of location, props, time, and filming. We have a while to do our project, but time can be a problem if you have to do lots of shooting.
I do not have a lot to film at all, simply a puddle which will show a title (preferably when it is raining to set a melancholy mood), an army hat, and perhaps the young girl, but i could do a silhouette of this as this would probably be a better idea, as there are not many Victorian looking places in Cambridge, and since my opening has a lot of silhouettes of tanks etc this will blend well. Also, the footage that is actually filmed will make it level out so that there is simply not all silhouette effects.
The props i will need are not a lot either, all i need is an army hat, which i may be able to get from somebody in our media group, or just a simple old looking hat. Everything else as explained in the storyboard and Animatic, will be done in After Effects and Final Cut. This could be a problem as it will give me limited time, as i cannot use these programs in half term.
To overcome this, I could simply film in half term, or alternatively start the project and editing before half term, and then film what i need in half term and finish it when we come back to college. I will get footage of what i need from Google videos or youtube, and this would be unrecognizable because i would distort the videos creating them into silhouettes that the footage will probably not be recognized.My location therefore will be spent most of the time in class, working on the effects. I may also be out filming for the short parts i have to film, and may be out helping others with their film openings.
Here are a few videos i found on Youtube which i thought would perhaps be helpful for footage of tanks.I also found this video on Google video which i thought was good as it showed a variety of angles of a tank.
Here is my Animatic for my storyboard. Overall i believe the editing and everything went well and i did quite well in trying to convey what i wanted to produce. The motion Keyframes were quite hard but I think i got the pictures to convey which way they are moving etc. The music was a good idea nd was done in garageband, it is slow and in a melodramatic mood, perfect for the mood of my film. I did not add a lot of titles as the pictures had the words "title" in where the titles would go, meaning i know where the titles are going when i finish the film opening, which is the most important aspect. Some of the text that appears on screen is also going to be dialogue, either in two different ways. I may have English dialogue with Russian subtitles or Russian dialogue with English subtitles, I think this will be quite effective and links to the research i have done on briefs and film openings.
In our lesson, Barney showed me a video for a foreign trailer, which was quoted as 'The best foreign language film' at the 2008 academy awards. This film follows the idea of what i would like to create in my film, where there is dialogue, but either spoken in Russian and with English subtitles OR spoken in English with Russian subtitles. The Russian idea sounds like a good one, but i would need to find someone to speak Russian for me. If i cant, then the English idea would be the idea i would go with. The film below, called 'Persopolis' is a French film, using French dialogue with English subtitles, similar to my idea. This is a good idea and because i will not have that much dialogue in my opening sequence, i may be able to find someone to speak Russian in my opening trailer.
These were my first attempts at storyboard stills, taking pictures from our moodboard and drawing what we thought were the most main and significant ones for our storyboard.
Here are my pictures of my 9 shots for my opening sequence. These are 9 key images and these are important for shooting a scene, they give you ideas in order how to shoot a scene and the proportions and area space when shooting a scene. The shot needs to be filled up and cannot have any negative or blank space, as this distracts the audience from the actual shot. I drew these particular images because i believed they were the most significant in my opening sequence. The shot of the leaves establishes the location and mood of the film while the establishing shot of tanks also establishes the location and the mood of war. The titles drawn are supposed to be calligraphy or handwriting in the old times, where a quill and piece of parchment was used. Therefore, using fonts which looked like olden times handwriting would be effective, and i already have some fonts i have looked at which i have posted previously on my blog.
I may have to get free footage from a source as i obviously cannot film war tanks so this may be a problem. However i think i could easily get some footage from a reliable source and could use this is my opening sequence, I think creating it in after effects and final cut would be a better alternative for me than to try and film it.
I found some relevant free footage on the website www.stockfootageforfree.com which you have to sign up and register for the site, but it is completely free and therefore this could be very helpful for my opening title sequence. On the website is a video which could be helpful in my opening sequence, as at the start of my ideas on the previous post i wrote about shots of leaves etc to establish atmosphere and location. The leaves also remind me of silhouettes, which fits in with my idea of silhouettes of tanks etc.
i also thought of the name for my independent film. I thought a name in Russian would be quite a good idea and when doing my independent film, and the title appearing in Russian would be effective as it would draw the audience in and confuse them, then letting it blur back to English would be effective so that the audience can understand. My independent film is called: A young Girl at War.
We thought of some ideas for each of our opening sequences today, and what would appear in the sequence and also if possible, in order. My ideas were as follows:
Slow calm music to establish mood.
Shots of leaves, etc to establish weather and location.
Establishing shot of war tanks to establish location, time and setting
Shot of young girls house.
Tanks become a silhouette (similar to the ipod advert)
Close up of the front of the tank and the enscriptions (writing on the side) this writing becomes the first title.
Dialogue (monologue) or text appears
We see the back of the tank which is the second title, and the tank drives away.
We get a close up of the man in the tank and establish he is the young girls father.
We get a shot of the back of the tank and then a shot of the young girl left there.
Silhouette of the girl growing up (done in after effects) maybe another title.
The young girl's dad drops his hat, this is the next title.
Dialogue "My childhood memories all involve conflict."
Shot of puddle, new title appears.
Dialogue "Every day my father leaves for work at the army. Every Day i miss him."
Tanks returning, they fade out and more titles appear in old handwriting fonts.
Dialogue "One day i knew something was wrong."
Music becomes faster, shots of young girl's mum and dad arguing. perhaps silhouettes. Titles show.
We then get a shot of something smashing, maybe plates, or glass or maybe there is an effect where you can get the screen of the camera to smash - which symbolizes the families feelings.
Dialogue "My father was sent to Germany for Russian Aid"
Shots of suitcases etc.
Dialogue "I did not realize we were going, too."
Russian Flag fades to German flag.
Main title appears, It is written in Russian so could be changed to English as an effect so the audience understands the meaning.
Overall these are my thoughts about how the film opening sequence would progress. I may have to get free footage from a source as i obviously cannot film war tanks so this may be a problem. However i think i could easily get some footage from a reliable source and could use this is my opening sequence, I think creating it in after effects and final cut would be a better alternative for me than to try and film it.
Below is my moving moodboard, using pictures and text i researched which i thought would be relevant for my movie. The pictures relate well as i have silhouettes of a young girl and this is the young protagonist in my film. I like the fact that i made motion keyframes in final cut and then could made pictures zoom in, zoom out and fade etc. This was a good effect for my film because it focuses on war memorbilia and old war stamps and old propaganda posters. The text at the end is simply there to show that i have thought about relevant texts and typefaces for the type of film i am making.
Here are some fonts i found on http://www.1001freefonts.com/celtic-fonts.php which i thought were a good idea to use in my opening sequence. I think the calligraphy ones are most effective because they look old, like they were written with a quill and on a sheet of parchment. I also liked the 'Russian' fonts, because they looked like the fonts on all the old war propaganda posters.
For my Moodboard i had many ideas, which i can bring in Monday on a disk. Here are some of my Moodboard ideas below considering fonts, pictures etc.
I thought of the silhouette picture being the young Russian girl, and this picture looks very believeable as it looks old and in a Russian street. I also collected old images, such as old war memorabilia and stamps etc, aswell as old war propaganda posters.
For my brief 3, i thought of some more ideas about how the film opening could be and how it could be effective. I thought of the idea of a monologue. A monologue is an extended, uninterrupted speech or poem by a single person. The person may be speaking his or her thoughts aloud or directly addressing other persons, e.g. an audience, a character, reader or an inanimate object. I got my idea of a monologue from English coursework at GCSE, studying the work of Alan Bennett and his 'Talking Heads' monologues. I found them interesting and thought this could be a very good idea for my opening sequence, because i cannot film any thing about war as it is immensely difficult to try and recreate war. This is a problem i face but believe i can overcome it by doing a simple monologue or animation title sequence.
I thought i could do the idea of the young girl growing up, which reminds me of the independent shane meadows film 'This is England'.
Above are our two Moviestorm projects we created on our Moviestorm project. We were sent to Colleridge school to create a video in Machinima, using the creative application moviestorm, an application similar to sims, letting you create virtual stories with animated characters. I enjoyed the day, at first moviestorm was tedious but as soon as you got used to it, it was fun and a good way to create videos!
I enjoyed making our videos and in general i did enjoy the day, some things were a problem at the start, for example the audio and getting speech on to the videos, also Moviestorm was incredibly slow, however we did overcome these problems due to getting used to the program. It was an enjoyable day and machinima is a good idea to use for projects, and could be very useful to the diploma as we could use it for coursework etc.
For our first video, we made a scene and storyline, with 3 characters which involved a shooting. We first created the characters and their clothing, thinking about mise en scene and the look of the set etc. Me and Matt then thought of the set and then started to create the movie. We found some things difficult, such as moving the characters and the dialogue, but we soon overcame this and created a good video to bring back to college and put on the blog. We then worked on the camera angles, which made the film a lot better. We used shots such as establishing shots, over the shoulder shots, and close ups to show the characters emotions.
The second video was just a comedy one we decided to make, it does not really have much of a storyline but it gave us more experience in terms of using Machinima and Moviestorm.
Overall i think it was a good, creative and enjoyable day and that Moviestorm could perhaps be used for projects or coursework, as it is a good application to have when doing things you cannot normally film.
My chosen pitch is film brief 3, an independent film featuring a young protagonist. My pitch is:
A young girl moves to Germany from Russia - she begins to realize what effects and devastation WW2 caused not only Russia, but her own country.
This is exactly 25 words and therefore fits the 25 word synopsis. I think it is an effective brief because it leaves you as the audience, wondering what is going to happen, and because it relates to war it fits the brief of appealing to an adult audience. It also reminds me a little of the story of Anne Frank.
Anne Frank was a German born Jewish girl who was known worldwide with the publication of her diary that recounted all her experiences when the Germans occupied the Netherlands in World War II. Anne was born on June 12, 1929 and she, along with her family, went into hiding in July 1942. Two years later, her family was captured and seven months from her arrest, Anne Frank died due to typhus in early March 1945.
I also thought of doing the film similar to a monologue, for example the monologues of 'Talking Heads' by Alan Bennett. I am still considering creating the opening sequence of the film in after effects or using animation, as it would be near impossible to recreate world war 2 and to film the movie opening.
This film still reminds me of 'The Boy In Striped Pyjamas' due to the storyline and the idea of the young protagonist. I think this is a good film to relate my opening sequence to because it is relevant to the idea of film and does not really appeal to a young or teenage audience.
For a sucessful film opening, you need atleast 5 essential elements in order to make it effective and convincing.
-First you need the film title itself, where is it positioned? It is essential it is used not at the very start of the opening but not at the end (like a trailer), it should come in perhaps after 5/6 titles. -You need eye catching and intriguing imagery in order to get the audiences attention. -You need the main institutional detail, the Distributor, (Studio) production company, named jobs and actors in a conventional order. -You need a slight taste of the rest of the film, which makes the audience want to watch the whole film. -You need a good soundtrack, relating well to the movie and being relevant to create an effective feel to the movie, what mood is it? Sad, happy etc. -Don't let the opening sequence drag out, it does not need to show the whole movie, it is not a trailer. -Don't introduce too many characters, we only need to see a couple. -You need a unique storyline, not copied from any other film, but can have some aspects from various films, you could say the film is similar to.. a bit like.. -You need to introduce the character, or location, or theme/story or the mood, or essentially all of the aspects.
I was told i would have to do another item of research as Lemony Snicket was not an independent film. Still, it gave me good research and i found a good title designer out of it, Jamie Caliri. I thought i would now do a Shane Meadows movie, as they were the best examples of independent movies in my opinion. I decided to do the independent movie 'A room for Romeo Brass' by Shane Meadows, as it fits the brief of 3 having a young protagonist, but it has two instead. The list of titles in order are:
Alliance atlantis and BBC films present In association with the arts council of england A company pictures/ big arty production A shane meadows film Introducing Andrew Shim, Ben Marshall, Paddy considine A room for Romeo Brass With Frank Harper, Julia Ford, James Higgins, Vicky Mclure, Ladene Hall and Bob Hoskins Costume designer Robin Fraser Paye Editor Paul Tothill Production designer Crispian Sallis Director of Photography Ashley Rowe Story editor Robin Slovo Line producer Ronaldo Vasconcellos Screenpla by Paul Fraser and Shane Meadows Executive producers Andras Hamori and David M. Thompson Produced by George Faber and Charles Pattinson Directed by Shane Meadows The total number of titles is 17, which is almost the same as Napoleon Dymanite's number of titles, which was 19. We get one very long tracking shot at the start, which is 1 minute 20 seconds long. the total number of shots is 35, which is fairly similar to Napoleon Dynamite's shots, toalling 20. However the duration of this opening is longer than Napoleon Dynamites, it is 6 minutes 13 seconds long so you would expect there to be more shots. The music is similar, it is just one song playing throughout in the background, while the titles and the opening scene shows. A room for Romeo Brass is different in terms of the way it is shown, it is actual shots of the film and then goes to a plain black background with the white opening titles. It constantly switches between two, contrasting to Napoleon Dynamite's opening sequence, which is just the titles written on food and there are no shots of the film during this.
My second idea for a good title creator is Saul Bass. He has done many famous titles for example 'The Seven Year Itch' and 'Oceans Eleven' are a few to name. I like the way he does the animation for 'The Seven Year Itch' and the way it is all done in multi-coloured squares, it seems very complicated to do and this is another reason why it is effective - it looks professional and well done. I like the way the music blends with the title sequence aswell.
I especially like 'Oceans Eleven' of Saul Bass' title sequence. I enjoy the way the blocks of different colours are very manipulative and the music fits effortlessly with the titles. It is a fun, lively title sequence to watch and i enjoy the way Saul Bass makes the titles - they seem plain but due to this are very effective, in contrast to work by Jamie Caliri which can be incredibly complicated, such as the Lemony Snicket opening titles.
Saul Bass; title sequence to 'Psycho' is another great example. The music fits expertly to the genre and the harsh lines explain a confusion in the mind of the character. The black and white plain colours are effective due to the fact they are not bright abstract colours. Overall i like the music out of this sequence and the way the harsh lines are done throughout, slotting in and out of each line is effective and catches the eye - it intrigues you and draws you in as an audience.
We were then asked to find a creative agency that produces titles that we liked and we then had to write about them and why we find them interesting. I thought Jamie Caliri was an interesting titles creater. I believe he works independently, and has the status of a director aswell, as you can see from the link to his site:
He creates animated titles and corcerning the titles of 'Lemony Snicket' i found some information about Jamie Caliri and how he started animation as it did not give any information on the site above. 'Caliri's dark, yet playful style, seen in his music videos and commercials, seemed a perfect fit for the Baudelaire orphans' story.
Although Caliri is better known in the industry as a live-action, Grammy-nominated music video director, animation is in his blood. He studied character animation at Cal Arts, and kick-started his career in the early nineties with a break-through animated theatrical trailer for the L.A. public radio station KCRW. That spot ran in LA for three years. In fact, Caliri ended the Lemony Snicket title sequence with the three orphans lowering themselves down on ropes-a wink to those who remember the triptych of climbing workmen in that KCRW ad.'
In my opinion i think Caliri is a very talented title designer/editor and it gives a very professional look to the titles he creates. A few picture examples are seen above.
My second research on brief 3 is the film 'Napoleon Dynamite'. Napoleon Dynamite is a 2004 American independent comedy film co-written and directed by Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess and stars Jon Heder as the main character, Napoleon Dynamite.
While analysing the opening sequence, in order the titles are: Fox Searchlight Pictures And Paramount Pictures Present In association with MTV films Starring Jon Heder Preston High as Napoleon Dynamite Jon Gries Aaron Ruell Efren Ramirez Tina Majorino With Diedrich Bader Casting By Tory Weitz Music By John Swihart Edited By Jemery Coon Production Cory Lorenzen Director Of Photography Mumn Powell Executive Producer Tory Weitz Produced By Jemery Coon, Chris Wyatt, Sean Covel Written By Jared Hess and Jekusha Hess Directed by Jared Hess
These were the titles in order, and in total there were 19 titles. I think the title order is an effective order and follows the order of most opening title sequences, with the producer company at the very beginning, then whoever is associated with them if any, followed by the actors, and then the casting, music, editing, producer, photography, executive production, and then written by and directed by. Having the director last is on contrast to the Lemony Snicket titles, where the director is first. This was quite a good amount of titles in the duration, which was 2 minutes 33 seconds. This is a fairly small amount compared to the Lemony Snicket film opening titles, but for Snicket's film the titles were at the end, so this may be why. The total of shots in this title sequence is 19, so effectively a new shot for each opening title. This seemed the right amount as you do not want to do too many titles in a sequence as this is confusing, keeping it simple is a good and effective idea in my opinion.
For my brief, i decided to go with brief 3 as i think this will overall be the most suited idea to me. For homework - we were asked to do research on a non-US and a US film, and analyse the titles, count how many there are and also what order they're in. We were also asked to analyse the number of shots and the duration of the opening titles in terms of genre.
My first idea of brief 3 is the non US film 'Lemony Snickets 'A series of unfortunate events' which fits the idea of brief 3, and the idea of a young protagonist, but has three main characters instead. the credits are at the end, which im not sure is the same? However, i enjoyed the title seqeuence regardless and thought it would be useful to put it onto my blog. The film was made in the UK, and the title sequences were created due to the work of Jamie Caliri. I enjoyed the use of animation in the title sequence and it looked as if there had been a tremendous amount of effort put into it.
There was a title scene at both the end and the start of 'Lemony Snicket A series of unfortunate events' and i thought it would be interesting to analyse both title sequences. At the start of Lemony Snicket, we start with the production company:
Paramount Pictures And Dreamworks Pictures present The Littlest Elf
We then see there is some commentary, which is fairly unusual in the opening sequence of a film. We then realize that 'The Littlest Elf' is not what dreamworks and paramount are presenting. There are no more titles after this, so we assume the titles are either at the end or appear later in the film. We then see the title sequence is at the end of the film.
The list of titles (in order) we get are:
'Directed by Brad Silberling' 'Screenplay by Robert Gordon' 'Based on the books "The bad beginning" "The Reptile room" and "The Wide Window" by Lemony Snicket.' 'Produced by Laurie Macdonald and Walter F. Parkes.' 'Produced by Jim Van Wyck.' 'Executive Producer Scott Rudin' 'Executive Producer Barry Sonenfeld' 'Executive Producers Julia Pistor and Albie Hecht' 'Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki' 'Production Designer Rick Heinrichs' 'Edited by Michael Kahn' 'Costumes designed by Colleen Atwood' 'Music by Thomas Newman' 'Co-producers Minor childers Scott Aversano' 'Associate Producer Linda Hill' 'Visual Effects Supervisor Steven Fangmeier' 'Visual Effects Producer Tom Peitzman' 'Jim Carrey' 'Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events' 'Liam Aiken' 'Emily Browning' 'Timothy Spall' 'Catherine O'Hara' 'Billy Conelly' 'Cedric the Entertainer' 'Luis Guzman' 'Jennifer Coolidge' 'Craig Ferguson' 'Jane Adams' 'Jamie Harris' 'Merryl Streep' 'Kara Hoffman' 'Shelby Hoffman' 'Jude Law as the voice of Lemony Snicket' 'Casting by Avy Kaufman C.S.A' 'A Parkes/Macdonald Production' 'A Nikolodeon Movies Production' 'A Brad Silberling Film'
There was a huge amount of titles in this sequence, totalling 45! which i think is unnecessary for a title sequence, however this sequence is at the end which is quite confusing. 45 is quite a substantial number of titles and i think my research on Napoleon Dynamite shows that there are a considerably less amount of titles in that opening sequence, which is better to have a lesser amount. I think around 20 titles in the opening sequence is the correct amount of titles to have so i think an opening sequence should not really have a lot of titles as it only introduces the film. The clip was 4 minutes 23 seconds long, which in my opinion is a bit of a long time for only an opening sequence.
These were all the titles on the actual sequence, it then went on the end titles as i said the titles were at the end of the film, and there were about 100 end titles so i did not think it was necessary to write all of them down, the above titles i think were the main ones and the first ones, before you get the scrolling down of text at the end of a film. We were also asked to count the number of shots in the opening sequence but i think that sequence is done just as one long tracking shot. Overall i liked the animation and the amount of detail and effort put into the titles. They looked very advanced and certainly well thought about by Jamie Caliri.
Here is my individual and personal logo, to put at the front of all the films i produced it, and therefore it will be personal to me. To create it, i used a logo i had produced in year 9 to year 11 which i liked the idea of. It was hand drawn by me, so i had to take a picture of the logo and work with the image in final cut. I had to draw round some of the shapes which were more difficult, and i created some simply from photoshop. I then created individual layers for each shape and letter and then added them to final cut.
After this, i started to think about how i wanted to animate my logo. I did not wan a complicated logo animation, so i chose a simple idea. I liked the idea of the shapes appearing, so i chose this idea and then thought about each of the camera lens to appear and grow bigger. To make the shapes appear and grow, i simply created a new composition and made new keyholes when the shape would change. I then thought of a sound effect of a camera click, that would go well with my design as my design includes a camera. Then, i added a flash, from a new solid and covering the whole design so it looked like a flash. After the flash, the words 'media' would come up across the camera lens. This is all i did for my animation as i did not want a complicated one.
Brief 1- In general, they thought it was a good base of idea, and it looked like i had planned it well and knew how the film would go. They thought i had a good basis to go on and it was kind of like the film 'Wanted'. I think i need to find a clearer idea as it was based on 'Wanted' and the programme 'Hustle' combined, if i can explain this clearer it would be easier to make i think. Loz liked the idea i had based my idea on 'Wanted' and that the character would have to do something wrong for people to dislike him. In the programme 'Hustle' the people con others out of money. I thought my character could do this, and the twist could be he would not really have a superpower, he just made others believe he had. Matt thought it was a good idea, using a movie then adapting it to my own and to make it more action packed. He liked the twist. Sam said the film brief sounded good but a bit complicated, it would need to be simplified to be clear and concise.
Brief 2 - I couldn't think of an idea for brief 2 so i did not receive any feedback obviously, i thought everyone else had good ideas for the thriller sequence, i could not think of anything as it seemed like everything had been done before so my brief would have been too stereotypical.
Brief 3 - In general the group thought it was well planned, heartfelt and looked like a very good idea, i knew how it was going to go and the storyline was clear. Loz liked this idea best overall and liked the fact the film was reversed, as he said you find out the viewpoint of the soldiers and the lies and deceit of the war. He said there had been alot of films based on Russians VS the germans in ww2, but not alot on the German point of view and therefore this would be effective due to there is not alot about the German viewpoint. Matt thought it was a good mix of history, and if pulled off would be a very good watch, especially with the twist of Germany being 'goodies'. Sam thought this idea sounded good, well planned and interesting, and he liked the idea the way it was and did not want to modify it.
Brief 4 - In general, Matt, Sam, Loz and Philippa believed this idea was planned very well. Machinima however may be a problem as i can only have limited acess to machinima and therefore may have more limited time than the others. Matt thought the film reminded him of 'Terminal' with Tom Hanks. He thought it may have to have a serious twist to it, for example maybe the countries they lived in could be war torn, linking to my idea of brief 3. This will also make it more adult themed and perhaps more effective. Loz thought it was a good idea but i would have to make it in the right way, if not the film may look not very effective and a bit tacky. He agreed with me about the machinima idea and the fact that it may be a problem as i would have limited acess.
Overall - the group believed my brief 3 was the best, as it seemed to be planned better than the others, and i knew the background to the idea very well as i am studying history. They liked the overall idea and how the girl goes from one side of the war to the other. They hadn't heard of the film 'The boy in striped pyjamas' but i explained it to them and they agreed it related very well to my idea.
Here is our first go on after effects learning about brightness and colour levels. We first got a clip of people dancing and then we had to change the levels of darkness, so we changed the people dancing to more darker silhouettes and then made the background white. We then had a go of changing the background colour etc, so it was kind of like an ipod effect on the ipod advert. We could change the people to different colours and also the background, but i prefered the people black as the colours blended very well, i chose all pastel colours so that the colours were easy to see. The clip is only a short clip, but it gave us a lot of practice on after effects and we learnt quite a few new things.
Film Brief 4 i favoured the most, this was because i liked this idea considerably more than all the others. When i think of animation, i think mostly of children and kids programmes. So therefore doing an animation for adults would be a challenging and interesting idea to do. I had an idea of a war animation film, using perhaps after effects or machinima. The aspect of war appeals to adults a lot more than children as adults understand the whole prospect more, therefore i think a war animation would be a good idea. Also, as i do history alongside my media course, i was thinking of combining the two and using knowledge from history to help me with my war film opening. The idea of this is a main character, who plays quite a good role in the war but is not in such a high position - he fights in the war and we see life in his eyes, we see the lies/deceit of soldiers at war and we see the background and how life was like on the 19 hundreds. The idea would be set in the 1940's, during the second world war when Stalin ruled Russia. It was hard to find any war animation on youtube, but after continuous looking i found a video i rather liked. I liked the fact the creater has drawn some on the animation, as this looks very professional and effective. I liked the music, it was melancholy and went well with the idea and theme of war, i liked the fact the titles were just plain white, and the video was black and white too. As immediately when a film is black and white, it is considered old and therefore this was a good idea as it manipulates time and makes everything seem old fashioned. The film also has to be based on a fictional novel, and there are many novels about the war so this would not be a problem.
My second idea for this post was a romance animation, and yet again this could be done with after effects or machinima. I thought of using machinima for this more than any other because it could be quite effective. My idea would be two people meet at an airport, unable to communicate due to different languages but they know they have something special. They go their seperate ways but two years on are still thinking of one another due to failed relationships. A trip across the world and learning a different language seems like an unlikely way to fall in love...' I based this idea on the film 'Love actually' which was very popular. The film opening could be done with machinima or even after effects - and this in turn could be very effective.
I found an excellent example of a romance animation below. The animation is from a new romance film 'PS i love you' and uses the actual movie audio, which i could not do so this may be a problem, but i could easily improvise and make my story. The animation is a trailer, but still it is incredibly effective, you can tell they have used sims as a form of animation, but this could easily be done using machinima. I think this is another good idea and could be quite effective. The brief also has to be on a fictional novel, and as i have a lot of novels i could use some of them to get my ideas from, use some novels as a starting point and a base for my idea - i believe this would help me incredibly and therefore this is a good idea in my opinion as i have a lot of starting points for my idea.
Film Brief 3 An independent movie featuring a young protagonist Your film should appear to be financed through regional funding Example - This is England (Shane Meadows, 2006)
This is one of the wider briefs, and the fact that the movie should appear to be financed through regional funding pulls it back and this could be a problem. Also the fact it is an independent movie would be difficult too - as there will be less examples to find and help with ideas. The film could have British regional funding and would therefore need to be set in Britain or whereever the funding is from. The young protagonist could be quite a simple storyline to have and his reminds me of the film 'About A Boy' which has a young male protagonist. Another good example is 'Mean Girls' which has a young female protagonist and 'Angus, thongs and perfect snogging' is yet another example with a young main character. These storylines are quite effective and i think they are both american, therefore having USA regional funding perhaps? All three films are good example and could be used as a base for an idea.
My idea is similar to the film 'The boy in striped pyjamas' below. It is a German film and it features a young protagonist who grows up in Germany during world war 2. Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences. I think i could also combine my history with this idea too as i am currently learning about world war 2. I think this would be a good idea for me and an idea based on a story similar to 'The boy in striped pyjamas'. My idea would be a young girl moves to Germany from Russia, (the opposing side in world war 2) she sees life as a German at this time and starts to see what effects and substantial devestation world war 2 caused not only Russia, but her own country.
For film brief 2 i did not have hardly any ideas, as everything i thought of had been done before. Supernatural reminds me of ghosts etc, and a good example of supernatural thriller is the film 'mirrors' which i explained in a show and tell. However it does not just appeal to female audience - I am not sure what ideas to do for this brief as there is not a lot that hasn't been done before.
For our briefs for our coursework of a film opening title sequence, we were given four briefs to choose from. Personally, i liked the idea of briefs 3 and 4 the most, but also thought about having a go at briefs 1 and 2 aswell. When first hearing about the four briefs i instantly got ideas about each, but for my main title opening sequence i am thinking about using animation on after effects, or using machinima, rather thanfilming an actual scene, as this seems personally more suited to me and would be a good way to do an opening sequence.
Film Brief 1 A mainstream action film that will appeal to 15-25yr old males Your film should appear to be based on a "fictional" comic book Example - Batman (Tim Burton, 1989)
For Brief 1, i believe i would find it quite hard to do as a male would know more about their audience and what would appeal to their age group. However i do have some ideas about this brief which i think could be effective. My first idea is of a new superhero, in contrast to Batman, Spiderman etc. I would not want to do the cliche of a superhero film where the superhero has amazing powers and helps to save the world etc as i would feel this is not my own idea. I think an idea of a superhero is good, and - something that would benefit their lives substantially but would not help them astonishingly save the world etc.
My other idea is similar to the idea of Spiderman, an ordinary person from an ordinary background inheriting power from some source, for example from their parents, and then the characters lives change in a massive way.
The second idea is similar to the film 'wanted' where the main character is just a normal everyday character. He then gets extraordinary knowledge or power from a source and then his life changes immensely. For example, the character could learn how to become a millionaire etc and then when rivals see he starts to make money, he is targeted and this is when the action is involved. This idea seems good and i could do the title opening scene in after effects, i would not necessarily have to film the opening sequence. A good example of a millionaire storyline is the new movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' below. However, the brief states there needs to be action so i could use the storyline as a base and work from it, modify it until i have a storyline i would be happy with and that would suit the brief.
I liked this film 'Momentum' for a different reason to 'Missing Pieces'. The reason is that similar to missing pieces, the titles are plain, a plain colour and plain font, but the idea is different. The idea is more storylike, telling a story of the film while showing the titles. Whereas missing pieces showed you a story of the film but it was not as clear and vibrant as this one.
I also find it interesting how 'Momentum' matches the whole idea of the film, as 'momentum' means something building up, getting stronger etc, for example 'the music gained momentum.' In the short film opening sequence, you get a lot of noises, and you notice they are all amplified and louder than normal. You get them building up until there are various noises eg. the clock and the bed springs etc and this obviously is shown as part of the characters mind and what he hears - therefore we are in his point of view. I also enjoyed the way the footage would overlap, for example you would get a shot of something and then another piece of footage would come in and slightly overlap, starting as transparent to more vivid and then you would see this piece of footage. I liked this idea and it looked yet again very professional.
You can see the video is planned extremely well, and that Hurtwood House have planned the four aspects very effectively, mise en scene for example, we see a man in black clothing, suggesting his melancholy mood, in a rather plain, boring room - suggesting the atmosphere. We see they have thought sound through, one sound starting and then getting more sounds coming in, and this is one of the best parts of the sequence as it sets the scene and helps the viewer to understand what is happening. The editing is excellent, like i explained the way the footage overlaps etc, and the camerawork is effectve, good use of long establishing shots, close ups etc.
Here is a video i enjoyed from Hurtwood House, after looking at a few, i found one called 'Missing pieces' and found this very intriguing. I liked the vast visual effects used and you could see they were very advanced, they looked like they had been done of after effects, but looked very complicated. I liked the way the title linked with the opening sequence, as 'missing pieces' refers to missing pieces of a puzzle, and when you watch the video the footage is in a piece of a puzzle. I found this very advanced and hopefully would like to do this is one of the videos we make!!
I also enjoyed the music, it was a slow beat that blended excellently with the opening sequence. It was just a simple beat, which went well with the advanced effects. The titles were simply plain white, and were in a simple font eg. helvetica - therefore being easy to read. These titles are therefore in juxtaposition with the effects as the titles are simple in contrast to the effects used.
The opening sequence is not very long, but while simultaneously attracting you as a viewer, the video also makes you want to see the actual film. Overall, what i like most about the opening sequence is the effects, as they look very professional and advanced - and this intrigues you and makes you want to watch more.
You can tell the four aspects of film were planned extremely well, use of mise en scene ( e.g the costumes to establish class, smart suits etc), the editing (use of advanced 'puzzle' visual effects), the camerawork (lots of angles, e.g extreme close up of girl's face to show emotion and long shots to establish location) and finally the sound, (a very calm beat which is simple and simultaneously builds suspense and blends with the footage.)
In pairs, we were asked to each look at a thriller opening film sequence by Long Road media students. We were each given a certain film to analyse, from groups of four. Mine and Matt's student film was the group R249 and was titled 'Enigma'.
We had to analyse the blogs and videos, identifying the good and bad aspects. We noticed they had only posted a total of 9 blogs between four of them, that is 2 each! in a month's long project, so therefore there could have been more work on the blog in terms of posts. The animatic storyboard they had made was effective and you could see they planned it well and did a good overview, but in he actual end opening film sequence you notice it had been modified a lot, and they did not explain why they modified it which i think would have lost them some marks. While reading through the blog, the title planning is effective and you can see they have actually thought through their ideas.
What also worked well was that they did an analysis of a title opening sequence which they liked, which was seven. This was a good base to start from and therefore shows that they have a starting point. However from the end video you can see they have copied some of the ideas from seven, e.g the newspaper cuttings out etc and it would have been more effective if they had used their own ideas and been creative. The props were well thought through aswell as the mise en scene of a thriller, and you notice they have researched the general ideas of a thriller all the four aspects, camerawork (for example use of angles, close ups), mise en scene (scissors, knife etc) sound (dramatic music) and editing (flickering, fast paced shots).
The filming and location ideas were planned really quite well, they planned to do filming in the janitors room because it was dark etc. Although there was the majority of all the different aspects planned, which was done well - there was not a lot of research at all or planning about these aspects, there was a little - but they would need more planning/research in order to get a higher grade. There is only 9 posts in total which is not that many at all for a group of 4 - there would need to be a lot more analysis for a higher mark on the research and planning and the blog.
The actual video was very effective, but the juttery titles were very hard to read, i know this was an effect they were trying to create due to a thriller and the stereotypical titles, but it did make the titles hard to read and this was quite agitating. Also, the shots were far too dark to see what was actually going on and perhaps they could be a bit lighter, in order to understand the films more. I know dark shots is also stereotypical of a thriller sequence but they could have been lighter. They planned the titles effectively, and thought about different ones, using words from the dictionary etc.
However overall i believe the video was a lot more effective than the planning part, and we were then asked to give grades for what we thought would be the appropriate grades. I believe the planning/research on the blog would recieve a 12 at the very most out of 20, as they did not post alot, although there were all the aspects covered, they were not covered enough to get a higher mark. I believe the video would recieve about 42 out of 60, as it was very effective, but it would have been better if they used their own ideas and not copied some of the ideas from Seven, and also with a few tweaks here and there i believe it could be better and recieve perhaps a 48 (A grade.)
For my logo idea, i immediately thought of a logo i had made already in year 11. It was for graphic design and i thought this would be the ideal logo to use for creative media. As you can see from the picture, the logo has photography written across, in the camera area, i can easily change this to creative media.
I also printed the logo onto a t shirt which i could also use. Luckily, i did not print photography on the t shirt so this could easily have creative media printed on it. I thought this was a great idea for my logo as it could also be easily put onto the computer, as it has 3 or 4 layers and could be done in final cut, after effects or photoshop.
Using all my own work, i believe it will be quite easy to create the logo as i do not breach any copyright laws or use anything that belongs to anybody else. Also, the logo is quite simple and due to it not being complicated, will be able to hopefully work on it and finish it pretty quickly.
Here is my individual Long Road Ident, which we did today in Nick's lesson, to practice on after effects and to also have an individual logo to put on the front of each of our videos that we make for the Creative and Media Diploma. I think this is a good idea so that we can be individual and when we make a video we will be recognisable by each of our logo's.
After analysing the DreamWorks Logo, you can tell there any many different layers on the picture, and it has been clearly edited with a photo editing programme. There are four layers i believe overall, and in my opinion i believe The Dreamworks logo features a young boy sitting on a crescent moon, with the night sky behind him, he also appears to have a fishing rod too. The SKG text below the DreamWorks text represents the three producers, Steven spielburg, Jeffrey Katzenburg and David Geffen, using the initials of each of their last names.
The first layer is obviously a night sky and is used as a background layer and obviously the main layer. The next layer looks like the crescent moon, and it has been added to the night sky, or maybe was already in the picture of the night moon. Then the third layer is of the boy, sitting 'on top' of the moon, with the fishing rod in his hands. We then get the final layer of the text DreamWorks and SKG.
While looking again through my two clips, i decided to do the opening scene on 'catch me if you can' rather than 'Die Another Day' because James Bond one would have been easy to find and it would be interesting to find out about a film i have not seen. While watching it again, i noticed the names of these companies:
-Dreamwork pictures -Kemp company and splendid pictures production -Parkes/Macdonald production -A steven speilburg film
I recognised Dreamworks straight away, as they are quite a popular and well known company, there are two types of Dreamworks, Dreamworks animation and Dreamworks pictures. Dreamworks animation have produced films such as Shrek, Shrek 2, Shark Tale, Madagascar, Over The Hedge and Shrek The Third. Thiks animation and Dreamworks pictures. However dreamworks pictures have produced films such as 'American Beauty' 'Gladiator' and 'War of the worlds'.
DreamWorks, LLC, also known as DreamWorks Pictures, DreamWorks SKG or DreamWorks Studios, is a major American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games, and television programming. It has produced or distributed more than ten films with box-office grosses totalling more than 100 million dollars each. Its most successful title to date is Shrek 2.
DreamWorks began in 1994 as an ambitious attempt by media moguls Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen (forming the SKG present on the bottom of the DreamWorks logo) to create a new Hollywood studio. On the 'Catch me if you can' opening sequence it says 'A steven Speilburg film' so this is probably who out of dreamworks that produced it.After researching, i found this information:
The Dreamworks film 'Catch me if you can', directed by Steven Spielberg, tells the true story of Frank Abagnale (Leonardo), the youngest man ever placed on the FBI's MOST WANTED LIST. Abagnale becomes a successful con artist, and cashes over 2.5 million dollars in forged checks. Along the way he impersonates an airline pilot, an FBI agent, a doctor, a lawyer, and a sociology professor. It is based on the book by Frank Abagnale. The film was produced by:
Barry Kemp executive producer
Daniel Lupi co-producer
Laurie MacDonald executive producer
Devorah Moos-Hankin co-producer
Walter F. Parkes producer
Anthony Romano executive producer
Michel Shane executive producer
Steven Spielberg producer
Since the executive producer is Barry Kemp, i assume this is where 'Kemp company and splendid pictures production originates from. Also, as Laurie Macdonald and Walter F. Parkes are the producers, this is where Parkes/Macdonald production also originates from.
