EVALUATION - Question 7

EVALUATION - Question 6

EVALUATION - Question 5

How did you address/attract your audience?

We complete two interviews with two members of our year who filled some of the boxes for our target audience member. We interviewed them both for a sense of variation within the target audience with both of them not actually being our "ideal" audience member but having similar traits. There interviews are below:

Both interviews received positive feedback showing that our audience was attracted to the elements which we produced within our opening sequence. They both thought they would continue watching the movie after the opening sequence which proves our opening sequence is effective. We attracted our audience through many techniques within our opening sequence:

• The first was creating mystery, without this element of mystery the opening sequence will just reveal what is going to happen within the movie which then defecates the purpose of the actual movie. Our opening sequence revealed very little about the actual narrative of the film and merely introduced the main character and setting. The audience therefore has no idea what is going to happen and therefore wants to continue watching it.
• The next was a sense of escapism, fantasy films are mostly created to allow the audience a certain amount of escapism from the world. As our target audience are just about the enter exam season they are under a lot of stress and therefore will watch films in their break's from work as a means of escapism from the stress. We allowed this sense of escapism by creating a mythical world and making an interesting story line to draw the audiences mind away from other elements of life.
• We also attracted our audience through the fact that they could identify with the character as she is of a similar age, class etc. This allows the audience to identify with how the character is feeling by imagining themselves in the situation of the character. They may also have some kind of aspirations towards the character and want to have the adventure the character is having.

EVALUATION - Question 4

EVALUATION - Question 3

EVALUATION - Question 2

Question 2 from rebecky69

EVALUATION - Question 1

Final Product Opening Sequence

Here is the opening sequence we showed our class and took feedback on how to improve it to create our final cut of the product.

The only negative feedback we got on the sequence was that the font was too big however we showed to more member of the target audience who said they preferred it this size instead of any smaller and that the side did not detract from the overall opening sequence.

The only other thing we had suggested to us to do was to take the "and" out of the credit shown above. We completed this and now have our actual final product...

Here is our final opening sequence. Using the feedback we maintained from our target audience we sharpened up our editing, making the cuts smoother. We then added in black ink splodges over all of the text as suggested by a member of the feedback group. We also added the title which was selected by the audience and added this in instead of the title we had on our second cut. I am very proud of this piece of work and believe it is the best we could have done.

Storyboard Analysis

Storyboard from rebecky69

Bibliography for research and planning

Bibliography for research and planning

Name of Source	Hyperlink	What information was used	What post we used it on
(WEBSITE) Vimeo – The film before the Film	http://vimeo.com/60964497	The history of opening credits and how they have changed over time	The History of Opening Credits
(WEBSITE) Wikipedia	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_credits	Information on the history of opening credits	The History of Opening Credits
(WEBSITE) BBFC	http://www.bbfc.co.uk/	Requirements for each of the BBFC age ratings	BBFC Rating Analysis
(PDF) Market Overview by National Lottery	Already had it	Markey overview- who buys what and where do they buy it from	Market Overview SECONDARY RESEARCH
(Book) AS Media Studies Revision Guide	-	Theories of narrative	Theories of Narrative
(WEBSITE) Wikipedia	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_score	Film scores within film	History/ Elements of Film Scores

Analysis of Questionnaire - Audience Feedback on Opening Sequence

Here is my analysis on the feedback we got on our questionnaire about the film opening:

The Filled Out Questionnaires - Audience Feedback on Opening Sequence

I asked 16 students of different ages within the band of 14 to 17 and of different genders and ethnicity to watch our opening sequence. I then gave them the questionnaire we created for them to fill out. Here are the filled out questionnaires:

Mapping of Our Opening Sequence

Here is the mapping of our title sequence, showing all the credits which appear and what time they appear, they are based on the three title sequence which I looked at for part of my research and planning, especially Man of Steal which is a film I believe would be around the same budget of our own, if it were real, and contains similar elements such as CGI.
We selected the names which appeared on the titles by using a random name selector as well as the names of some of our friends. Overall there are 25 different credits which appear which is about the average for a movie of our genre.

Questionnaire - Audience Feedback on Opening Sequence

     After asking members of our target audience to watch our second cut of our opening sequence we asked them them to fill our a questionnaire. We chose a questionnaire as our form of feedback as it is quick and simple to fill out and does not require the audience to spend too much time giving feedback.

     We asked 8 questions which would help us to improve our product as well as make it more audience friendly. Here is an example of our questionnaire:

QUESTION 1

This question gives us an overview of what the audience thinks of the product as a whole, if they enjoyed it before we break it down into its different sections. Giving them simple numbers to circle will hopefully make it quick to fill out so the audience does not get bored while filling it out and gives correct feedback.

QUESTION 2

The second question focuses on the non-diegetic music within the opening sequence. If the audience does not like the score for the opening sequence I can go back and change parts of it to make it more effective. The lay out of this question is again simple and therefore allows us to understand the given feedback easily.

QUESTION 3

The third question is all about the editing, as this is only a second cut some of the editing is not on the dot and so from this we can see if the audience picks up on it and where I should tidy up the editing to make the overall sequence run far smoother. 

QUESTION 4

This question is focusing on the text on screen, making sure it does not detract overall from the entire sequence and the audience likes the fonts chosen and that they do not feel it detracts too much from the overall image. If they have any suggestions on the fonts and text on screen they can write about in in the feedback section at the bottom of the page (question 8).

QUESTION 5

Question 5 is a simple YES or NO question, by this point in the survey the audience may be getting bored of the same lay out of question and this is very simple to answer. Hopefully the audience will understand the opening sequence, however, if they do not we will have to reassess and possibly redo parts of our product. 

QUESTION 6

This question is again very simple, the aim of an opening sequence is to make the audience want to carry on watching the movie. If they do not the sequence is ineffective and can heavily effect viewership. We need to make sure our own sequence is enjoyable and makes our audience want to carry on watching. 

QUESTION 7

Question 7 allows the audience to help pick the font for our title, which we have still to do. This will make sure the title is attractive for our audience not just something we think is effective.

QUESTION 8

The final question merely allows the audience to give any written feedback or ideas to improve our product, we will take all of these into account and do any which are possible. 

Second Cut of Opening Sequence

Here is the next cut of our video, this time it has all of the credits in it. We will show this to our target audience and give them a survey to help us get feedback to improve it.
We may change around the fonts which we used or anything else people suggest. We still have to add a different font in for the title of the film. I may also have to change the edits to make it sharper and more professional looking.

Editing of Production Company Video Logo - Experimenting with Editing Software

Here is a video on how I created the production company video logo:

Editing of production company video logo from rebecky69

Here is the final product:

Logo For Production Companies - drawings and picking which one

I next created the logos using vector tools on the drawing program 'Serif DrawPlus X5'. We then printed these off and showed them to some year 27 11 students (13 boys and 14 girls). These people fit within our target age group and therefore their opinions can be used to represent the large majority of the target audience group although it may be an unfair representation of the target audience as it is only focusing on one specific age, however due to time and availability of people we are going to have to base our findings on these results. 

The results show that the most popular was the 'Cjai Productions' logo, many said it was effective as it was simple and easy to remember. The second popular was 'Lotus Pictures' mainly popular with girls with 6/8 of the votes coming from girls, many said they liked it as it was bright and drew their attention compared to the others while still appearing fairly simplistic. We will therefore be using these two logos within our opening sequence.

Logo for Production Companies Planning

Here are drawings of our initial sketches of what we would like our logos for our production companies to look like, we will be creating two of these one for our actual video. We will be asking members of our target audience which drawing they found best so that it appeals to them as a logo.

Lighting, Editing and Sound - Research

LIGHTING:

• HIGH KEY - The lighting is bright and relatively low in contrast. We will not be using this for our video as it meant to be dark and eerie which cannot be caused by high key lighting.
• LOW KEY - The lighting has much more pronounced shadows and dramatic contrasts. We WILL be using this for our opening as our aim is to create a scary looking setting for the opening. I will achieve this mostly using MoviePlus, editing the curves and adding shadow filters.
• COLOUR FX - Can include: Cold or blueish lighting (connoting cold or spookiness), Warm or yellowish (connoting comfort, eg- a beach or sunset scene), Black and White or Sepia. We may use the blueish lighting using MoviePlus to make the scenes look much spookier.

 EDITING:

• CONTINUITY EDITING - Film sequences normally follow this type of edit so that time seems to flow in a natural and believable way. Cuts will only be used as this gives a real life effect to the movie. Continuity editing can also include "cross-cutting" which is where a sequence cuts between two different pieces of action happening at the same time. But it still has to maintain the seamless flow of action. As this is commonly used in film our opening will be done in continuity editing, however, we may use a fade to make it slightly more artistic and abstract as some opening sequences are.
• MONTAGE EDITING - Opposite, the cuts are normally noticeable and does not represent the seamless flow of time. It can use juxtaposition of images to create contrast and give an artistic feel.

• CUT - One image is instantly replaced by another without a viable transition. We will maritally be using these are they are require for continuity editing. 
• CROSS - DISSOLVE - One image dissolves into another. 
• FADE UP - An image fades in from black. We will be using one of these at the beginning from black into the production companies logo's.
• FADE OUT - Fading out to black, this will be used after the production logos between each one to make it flow.
• WIPE - One image replaces another, where the border between the image moving across or around the screen. 

SOUND:

• DIEGETIC SOUND - Sound that seems to be part of what is going on on the screen. For example, thunder, cars, footsteps. We will be using this for bird noises and other sounds which part of the action.
• NON - DIEGETIC SOUND - Sound that is not part of what is going on on screen. For example a soundtrack, we will be using a soundtrack for our opening sequence. 
• SOUND BRIDGE - Linking two scenes together by sound. For example we around going to use bird noises to link a production logo to a shot of woods.
• SOUND EFFECTS - Sound which is added on top which is not dialogue and music. Sound is added during the post production stage using Foley. We will be doing this with all of our diegetic sound, for example bird sounds.

Analysis of non-diegetic soundtrack music

After finishing the soundtrack and converting it to an MP3 file I then went through it and described why there were peaks in the music. I had also added in foley diegetic sound, for example birds and the sound of her walking through a puddle. I may be adding in foley sounds later on top of this.

Here I am going through the main peaks in the music:

Creating Our Non-diegetic Soundtrack

I wrote and produced the piece of non-diegetic sound we would be using as a soundtrack. I did this by going to Langley Boys School and getting my friend David who studies music tech AS level to aid me in using the software. I used Logic which is a music writing and recording device. 

This whole process took me 3 lots of 2-3 hour sessions to finalize and convert to an MP3 to place onto my video. Here are some pictures, the first is from the second session and the second is from the third session. 

I spent the first day planning out roughly what I wanted. I inserted notes onto the video to show where I wanted the peaks to be. I then went about writing a small motif which would be repeated throughout. I then began recording.

The second session was spent mostly recording all the raw ideas, making sure they flowed together and I was happy with what I wanted, this took about 3 hours to create a rough draft.

I spent my final day polishing up everything and making sure the peaks in the music were lines up with the appropriate video. I also then added in some bird noises and other diegetic sounds. I finally double checked everything and then produced the file.

Here is our finished piece of music:

Jaws Film Scored Analysis

Here is one of the most famous piece of score music, it is a theme for the character of the shark in the film 'Jaws' written by John Williams. It is most well known for its simplicity and therefore how memorable it is. It was created to show the presence of the character of the shark. Motifs such as these are use very often in movies to show the presence of a character, the 'Jaws' soundtrack gives a sense of foreboding as the presence of the shark normally means an attack on people and so the audience quickly learns to get edgy whenever they hear this piece of music. The main "shark" theme, a simple alternating pattern of two notes became a classic piece of suspense music, synonymous with approaching danger 

Many other directors have tried to copy this idea within their own movies, to create such a powerful and effective piece of music to place alongside their characters as this soundtrack won many awards for its simplicity but effectiveness. It is because of this the movie is now known as one of the most effective movies of all time.

Technically wise the piece comprises of 2 shorts notes in minor going backwards and forwards in continuous rhythm on some kind of base or cello instruments. This creates a dark and mysterious sounding piece. It starts off quite slow and less repetitive and builds in both speed and repetitiveness, which makes it gain tension as the it reflects the shark approaching.

I will be creating our score for our opening sequence myself and therefore will be attempting to create a simple yet effective motif to represent my character.
Our character is very innocent and harmless and my soundtrack will have elements which will mimic this, using high notes on instruments such as piano create a very sweet sound to reflect her innocents. Contrasting with this I will produce heavier, lower notes, like the ones played in the 'Jaws' score to show the sense of threat this the character is facing.

The History/ Elements of Film Scores

The History of Music in Film

Before the 30's, all movies were completely silent. Music was then inserted into a film to make it more interesting sense wise it also adds depth to the image which appeared on the screen. Music was already a common element within theaters which were the previous form of entertainment before film. 
The majority of silent films were accompanied by anything from full orchestras to pianists. Many books were published about different types of music to play over a film to add to the mood.

During the 1930's music was established as a vital element within motion pictures as it showed more positive audience feedback. At the beginning, Western Classical Music from the 19th century was used played over films but after this people began to write more modern scores. One of the first original films scores written was for 'King Kong' in 1933. Later in the decade composers began to experiment and develop their own style, including creating hooks for characters and to support plot and story lines.

In the 40's, composers refined their expertise even more. There were many breaks in the barriers and traditions of film music. In the 50's, film music had completely changed with the introduction of jazz music, therefore music was less expensive to make as not too many musicians were not need as an orchestra was no longer needed. This carried on throughout the 1960's. The 70's passed with very little new innovation, things were perfected from the previous decades. Even current score writers, such as John Williams use these techniques.

In the 80's and 90's, the use of synthesized sounds in films became more popular. For the first time, it had become possible to scored a whole film with only one performer, using a synthesizer to produce the sounds of many instruments.

Today, with the development with new technology film composers have the ability to create the perfect score helping move along the movies plot and give characters different pieces of music (for example the sharks hook in jaws), this helps to enhance the film and turn it into an experience.

Elements of a Film Score

TEMP TRACKS
A temp track is an existing piece of music score which is used during film production during editing as it serves guidance for the mood or atmosphere. Composers for film scores are asked to imitate a specific composer or style present in the temp track. Some directors have become so attached to temp score that they decided to use it and reject the original score written by the film composers.

STRUCTURE
Films often have different themes or motifs for important characters, events, story lines or peaks. These can be played in different styles depending on the situation they represent, scattered among incidental music. For example John Williams' score for the Star Wars saga, characters such as Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa have different motifs for different characters.

SCORE MUSIC
Most films have around 40 to 120 minutes of music. However, some films have very little or even no music whereas others have music running throughout. This types of music is called "diegetic" music as it is not part of the movie itself it is merely added on top.

How Did Our Filming Day Go - Video

In this video we discuss how our filming day went, we talk about what went well and what we would change if we were to re-film.

First Cut

Here is the first cut of our final opening sequence. It does not contain any of the title credits or music as of yet as I am still in the process of writing/ recording the music and we wanted to make sure the video was perfect before adding any of the credits.

Filming Schedule for Opening Sequence

Here is the basic filming schedule we used for our filming day of our opening sequence project. We kept to it most of the time, however, had to push back the final bit it filming as it was not sunset until around 3:15pm. That said the rest of it when to plan. 

Costume and Props for Opening Sequence

COSTUMES:

Here is the outline for our costume for our opening sequence. It is based on Little Red Riding Hood's costume. We decided to place the character in a white dress. The white connotes her innocents and how pure and vulnerable she is as a character. The white also contrasts with the dark greens and browns of the forest making her stand out and attract the audiences attention, here is the dress we shall be using:

We have also created a red cloak from material we found at a market, this is Little Red Riding Hood's signature piece and we therefore had to include it to create a fair representation of how the character should look. Red connotes danger which gives as sense of foreboding about what is going to happen to her, this makes the audience want to carry on watching so that they can find our what happens to her character. It also connotes the idea of blood and violence which also adds to the idea of the film containing elements of horror and violence. 

PROPS:

We will not be using that many props within our opening sequence however we will need the following:

- pack of fairy cakes
- a glass bottle
- red food coloring (for fake blood)

FAIRY CAKES
We will be using fairy cakes as a contrast against the eerie background, it represents the characters innocence and childish nature. It is also part of the original story that Little Red Riding Hood was taking cakes and wine to visit her grandma so this follows that idea.

A GLASS BOTTLE
Again this is from the original story as Little Red Ridding Hood was taking wine to visit her grandma. This contrasts with the images of cakes as the bottle will be smashed and covered in the red wine which will look strangely like blood reflecting the violent nature of the movie.

Shot List - Opening Sequence

Here is the shot list we used for our opening sequence, we printed it off and used it when we were filming to make sure we had filmed everything and without having to worry about getting the storyboard muddy, our filming scheduled was also based upon this.

SHOT LIST

LOCATION: Lloyd Park

PROPOSED FILMING DATE:

Shot no.	Actors	Equipment needed	Costumes	Other	Completed?
1a	-	Camera	-	Have the camera so that the trees are silhouettes against the sky
1b	-	Camera	-	Same as before
1c	-	Camera	-	Same as before
2a(i)	Chelsea – Little Red Riding Hood	Camera, tripod	Little Red Riding Hood costume	Have leaves in the foreground to make sure the credits can go on them.
2b	Chelsea	Camera, matt to put the camera on so it doesn’t get dirty	Little Red Riding Hood costume	Make sure the camera doesn’t get in the mud, sort out cape beforehand so it flows properly
2a(ii)	Chelsea	Camera, tripod	LRRH costume	Same as 2a(i)
2c	Chelsea	Camera, matt to put the camera on so it doesn’t get dirty	LRRH costume, black boots	Make sure the camera doesn’t get in the mud, sort out cape beforehand so it flows properly, walk SLOWLY
2a(iii)	Chelsea	Camera, tripod	LRRH costume	Same as 2a(i)
3	Chelsea	Camera	LRRH costume	Lean in to where her hand is slightly as if she had moved the camera
4a	Chelsea	Camera, tripod	LRRH costume	Move the camera slightly on the tripod to make it look like there is movement
4b	Chelsea	Camera, tripod	LRRH costume	Make sure the camera has a gap next to her head in frame for credits, make sure it all flows when editing, overlap – long fade onto next shot
4c	Chelsea	Camera, tripod	LRRH costume	Use really nice framed arch, have this as a long fade from the previous shot
5	-	Camera	-	Rising up through the undergrowth, to reveal the wood
6a(i)	Chelsea	Camera. tripod	LRRH costume	Make sure the cape is flowing correctly, depending on the wind
6b	Chelsea	Camera, make sure the claw marks are carved into the tree	LRRH costume
6a(ii)	Chelsea	Camera, tripod	LRRH costume	Same as 6a(i)
7	-	Camera, tripod	-	Leaves!
8	-	Camera, tripod	-	Leave enough room within frame for the credits
9a	-	Camera	-	Remember fairy cakes! Prop them up against the branch, remember to pin them down if they don’t stay
9b	Chelsea	Camera, tripod	LRRH costume
10a	Chelsea	Camera, tripod	LRRH costume	This park of the ground is very bumpy so make sure the tripod is secure
10b	Chelsea	Camera, tripod	LRRH costume	Move camera slightly to show she is out of breath from running
10c	Chelsea	Hand held camera	LRRH costume	Make it look like you are someone sneaking up behind her, music has to fit
10d	Chelsea	Camera	LRRH costume	Close up of her looking over
10e	Chelsea	Camera, possibly tripod but dependant on grounding	LRRH costume	Over the shoulder
10f	Chelsea – point of vide shot	Camera	LRRH costume	Hand held so show the character looking up and down at the sound she heard
11a	Chelsea	Camera, remember to place fake blood on the branch before recording and use floor matt	LRRH costume	FAKE BLOOD
11b	Chelsea	Camera	LRRH costume	Un focus to focus on her hand to reveal what she can see, shaky to show the tension building
12a	-	Camera, glass	-	Break glass and put fake blood on
12b	-	Camera, glass	-	Same as before
12c	-	Camera, cake	-	Place muddy fairy cake in the ground, remember floor matt to keep the camera clean
13	-	Camera, tripod	-	Make sure the sun is in front of the camera to make it look better
14a	Chelsea	Camera, hand held	LRRH costume	Long shot, completely hand held to show her running away into the sun to give a blinding effect
14b	Chelsea	Camera, tripod (low down)	LRRH costume	Looking up on her to show the slightest sense of power- challenging stereotypes
14c	Chelsea	Camera, tripod	LRRH costume	Careful attention to editing – make sure she appears to be a silhouette
14d	Chelsea	Camera, tripod	LRRH costume	Close up, slow mo a lot as a final shot