Production Diary no.1

Since the main role - Rizwana's character Aara, wasn't here today, we decided to shoot the shots where we felt she didn't have to be in it:

Kate opens door

Kate finds lipstick

Girls about to walk out of toilet

Kate comes out

camera person of the day: Jessica

Create a sound track [UPDATE]

Responding to Dan's feedback, we looked at some more song choices that we felt were more girly, and possibly better fitting for our title sequence. We all considered the instrumental for the song "Bang Bang" by Ariana Grande:

We also looked at:

Iggy Azalea's "Fancy" featuring Charli XCX (from when the clapping beat starts)

and

"Sugar" by Maroon 5 (from when the beat starts)

additionally, in the beginning, this was also a consideration for the title sequence's soundtrack, since it's quite a fun and light beat, like we want our audience to perceive our High school comedy drama

 or 

Upon editing the clips that we do have, we will decide on whether to keep our original sound track or choose one of these girlier instrumental sounds.

40. Revisions to pitch and final decisions in light of feedback

We received both positive and negative feedback. However, the negative feedback will help to improve our pitch. We need to revise our pitch and make some changes as a result of the feedback.

Positive Feedback:

• The basic idea of our story is good - a high-school drama focusing on three girls. It's different to what most of the class is doing. This gives us our unique selling point (USP).
• The storyboards are very well drawn and planned.
• Fox Searchlight Pictures is a very good choice.
• Our animatic  on Final Cut Pro

Constructive Criticism:

• The storyboards are good, but there are a few suggestions that can be added to improve them.
• The shots of the girls getting ready in the college toilets could be changed to them getting ready at home in the bathroom of one of the girls.
• Flashbacks are hard to incorporate into our film, and our audience may not understand that it's a flashback. If we intend on keeping the flashback we must make it clear for the audience i.e. voice over. The idea of flash-backing  out of the sequence then flash-backing back in could complicate our opening sequence, so it would be good to add it at the end.
• When we talked about representation we didn't quite differentiate between different social groups and character types, which are two different things. Our social group, in terms of our ethnicity, class, gender, and so on, is different from someone who is a bit nerdy and cheeky.
• Make the soundtrack more girly, more feminine and indicating fun.

 Final decisions in light of feedback:

• Few suggestions that can be added to improve the storyboards.
• The shots of the girls getting ready in the college toilets could be changed to them getting ready at home in the bathroom of one of the girls.
• Add flashback to the end of the opening sequence.
• Differentiate between different social groups and character types properly.

39. Pitch Feedback

Video of our Pitch

38. The Pitch

Risk Assessment

During pre-production and post-production, we need to make sure that we cover:

• placement of equipment - we don't want anyone to get injured by any wires, or heavy instruments.

• noise - we need to ensure that we can still hear diegetic sound whilst shooting as we don't want to only rely on non-diegetic sound in post producting/editing.

• Storage - we must ensure that all of our SD card(s), video drives and memory sticks are stored in a safe and easy to remember place at ALL times, and backed up to other devices in case of malfunctions, corruptions or any other technical difficulties.

37. Brand your blog visually

The design of the blog has been carefully thought about. We chose a design that is aesthetically pleasing for teenagers. The wooden floorboards background is very gender-neutral, and its design is both simple and eye-catching. It's not over-complicated with colours (so doesn't distract you from the content), but it isn't colourless either. 

We chose a banner that shows a young boy and girl sitting on a car, talking and enjoying themselves. As the boy wears Nike and the girl wears Converse trainers, it highlights that our blog is targeted at youth, as these are popular brands amongst teenagers and young adults. We chose fonts that are messy and very free, something a teenager can relate to, when writing classwork or homework - in addition to this, using this messy font gives our blog the feel of classwork. So, considering our film is set in a high-school, we think this font - as well as the background and banner - is quite suitable for our blog overall.

29. Create a sound design

We want to wait till the filming process starts, but we are looking to include some of the following sound effects - all free and non-copyrighted by users:



We think that, to make it seem as realistic as we can,  it is essential to layer the sound of people talking and walking in and around the institutional building - as it is what we expect in a High School drama. Also, we probably won't hear Kate's character opening the door over the noise, so we should layer that on top of the actual sound, too.

Num. of shots in a title sequence

To get a better understanding of dealing with the camera work of a title sequence, I watched the title sequence of Pretty in Pink. When watching this, i was counting the number of shots used which came to a total of 53 shots. As it is a high school teen movie, there are a range of shots used to show relationships with people and the location in which the movie is shot (establishing shots). I also analysed the way in which a shot is presented for example the different angles used.

This has given me an idea and a better understanding of how camera is used in title sequences, especially high school dramas and will use this knowledge when creating a title sequence within my group.

27. Sound Planning and Editing

On behalf of the group, I scoured Youtube to find a sound that showcased the right kind of mood we wanted to create with our High School teen movie, so I searched '"Funky hip-hop instrumental 2015" and found the perfect non-copyrighted soundtrack for our title sequence:

Using GarageBand, I trimmed sections of the song, and made it a total of 2 minutes and 57 seconds. At the end you also hear a school bell ring - which is where the screen transitions to black:

...

Using Social Media when filming - Twitter Feed

https://twitter.com/Group31_

Tweets by: @Group31_

19. Summarise how to create sound tracks in Garageband

34. Production Schedule

17. Practical Remake Activity - Evaluate your sequence

How easy or difficult was it to create the title credits?

• Motion is a pretty straightforward software that is easy to use. This meant creating the title credits was easy. The biggest problem was probably choosing a template that our group could agree on.

What decisions did you make when deciding on the font, typeface and size of titles?

• Font, typeface and size of titles play a major role in the success of an opening sequence. We chose a simple, minimal and plain font to not over-complicate the opening sequence with an over killed style. Complicated fonts and typefaces being used in an opening sequence could very well put the audience off the film. This is because an opening sequence is intended to engage the audience at the start of the film, but if the opening sequence is not engaging it could very well do the opposite of the deliberate effect. We chose a titles size that wasn't too big, nor too small. We made it big enough to be seen, but we didn't want to make the font too big as we thought it would look unappealing for the audience.

How successful is your choice of font? Does it suit the tone of the film?

• Teenagers are portrayed as living an easy life, and the simplicity of the font represents the easy life lived by teenagers. We think the choice of font is partially successful because it's easy to read and wouldn't over-complicate the opening sequence. Simple fonts can be engaging, but not super-engaging, which creates a balanced effect. This means it's engaging to an extent and the audience is engaged, but not overly engaged. When we look at the font again we see some aspects that suit the tone of the film. However, our discussions final conclusion was the font didn't suit the tone of the film. We could have used a more messy font style to hint that the film had a relation to teenagers and high-school dramas. This is because teenagers are associated with being messy and we came to the belief that a messy font style could portray this.

If you were to complete this task again, what would you do differently?

• If we were to complete this task again we would use a different font style for the titles. We would choose a font style that is relevant for a high-school teen drama film, such as a messy font, and could hint a relation to teenagers.

24. Shortlist of font styles and typeface you would like to use

Source: http://www.1001fonts.com/messy+headlines-fonts.html?page=1&items=10

Source: http://www.1001fonts.com/messy+headlines-fonts.html?page=3&items=10

These font styles are under the category 'messy, headline fonts'. We are attracted to and would like to use the following fonts:

• PWBella
• Vtks Pedra Bruta
• Vtks Scream
• VTKS mural
• At risk youth
• Komika
• Tag Hand Graffiti Trash
• Dirty Deb Handink
• SF Grunge Sans

We like these font types because they look suitable for a High-school  teen drama. This is because these font types are messy, which can be associated with teenagers. A major characteristic known to be possessed by teenagers is being messy. These font types can hint a link to high-school teen drama for the audience.

35. Completed Framing Activity

26. Extension Activity - Titles in Motion (rough draft)

Titles in Motion

Directed by

Produced by

Starring

Music by

Storyboards by

These are videos of titles in motion.

36. Animatic storyboard [Rough]

Using Final Cut Pro, we cut each frame from our storyboard and made it into a video:

23. Institution Details:

Remake Activity - 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack - Garage Band

ERROR - video to be uploaded again shortly

21. Blogging - Health Check 1

Health Check 1

Feedback:

“well done on a solid blog so far. 14 posts at health check 1.You started posting a bit late - 5 December but there's a lot of good content on your blog. The posts on Art of the Title and the review of the titles in your favourite film is especially detailed. Good work - you also use a broad and interesting range of ICT, though you could experiment with some alternative software and even video blogging if you wish. Strictly speaking you should have a few more posts but there's some excellent well written work here so I've bumped your mark up slightly. I would say, please don't spend loads of time creating the perfect post - the point of blogging is it's responsive, up to date way of logging your decisions and planning - short blogs are fine as long as you've thought about what you want to say. Dan”

Targets:

·         Experiment with alternative software and try video blogging.

·         Don’t spend too much time on creating the perfect post – blogging is responsive, up to date way of logging your decisions and planning.

·         Do short blogs as long as I've thought about what I want to say.

25. Order of titles

We ordered the titles in a similar way to most movies, which always include the cast, directer, producer, music and make up

21. Health-check 1

Reviewed by Rebecca Morris:

15/20 - B grade

15 posts at health check 1. Great start Jess - well done. Your blog entries contain lots of detail and your ideas are expressed well. Your use of ICT is developing too. To improve: make sure that every blog post title starts with 'planning' or 'research' so that the moderator knows what stage you are at. Catch up with missing posts (favourite film / account of re-make activity from the end of last term). Look to develop your use of ICT more as we move into planning stages, using for example Thinglink, Timetoast and Camtasia.
Great work so far.

Mise-en-scene for High School Dramas- Ideas

The purpose of Mise-en-Scene is to basically set up the scene of the shot, and everything from the character's clothing to the design of the location to what props are being used are part of the frame of arrangement.

As our title sequence is based on a high school drama, there are many elements of Mise-en-Scene that are important to take in account when filming. This includes the location, props, costumes and lighting.

Location:

For our location, we decided to use small locations of the college such as the canteen and toilets to fit in well with our title sequence. As we are basing our title sequence on a high school drama, we thought it was appropriate to have our college settings as they share a similar link between american high school locations

College Toilets

Girl bedroom 

College canteen

Location/college 

Props:

To get a brief idea about the props we are going to use, we decided to have similar stylised props from a high school movie such as similar accessories. Shown below, are some props that we may consider using when creating our title sequence.

School Backpacks 

Fashionable bag

Lipstick 

Cell phone/ mobile phone 

Highschool textbooks 

Costume:

For costume we decided to keep the clothing for teens similar to american high school movies. This is great as it it gives our audience the idea of what type of sub-genre they are watching. This also gives us an initial idea of how our characters are presented.

Lighting:

To keep in with the theme of a high school drama, we thought it would be wise to have a bright lighting as many other high school dramas do the same. This lighting will also create the positive high school atmosphere and mood of the film unlike youth dramas that tend to have a lot of tension and conflict.

22. Initial ideas

Initial ideas

As a group, we have decided to produce a title sequence based on high school dramas. Our main inspiration comes from the High School drama, The Breakfast Club. This is because of the way the film clearly follows the connotations of a typical high school drama, and the way the audience can identify it as a teen drama, and is familiar with it.

However we have chosen to film a title over moving images, whilst a narrative plays. This is because we feel that this is the most natural way to open a scene, and that having a narrative play means the audience can get engaged from the very start. In addition, research from analysing past high school dramas shows that these types of teen dramas begin with this. The film itself does not have titles over moving images, and rather  titles over a blank screen, however titles over a blank screen tend to be quite tedious and uninteresting, and we really want to engage our audience.

To get a better understanding on what should be looking for, we found out some profile information which is based on the film The Breakfast Club

Our target audience is those 15-25, as the majority of our audience are mature we thought we should focus more on the mature factor of the movie. However, since it is a high school drama, we should also keep our audience entertained by mixing in funny, probably including some humorous looking shots in the sequence, like the film does.

INITIAL IDEAS - action behind titles

• Close ups and match cuts of students and objects within school environment
• Flashback/backstory to main character
• Pans of the inside and outside of building 
• Focus on one character / group of friends and the types of characters
• Focus on an object as it moves across and area or changes