Evaluation - Part 8

part 8 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Overall, I think that the creativity of our title sequence was very successful because within the class everyone did different genres so there was a lot of variety. Also within our title sequence, we didn't stick with the typical horror look and went for something completely different which people enjoyed. I also feel like this tittle sequence hasn't been made before for the genre it is in. When planning this title sequence, we had a look at true stories of young boys going missing around 1960's and decided we wanted to base our title sequence on a true story that we have found about a boy going missing. Personally, I think that this research wasn't done by many people so it was successful in this way. To improve on our title sequence I think that more images and footage could've been added if we had more time to shoot which would add to the narrative and make it clearer for our target audience. In my opinion, I think that our filming was successful even though we had to re shoot some parts, however the parts that we didn't have to re shoot we used in our title sequence and many people liked these shots. 

Most of our feedback that we got when first showing our title sequence explained that they thought the font was too child-like and that something more simple would be much more effective. After listening to this feedback we changed our font to something more simple as we saw that similar to ours had the same kind of font which made the whole title sequence more effective and appealing to our target audience. 

Evaluation - Part 7

Part 7 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

When talking about technology that is involved with pre-production, production and post production we decided to use a mini Nikon camera to film most of the parts of our title sequence. With some shots in our title sequence, we used an iPhone because with this type of phone they can shoot in slow mo already and this is what we wanted to do. When we editing our footage in post production, we decided to use Mac computers so we could use a software called Final Cut Pro to edit our footage. These decisions were made because this was the easiest way to edit and film our footage. We also made the decision to use a Nikon camera because the quality of the footage would be better than if we used a normal camera. We needed a camera that shot in better quality as most of our shots had to be focused so the audience could get a better idea of our narrative. 
We used the Mac computers when editing all of our footage, with these computers we could access the internet so we could look for font and music and that we wanted in our title sequence. When filming our title sequence, we used a TV as we wanted to project a news report off of it. This TV was used right at the start of our filming process. There were many things that were successful when we were using new technology in the production process like the quality of our shots were good as we used a professional camera. I think there were many things that were less successful when filming our title sequence. For example, when filming our shots there were many that had to be re-shot which took up a lot of time but once we re shot them they looked a lot better than the original ones. As I have never media before it was a chance for me to get familiar with this technology and it helped me know how to use software like Final Cut pro etc. 

Evaluation - Part 6

This is a voice recording of my evaluation - part 6.

Evaluation - Part 5

Part 5 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our title sequence would appeal to people 15 and over because many people of this age enjoy this horror and find it appealing. However, our title sequence may appeal to people older than 15 years of age because our title sequence creates mood and atmosphere and has a dark narrative attached to it. Also as our chosen director is David Fincher and he usually directs films that appeal to an older audience, many social groups older than 25 may find our title sequence film appealing to them. As our title sequence is about a kidnapper there isn't a clear representation when it comes to social groups. In media and film, kills are always being researched into and you find that most films have some sort of killer that appears in the film whether it being someone who in jail/prison because of killing someone or actually looking for a killer. Our film isn't exactly about a killer which is why we haven't put in the horror category and we have classed it as a physiological/mystery. It is also hard for any particular social group to be shown in our title sequence as there are no characters that are shown in it.

Evaluation - Part 4

Part 4 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation - Part 3

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

Evaluation - Part 2

Part 2 - Who would be the audience for your product? 

Evaluation - Part 1

Part 1 - Brief 

Our brief that we were given at the start of this coursework was that we had to create a title sequence for a film idea that we would come up with and it could be for any genre of film. Our title that we chose for our title sequence is 'six small bones'. We chose this title because in our narrative the twin brother who is the villain in our story digs up six small bones to make it look like his nephew has died in a forest fire but really he has kidnapped his nephew. In our opening sequence, we decided to start it with the crackling of a TV and then it dissolves into a news report that we filmed in school and used one of our teachers. Then it cuts back to the TV crackling and our chosen music starts. The audience will see shots of a cemetery and a death certificate on fire all cross dissolved into one. There are then shots of one of my group member's mum and dad walking but all you can see is their feet and then there is a shot of a spade and digging up of mud. I then cross dissolved all these pieces of footage into one. There is then a shot of one of my teacher's washing their hands as they have mud on their hands from the digging up, then there is a shot of blood on the sink. There is then a shot of trees that we have speed to make it look like time has passed, then there is a shot of newspapers on the floor. It then cross dissolves into a window sill with frames on it and then next shot is one of the frames smashed. Then we have burnt a missing poster which is in our title sequence and then it cross dissolves into another shot of the sky which cross dissolves into a candle and when it gets blown out the title appears. 

I think that our sub-genre is thriller/suspense because the genre of our film is a thriller/mystery/crime. I would also say that our film has some psychological elements in it. This would mean that our film was a suspenseful thriller in which the conflict between the characters is mental and emotional rather than physical—until an often violent resolution.

Final cut of our title sequence.

This is the final cut of our title sequence which has all the changes we have made from the feedback we received from the class. We changed the size of the font and where we put it on the screen, and we also added in a black and white and colour shot so the blood was prominent. This title sequence is the final cut and our group and I know that there isn't anything else we need to change to our title sequence. 

What we did today? - 12/03/15

Today everyone in our media class showed their title sequences and so did we. We got some feedback from our class but din't get in on any sheets. Most people liked our typography that we chose but they thought that it was too big and too away the attention from the good cinematography we had. There were also some black spaces in our title sequence which we need to sort out when we edit again either tomorrow or Monday. Overall, there isn't anything major we have to change about our title sequence and overall the feedback we received today wasn't negative, it was mostly positive. 

Second rough cut for our title sequence.

This is the title sequence that we showed the class and the feedback that we got from it was that the music at the start didn't fade in and that is what we changed it to. Also there were some shots that I needed to edit and make shorter as our title sequence was longer than the expected time. 

Rough cut of our title sequence -

This is the rough cut of our title sequence and this was the first title sequence that we showed to our media class. From this rough cut we decided to adapt the our title sequence to make it look similar to the true detective title sequence by adding more cross dissolves between shots. Some feedback that we got from the class told us that we should have all of our shots in black and white.

What we did today? - 11/03/15

Today I completely finished editing our title sequence and we changed our font because of the feedback we got about it. I also edited the way our green-screen looked and changed the way the background was laid out. Many people in our class said that our font looked like it was from a funny horror film. To adapt to this feedback, I have changed the font to something more sophisticated as it suits the look that we want for our film.

Change of typography - why?

We have decided to change our typography because we showed it to many people in our class and they said that it looked like a childish horror font. So today I looked at other fonts like:

I was looking at these fonts because the class said we had to go with something that was plain but simple. They also thought that our original font that we chose took away the attention from our good cinematography that we have in our title sequence. Even though we looked at these fonts, these weren't the ones that we chose to add to our title sequence. The one that we did pick looked like this: 

This font was one of the ones that was used on Final Cut Pro but it did look like the font that we wanted so we went with this one. This picture shows what it looks like when it is on our title sequence. 

A title sequence that is similar to our title sequence

When finding ideas for our title sequence we looked at a variety of title sequences and trailers. One title sequence that we looked at was True Detective and this title sequence contained the cross dissolve that we had in our title sequence. Below is the True Detective title sequence:

True Detective is a police detective series and because of all the investigations that they part take in it it reveals both personal and professional secrets which is both within and outside the law. I decided to look at this title sequence because it used similar effects that we wanted to use in our title sequence.

Trailers that are similar to our title sequence

We looked at this trailer because I thought it was similar to our title sequence as it is a crime, drama, thriller. This film is about a private investigator named Matthew Scudder who is hired by a drug lord to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife. I also picked this film because of Liam Neeson. This is because he has been in films like Taken which was another film I researched into. 

Change of director - why?

Today my group and I decided that we needed to change the director of our film. Our originally director was James Wan but we thought as he has directed and producer scary films like insidious and paranormal activity he didn't fit the genre that our film was in. We looked at other directors like Pierre Morel because he directed Taken and that was a thriller. However he isn't a very known director so we thought he wasn't a good choice so we looked at the director of Prisoner which was Denis Villeneuve. I then looked at the past films that he has done and none of them relate to the genre we are looking into, so we decided to look into David Fincher and he has recently directed Gone Girl which is a crime/thriller and this is the genre our film is in. So my group and I decided to pick him as our director. 

James Wan was our old director of our film. 

David Fincher is the new director we have picked for our film. 

What we did today? - 10/03/15

Today I finished editing my title sequence and now I have all of our footage in the order we want it to go in. Once I finished editing our title sequence, I added a colour effect to each frame as we wanted our title sequence to have a black and white effect to it. This effect would make our whole title sequence have a thriller and mystery look to it and this is the look we would want to go for because this is the genre our film is in. Below you can see we have done all of our shots in black and white and this is an example: 

What we did today? - 09/03/15

Today we added the image to our green screen and added our text to our title sequence. Tomorrow my group and I will add the colour we want to our title sequence to make it look really old fashioned. We want to either put our footage in black and white or sepia. Below are some pictures of what I did today- 

What we are doing today? - 09/03/15

Today we are going to continue to edit our footage and hopefully add our image to our green screen. I have also added all of the text that we need to our title sequence and used a cross dissolve to make them fade and fade out. I have nearly finished editing our title sequence and all that needs to be added is the image to the green screen. I also need to add the different colour to each shot. I just showed our title sequence to our teacher and he liked it but thought some shots needed to be rearranged. 

Why did we use cross fade and slo mo?

When editing we decided to use the effects cross fade and slo mo because we looked at other title sequences like True Detective and that title sequence included a lot of slo mo and cross fade. We also decided to use these effects because it added more suspense and tension to our title sequence as a whole. I think we also chose to have most our shots in slo mo because when we were filming them, we already knew that this what we wanted to do. Also some of our shots that we filmed we thought would look better in slo mo. We also wanted to use the cross fade effect because we liked the idea of the audience seeing images and pieces of footage that were to do with our genre and narrative of our film. This effect then gave the audience snip its of what they could expect in our actual film. 

Burning our props-

These are the props that we used in our title sequence. When we made these props we decided to photo copy them so they went into black and white. We then gathered a black screen from one of the media rooms and took them into one of the science rooms so it was safe to set things on fire. We used matches, tongs and safety mats when we were burning our props. Below are the props that we photo copied: 

Below are the results of us setting these on fire. Once we did this we edited them into our title sequence.

Once adding them to our title sequence we added a black and white effect to each piece of footage that we shot: 

Above are the shots that we used in our title sequence. The only bit of the burning props that we turned into black and white was the burning death certificate. We kept the missing poster in colour because we wanted the flame to be in colour and the missing poster to be in black and white. 

Filming our news report.

When filming our news report we filmed from different angles which was conventional of American news reports as this was where our film would be set. Below are pictures from the first time that we filmed our news report. As you can see we filmed the news report from different angles: 

Costumes

We didn't have much costumes in our title sequence as not many people appeared in it. But we did have a shot where we film one of us walking in the grass. The boots that we used were: 

Other than the boots we didn't use any other types of costumes. 

How we based our title sequence on a true story?

When we started thinking about ideas for out title sequence we knew we wanted to revolve our story around someone going missing. So when we were looking for ideas we researched on the internet loads of missing boy cases. We then found one boy called Etan Patz who is the boy that we have on our missing poster that we used to burn. He disappeared in 1979 which was the time that we wanted to set our title sequence in. We decided to base our title sequence on a true story because it would make the film more interesting and the audience would be intrigued in our title sequence. Below is a picture of the missing boy we based our narrative on:

What will we do tomorrow?

What will we do tomorrow?

Tomorrow we will continue to film and edit our footage. We will also add all of our typography to our title sequence and hopefully by tomorrow we will be finished with our title sequence. We will also go through all our new footage that we have shot and see if any shots need to be re-shot. 

What we did today - 04/03/15

Today we showed our title sequence to our media class and got their feedback which you can see on another blog post that I have posted. Once that was finished we stayed behind after school and used one of our free periods to go through our title sequence and make the changes the class suggested to us. We also decided to film more footage so we can cross dissolve each piece of footage to make all of the shots flow. We got this idea from the title sequence for True Detective which was one of the title sequences that I researched into when starting this piece of coursework. From looking into this title sequence I liked the way all of the images flowed into each other and there were different backgrounds like buildings and taps etc. We wanted our title sequence to have a similar look to this so that is why we started to film more footage. 

Typography feedback

Typography feedback -

The feedback we got back about our typography was that most of the people we asked like the font that we originally chose for our title sequence but we wanted to have other fonts people could look at if they didn't think the one we chose fitted our genre. 

This is the typography that we have chosen to use in our title sequence and this is how the title will appear in our title sequence. Below are the other types of fonts I chose that I thought would go well with our genre: 

The reason we didn't pick any of the other fonts was because we thought they didn't suit our genre as well as the one we chose did. This is because we thought that most of them looked like they belonged in a horror film which isn't the same as our genre. But I liked the font that we picked because it looks formal but not too formal and its quite distorted which is something we wanted to portray in our title sequence. In our title sequence, all of our credits will appear on either a black screen we put in between shots or it will appear within some of our footage. When we start editing again tomorrow we will decide whether we want our typography on a black screen or on our actual footage. 

Animation

This is the animation for our title sequence. It is quite short but it isn't going to be this short and this just gives us an idea of where we want each shot to go. 

Improving on parts of our shots.

When we first filmed the sink scene that appears in our title sequence we had very basic shots: 

When we presented this to the class, we got feedback. Then we re-filmed this part of the title sequence and added a shot of our teacher washing his hands. We thought to include these kind of shots so the audience were put into the murders shoes and the title sequence just made more sense: 

These shots that we used had more tension added to them. When we were editing our title sequence we decided to make these shots black and white as it would add more suspense to our sequence.