JD - Final Film Opening - 'Uncaptured'

Here is the final version of our Film Opening:

SA - Evaluation Prezi Presentation

Link to Prezi Presentation

SA - Audience Research Proposal

For our audience research we are going to use a questionaire, this will be given out to people after we have screened our final film opening to them. We will then use the results of the questionaire to create visual representations of them using pie charts and then use these in our Prezi presentation. The images of the pie charts will be used in conjunction with text to explain the results and what they show to us on what people think of our piece and how it can be improved if we did it again.

JD, SA, RB - Evaluation Discussions

We have agreed to mainly use Prezi.com to compose our evaluation questions, we will include videos, text, soundbites, images and an appropriate colour scheme to match our film opening and be aesthetically pleasing to the viewer and so the issues we are bringing up in the presentation relate to our film opening.
We have answered the questions initially and will use these initial answers to develop our final evaluation on Prezi.com.

SA - Technical Editorial Changes

During our editing we have made lots of small changes to our two minute opening that make significant improvements to it.
- On the titles we used a fade in and fade out, they have opacity of 0%, then to 100%, then down to 55% then 0% again.
- On all the montage clips that aren't in the dark room, the saturation is down to 30%, which makes them almost black and white. This adds a sense of a flashback to the montage.- On the main title moved the music along so the 'boom' sound coincided with the appearing of the title, 'Uncaptured'. The title then fades out from 100% opacity to 0% gradually.
- For one of our opening titles we made our own logo for 'Candlewood Films'. We made up this name and to make the logo, we found a .gif image of a candle flickering. This would be the picture in our logo. We put the first line of text, 'in association with' into video 1, we then put the image directly over that title in video 2, then finally we put the 'Candlewood Films' text in video 3. This meant we could overlay all of the different part of the one title and they could be moved independently so we could position them where ever we wanted them.

SA - Titles for the Opening

For our opening sequence we need titles to go over the top of the footage, I have looked at the opening sequence of 'Seven' and 'Pulse' and i have noted down the titles they have on them. I have listed the ones that would be relavant to our film below:

- A Film by ..................
- A ............ Production
- Actors Names
- Title of Film
- Other actors
- Music by
- Edited by
- Director of Photography
- Producers (co and exec)
- Directed by

We will use some of these and make up names for the other titles. We feel this will make our opening more professional.
Below I have put the two Youtube videos of the opeing sequences to the films I looked at:

SA - Shooting on Location (LONDON)

On Sunday 14th we went up to London to film clips of crowds and our main character, for our montage at the start of our opening two minutes.
We originally planned to film in trafalgar square as there are familiar buildings and statues that will relate to the setting of the whole film. However when we arrived, there was a St Patrick's Day celebration going on in Trafalgar Square, with thousands of people. There was no way we could film in the Square itself, so we decided to find a less crowded place to film. We filmed some footage outside the Square of Nelsons Column and the statues, and then wandered around the outskirts of Trafalgar Square and filmed at places along the street.
We briefly went to St James Park to film some people and the main character. After that we made our way to a grassy bit next to Big Ben and The Houses of Parliament.
We shot a 13 minutes of footage and we feel that at least half of it is useful, but now it is just a case of finding the best bits of footage to use in our final opening.

SA, RB, JD - Shooting on location (ROB'S HOUSE)

Yesterday (10/3/10) we went to Rob's house to film in his attic, for the final part of our two minute opening. This part was where the main protagonist finds the camera that the whole film was about, we shot a panning shot, close ups and a rotation pan shot around the character from behind to front where we then flashed the camera. We will use this to flash to the title of the film, 'Uncaptured'.
We felt it was quite successful and we feel we have some good footage to use in our final piece.
We took some pictures of the location while we were there so show the sort of environment we were filming in, they arew shown below:

PUT PICS IN

SA, JD, RB - Freesound.org Clips

For our two minute opening we have to use copyright free sound, and these clips can be found on freesound.org. We searched for ambient music and mysterious backgropund music to use over the montage at the beginning. This music will help to add to the mysterious and enigmatic nature of the montage sequence.

SA, JD, RB - Opening Sequence Pitch Presentation

TWGSB Media Studies Task Pitch - Group 11

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SA - Dark Room Filming

In todays lesson, 5/3/2010, we are going to go to the darkroom in the art block and test out some shots and film some using the red light that is associated with the dark room. We will see how this light works with the camera and hopefully use some of these shots in the montage of our opening sequence.

SA - Another Change in Idea

We have again changed our idea about our opening sequence, we are now doing a more stylistic montage sequence at the start of lots of different images that give ideas about the films plot but with now real detail. We will show different shots of Trafalgur square and the dark room, we will show close-ups of photos being developed and picture being taken with the camera, we will also show the developed photos with the 'Missing' people burnt out of them. Over the montage we will have the titles and names etc, once the montage has finished the title. 'Uncaptured', will show up. Then it will fade to the main character in an attic unpacking boxes, he finds the camera, which the audience will recognise from the montage, then he will get called down stairs and it ends.

We have changed it to this as we feel a more stylistic and less continuity feel will be more suited to our style of film, also I feel it will be more unique.

JD - More Ideas for Opening Sequence

For the opening sequence I had the idea of including a flashback. If we showed the boy finding his grandads old 35mm, then as he picks it up there is a flashback to when his grandfather was using the camera. We could still use all our original ideas, such as the boy taking pictures of people and developing the pictures in the darkroom), but I feel that a flashback would make the opening more surreal and add more depth.

JD - BBFC Ratings

The BBFC states that for a 15 rated film:

Discrimination
The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour.

Drugs
Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances is unlikely to be acceptable.

Horror
Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadisticor sexualised. Imitable behaviour and dangerous behaviour should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised.

Language
There may be frequent use of strong language. The strongest terms may be acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Sex
Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context.

Theme
No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment isappropriate for 15 year olds.

Violence
Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely tobe acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable.

SA, RB, JD - Preliminary Task & Animatic for film opening

The Preliminary task helped us to get an idea of what kind of angles and camera movements we want to use in our film opening. This animatic shows our storyline and what kind of angles and camera movements we will use.

RB - Summary of Genre Analysis

To summarise the findings of our genre analysis we are going to be incorporating the dark and sinister moods of the horror genre however we will also be inegrating the low key lighting and the use of shadows that are familiar with the conventions of the noir genre. As our film will be set in modern times, we are hoping it will feel like the modern, yet noir/horror 'Momento', with some aspects of 'The Omen'.

Feedback #2

Well done - this is shaping up to be evidence of A grade planning. Keep up the good work.

SA - Ideas for Opening Sequence

Ive seen on horror films that the colour is sometimes drained out and I gave this a go on photoshop with some pictures. It is to do with the vibrancy, if you put the vibrancy all the way down if leaves some parts with drained colour and others in greyscale. I like this as it is a mixture of black and white and colour, which can help to highlight the important parts in colour.

SA - Possible Location

I found this tree tunnel over a road in Pembury and I thought it would be a good location.
Tell me what you both think.

SA - Audience Research - Survey Monkey

To conduct our audience research we will use surveymonkey.com to post up a survey and get people to complete it, which will help us gauge what our target audience likes and prefers. It will help us to advance our opening so that we go in a specific direction towards what our audience wants, as this is the most important thing when planning and making a film opening and film.

Here are some screen-shots of our survey on the website: