Audience Feedback – 1st edit

It is essential that Audience Feedback is carried out before my Final Edit is complete. This is so that any concerns or things in which I can improve, can be attended to before the Final Edit is handed in. This will ensure that it is the best it can be, and that it will appeal to the Target Audience of my film.

The things in which the peers who assessed my Opening Sequence were focusing on were:

• Titles
• Cinematography/Editing
• Introduction of Characters, Locations, Storyline, Genre and Enigma Codes
• Sound

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Titles

There were many things which were praised to do with my Titles. The order of the Titles was said to be very well done, with the clear progression in importance being a factor which appealed to the audience. This was also true for the Font, as it suits the genre and overall tone of the video, however one suggestion was to make the text either bigger or bolder in order to stand out a little more. Although I understood the audience’s concern, I was attempting to stick to the Conventions of Social Realism Films in which it is often that there are no Titles, other than the main one, and if Titles are present, they are very discrete and small to not attract any attention which could otherwise be focused on the screen work, which is believed top be the most important aspect of the films. The use of Intertitles instead of Overlay was noticed and proved to be an effective decision, as well as the alternate positioning of the titles, which were said to be good as they were not in the centre and therefore did not distract from the footage which would follow, although Movement within the Titles would add to the attractiveness of them. The way in which the Font Size varies is complimented, adding an aspect of thought to the design whilst still keeping it simple and understated.

The absence of Character Titles was commented on, which I aim to include, as soon as I can work out how to achieve the desired look.

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Cinematography/Editing

The Props involved with the Mise-en-scene is praised as they complimented the genre and help to identify it as a Social Realism, although the lighting is said to be too light, although I didn’t want to risk it looking to dark on screen and so I purposely filmed in lighter conditions. My wide range of camera shots were said to be effective, particularly the Close Ups and the POV shots which made the bleak start my Opening Sequence something more interesting to watch. During the section of the sequence where the boy is walking through the field, the Camera Movement and the inventive use of Camera Angles was said to be utilised, turning an everyday action of walking into something that looked as if it could be in a film. The slow pace was said to be appealing as it applied to the Conventions of a Social Realism Films, although a few of the shots were said to be too fast and could have been extended, such as the scenery shot where the boy is looking at his surroundings. My method of using a Transition as an alternate way of conveying that the film has jumped back in time and is starting at the beginning of how the boy left home, rather than using the classic Intertitle with 6 months earlier written on it, was said to be an elegant way in which to Transition between time periods.

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Introduction of Characters, Locations, Storyline, Genre and Enigma Codes

Characters

The Main Character was said to be introduced well with the majority of the Opening Sequence focused on him. Although some speech could have aided the introduction process and allowed us to get to know the character a little better, the use of Camera Shots such as the mixture of Long Shots to indicate his loneliness amongst Close Ups to allow the audience to see his facial expressions and empathise with him and his situation was enough to express the character. There are also some subtle features such as the cross on the boy’s door which indicate he is a religious person and may offer a more positive representation of the boy. However the parents had very little introduction and what we did see of them was a very Negative Representation, showing the families hardships.

Locations

The fact that his house looks fairly good makes the woods where he ends up look awful in comparison. The audience said that this makes them think about how awful his home life must have been in order to cause him to leave and end up in the woods. The Locations are Represented as very Negative places for different reasons, the boy’s home seems pleasant enough but due to his family who live there, it instantly makes the audience associate his home as a place of abuse. The woods however just seems like a lonely, damp, cold place and not a place that a young teenage boy should be living on his own.

Storyline

The Storyline is said to be very obvious from the outset, and it is easy to pick up what is going on. This is Conventional for most Social Realism Films and it is more about the repercussions of all of the events which pan out in the Opening Sequence in comparison to dramas which involve the guessing game as to why things have happened. There is not a lot I could improve on in the way of introducing the Storyline in the eyes of the assessor in this case.

Genre

The Genre is easily established as a Social Realism. It is said that the uncomfortable nature is an indicating factor, as well as the slow pace. This is then reinforced by the Storyline, with the more complex themes of abuse running through and emphasising that it is a Social Realism.

Enigma Codes

There are many Enigma Codes created in my Opening Sequence as I wanted to follow the Conventions of an Opening Sequence and not give too much away in the first 2 minute. The ones identified by my Target Audience were particularly those to do with the characters involved. The parents were mentioned, which would be introduced more in the rest of the film, but wonder of why they treat the boy the way they do was a big code. Others included why would the boy leave in the first place, and what happened to the other people in his life such as friends. My Opening Sequence is full one Enigma Codes.

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Sound

The sound goes well with the film. The emotive music fits with the events happening on screen, is allows the audience to identify that the character on screen is the Protagonist and therefore they should sympathise. The music has a good pace, fitting with the footage shown, the slow pace reflects the boy’s walking speed and it speeds up as he gets nervous before he sleeps out in the woods. The footage on screen could speed up along with the music and be a little faster. Another thing which was praised was the clarity of the characters voices a they spoke, everything was understood clearly. The Background Noise was commented on, not that it was bad, but that it was there, this was purposeful in order to have ‘home noise’ as the family home is rarely a silent place. The added effect that the sound of the boy being hit by his father adds is good. It highlights the abuse which is going on within the home and therefore enriches the sound.

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First Edit

Editing Process – Session 4

In this Editing Session I worked on finishing my Titles. I had to get the character titles to work and look how I wanted them to. This took the whole session. I attempted to get help externally but we just couldn’t figure out how we were going to make the titles work.

After a lot of playing around, I noticed that where the Titles were cutting out, it did so in a sort of squared way, and I realised what the problem was. The section of the video which I had was made to fit the whole screen, and therefore when I moved it over to the top corner, the black background was still there to fit the screen, and therefore covered the middle title and so on. This meant that I had to crop each of the videos so only the text would show and the background would still be black. This seemed to work, allowing my titles to look how I wanted them to.

After I had achieved this, it was the end of the session and I had to stop, although I still. had some things that I wanted to do, my Final Edit was coming along nicely and all I and all I had to do was sort out sound and carry on cutting my film down until it was within the allowance.

Editing Process – Session 3

In this Editing Session, I still knew that my Opening Sequence was too long, but to get the best out of it, I needed to get my Titles done, so those completing the Peer Assessment could give me feedback on my Titles.

 

I was a little unsure where to start and so I asked how others in the class had done their Titles, and a few said that they used iMovie and created a video of just the Titles, which you could then cut and select the section you wanted to put in that area of your Opening Sequence.

So this was the method I chose. I began by typing up all of the titles, making sure that I had all the ones which I had chosen before I began editing them. I then changed the font into my pre-decided Gulim, which was chosen between various different fonts in a short survey which I carried out with those in my Target Audience. I then wanted to change the appearance further, making the Titles look slightly more interesting, but in a simplistic way. I began experimenting with different sized fonts, making the ‘In association with’ smaller than the ‘Rose Films’, making it stand out against the less important information.

This is something that happens in a lot of opening sequences, to highlight information that is more relevant to the audience, such as Director. Although this change is stylising the titles, which is not a convention of Social Realism Films, who often don’t even have Titles, and if they do they are very basic, but I believe it enhances them, giving my Opening Sequence a more appealing look, necessary for the piece I am producing.

After deciding that I was happy with how my Titles looked, I then exported the iMovie file, and put it into final cut, ready to edit my Titles. This process was fairly lengthy, as I hadn’t realised before exporting that I had made the length of the titles too long, and therefore had to cut it, but I forgot that I wanted to include the fade effect that was on iMovie, and in order to do this, I had to put 2 halves of the clip together. One was the fade in, and the other the fade out, cutting out the section in the middle that I didn’t need, and made the title too long. However, once I had got the hang of doing it, and how long I wanted each half, it didn’t take me very long.

I then had some troubles. For my Character Titles, I wanted to have them fade in one by one, but be on the screen at the same time, therefore, taking less  than doing them all individually, and then fading out one by one afterwards. However, after I had finished editing the sections I wanted, making sure that they all had the fade in and fade out section, I had to layer them up so they were all on top of the other. This for some reason was problematic, and the titles ended up vanishing instead of fading in and staying on the screen at the same time. I could not figure out why, and I was running out of time before I had to hand in my First Edit, therefore, I decided to take them off so that I could show my Final Edit, without them messing it up, and I would try and figure out how to do it in the next session.

Editing Process – Session 2

At the beginning of the Editing Session, I needed to finish putting together all of the shots initially, so that I could begin cutting down and picking which shots I wanted to keep and which I didn’t need. So I finished selecting how much of the shot I was going to include to start with and then putting into Final Cut, developing my Opening Sequence. This took me quite a bit of time.

After my Opening Sequence was complete, with all the shots I had filmed, with my initial estimate of how long each shot would be, I found that I had to cut down my sequence by about a minute. This was quite a lot, although I had left room for cutting down, I needed to cut out whole shots altogether in order to accommodate the 2 minute brief.

Before cutting out any major shots, I just began to cut down individual shots in order to see how much I could get the time down to, and that was what the majority of the session was spent doing, playing through the shots and cutting where I could, so the shot still looked good and the narrative still made sense.

Filming Process – Session 2

I had managed to reschedule another filming time where both me and my main actor were free. Everything was organised, he was wearing his Costume, al the Props were ready and my camera had a full battery, we were definitely going to finish the scene that day.

We went straight into Filming, Refilming the scenes that we had managed to get through last time, since the Lighting was different and I wanted it to be as good as possible.  There were however a few Difficulties with my setting, as it was outside, it was absolutely freezing and we had to refilm quite a few shots because I kept shaking where my fingers were numb. As we were Filming in a Field, it was also very muddy, and there were a few incidents that me and my main actor slipped over half way through Filming, so the shot had to be Refilmed. We were very determined to get all the shots completed though, even if we had to go back and Refilm some at a later date.

I had my Storyboards to follow, although I filmed a lot of extra stuff for Continuity, and I fear that the Editing Process will be difficult as I have to fit in a lot of extra stuff. I may just have to cut bits out of the Narrative that aren’t that important, to fit with the 2 Minute Brief, but I will worry about that during the Editing Process.

Another issue I had was that the day that we were both free was an incredibly windy one. This meant that I had lots of Wind Noise in the background, even though I tried to prevent it as much as I could. Consequently, I may have to completely scrap the noise from the shots and just have my track playing over the action, otherwise the noise from the wind will be a distraction to the track and also the action.

Overall, the Filming Process was successful and we managed to get all the Filming that we needed to do complete. Although a Pickup Shot Session may be needed if i can fit it in with my actors. I’ll need to wait and see from the Editing Process and my Audience Feedback before I know if I need to sort a session out.

This meant that I did not follow my Production Schedule, but this was only due to the complications I faced along the way, it was still a good guide and a lot of help throughout the Filming Process.

Editing Process – Session 1

I am now at the Editing Stage of my Opening Sequence. I can however only edit the footage that I have been able to film so far, which is about half.

I began by identifying the shots that I actually wanted, as I had filmed the same shot several times because I was not initially happy with it. I then deleted those which I did not need. After I had only the shots that I wanted, I put them all onto Final Cut, so that I had all of the shots in one place, so didn’t have to keep switching back and forth to get them.

I began the Editing. I had my Storyboards next to me to check where each shot should be. I also checked timings, but I found that the timings I had originally chosen were not right and didn’t look good, so after that I just went with where I thought the shots should be cut. I can then adjust this after I have edited the whole thing, in order to fit with the 2 Minute Brief.

I didn’t have to add any Transitions in this Editing Session, this is because all of the shots require cuts to stick with the Conventions of Social Realism films. However, this may change when I add in my Intertitles, depending on whether or not I want movement on them, or if I want them to fade in and out, which will probably be the case. I will not think about this until the time comes when I am actually inserting the Titles.

After I had completed the majority of the editing, and created the section of my Opening Sequence that I had managed to film, I then watched it over to pick out any sections which needed to be edited further to improve the Continuity and cover any filming mistakes.

I found that I had left  Tripod in one of my shots by accident.

So instead of having to go and refilm the shot, I just covered it by cutting early. This covered the Tripod, as the boy is walking out of the room, past the camera, so before he actually passes, I cut the shot so he was blocking the Tripod. 

This did not damage the shot, i only took out a few frames so you could barely notice the difference, other than the fact that you can no longer see the Tripod.

Another section of Editing which took some time to do, was the synchronisation of the Match-on-Action and the slapping sound when the boy’s father hits him over the head, with the jerking head movement of the boy.

Overall the Editing Process has been going well, I need the rest of my footage in order for me to carry on though.

Filming Process – Session 1

I began by following my Production Schedule, starting with the filming for my House Scene. I was using all of my own equipment, which included a Camera and a Tripod, although I will not be using the Tripod very much as I want the footage to be handheld to give it a more authentic look, like the majority of Social Realism films.

The Filming Process went well and I followed my Storyboards, achieving the shots that I wanted. I made a few alterations and added in a couple of shots with would aid the Continuity of my Sequence, such as the entry of characters into the room.

One shot I had particular trouble with was the Over the Shoulder Shot of the boy walking down the stairs. This is because my actor is much taller than be and therefore it was difficult to reach to over his shoulder and keep the camera steady as well as walking down the stairs at the same time as him. We had to film this shot several times until I was happy with it, but we eventually got my desired result.

I recorded some Ambient Noise, as the washing machine was on during filming. I could have turned it off but I decided to leave it on, so it wasn’t just an awkward silence and there was some noise in the background.  The Ambient Noise was however, necessary, as the washing machine sounded different in various different shots as it was going at different speeds. Filming a few minutes of noise meant that the noise would be constant and continuous.

The House Scene overall went really well, with the ‘slap scene’ only needing one take, which was good for my actor getting hit.

However, this changed when we moved to the section location for filming. This was the Field Scene. Once we had gotten to my house, it was the perfect Lighting I needed for filming , I required the dusky time of day when the sun is starting to go down. This also means that I have to be on time with filming, otherwise it would get to dark an the light change between shots would be too dramatic. Then I had a problem. Half way through filming the scene, my camera battery died. I was in the middle of a field and therefore could not charge it to film. This meant that I had to go all the way back home, and charge the camera, by this time it was almost pitch black and I couldn’t finish filming.  This was a disaster as my actor and me are both very busy, and there are very few opportunities that we could film. So I am having to attempt to organise another date to finish.

I also have to refilm the section that i have already started to film, this is because the Lighting may be different on that day and so on screen, it may look strange to my audience.

Production Card 2 – Rose Films

The second Production Card is my Distribution Company. I have chosen to call it ‘Rose Films’.

It took me a little while to figure out what I actually wanted to do with the card. I played around with Livetype a little and looked at all the effects to see what I could come up with. I then remembered some of the past ones which I had seen and the simpler ones were often the most effective. I decided that all I wanted was a small little Logo and then some text above it, so I set out to create my Logo on Photoshop.

I wanted it to be really simple and basic. I had an image in my head of something that resembled a flower,  but being made up of basic shapes such as ovals. The MSN Logo achieves this, it still resembles a butterfly but it is simple and made of shapes that could easily be replicated.

I played around with all the different things I could do and eventually I came up with a simple image that was going to be the Logo for ‘Rose Films’.

All I did to make this was layer up different coloured ovals onto one another.

I then changed the shades of pink to distinguish between all of the layers to my flower. I chose the colour pink as the company ‘Rose Films’ sounds very feminine and I wanted to carry on this theme through the use of colour within the Logo.

After I had finished my Logo and saved it, I could then begin working on my text to go with it on Livetype. I began my typing out the text that I want and then selecting the font. I wanted an elegant font but one that wasn’t tacky like some of the ones you get on Microsoft Word. In the end I came up with the font ‘Zapfino’ on Livetype.

After this, the animation process was very simple, I just wanted make the text come in from one side and then fade out with the Logo. This was very easy to do, all I did was select the effect and save it, putting it together with my Logo on Final Cut.

This is my final Production Card for ‘Rose Films’.

Production Card 1 – Landscape Productions

For my first Production Card, I wanted to use an image that I had taken myself. I was looking through my phone and I found a picture that I took whilst walking my dog.

It gave me the idea to call my Production Company ‘Landscape Productions’ due to the image being full of natural things such as trees, clouds and the sun.

For this Production Card I wanted it to be very simple, so I decided all I was going to do to it was add a boarder to the picture and then put text above and underneath it on Photoshop. I’d then put a simple fade effect in so that it fades on and off the screen in a sophisticated and understated way.

The boarder was very simple, I just made a new layer and added a shape to it.

After colouring it I could then place the shape behind the image to give the effect of a boarder.

I then had to create the text. Before I could do anything i had to select a font that I wanted. I didn’t like any of the ones that I could choose from on Photoshop, so I decided to use a website to download a free font that I could use. I chose to use DaFont.com.

I then went through the categories and selected the font that I wanted. I ended up downloading a font called ‘LionkinG’.

This resembles the text that is used as the Main Title for The Lion King, but it suited my Production Card.

After I had put together my finished image, I saved it and transferred it to Final Cut, this was where I added the Cross Dissolve and then my card was finished.

This is my finished Production Card.