Post Production 2

 Once we had edited all of our opening title sequence we went onto making our titles and the names, we had some trouble with making sure our titles were in order because otherwise it is not professional and realistic. 

We made up random names and added them on top of our editing sequence in order for it to look like a professional opening title sequence. We spent along time as a group making sure that all the titles were put in the best possible place that looked best.

In our opening title sequence we edited our sequence to create suspense through firstly the soundtrack that we used over the top along with our long and close up shots of our objects that are used to create suspense and mystery for the audience before they realise what happens in the rest of the sequence.

I believe that are target for the audience is to make the audience want to carry on watching and understand what’s happened, due to our close ups and mysterious crash i feel as though the audience will want to watch on.

For our soundtrack we found a suspenseful and action rising non copyrighted soundtrack on YouTube. Before making sure this was the one we played the soundtrack on our phones over the top of our edited and final sequence to make sure it worked. It fitted perfectly due to the beat drops when the clips change and my group is very excited and proud of the soundtrack.

This meant that our opening title sequence was finished and we were very proud of the outcome that we had created. If our group was to add more to our opening title sequence we would have given a hint of the boy to leave the audience even more suspense, What i mean by this is juts a snipped of his arm with blood or his shoe for example, however all of our sequences and editing and filming has run smoothly and has gone to plan. So overall my group we are very proud of ourselves.

Post Production

 Once we got into the editing studio i was very excited to see the outcome of our footage. We spent the first half of the lesson looking through the footage we had recorded and were very pleased with the footage we had created.

When looking through the footage we found a few mistakes that we had made that we can’t end up putting in our final opening title sequence. Such as their is a scene where the police are talking but nobody is in the car, just small things like this which could ruin the professionalism of this outcome.

We started editing our opening title sequence by putting the clips we liked and wanted to use onto the timeline so we were prepared and ready when it comes to editing and putting them all together.

During the early editing days, we made some changes in which we edited some of our shoots in a different order. So it looks more realistic and the close up shots are taken at the beginning with the title sequence. 

Our opening title sequence works really well and we have edited it perfectly, it took a while to edit but we have edited the scenes so they work really well before we have added the titles and framing.

Shoot Day reflection and behind the scenes

 During our shoot day we planned out and organised what we were doing throughout the day. We made sure we had our shot list and storyboard to hand so we were prepared with what shots were needed throughout the day.

We made sure we had all the camera equipment and props we needed for our shoot and head out to our location of “corn-hill manor”. We made sure we had our props prepared before hand so it would be perfect and organised for our shoot so we could just get on with filming. 

During our shoot we started filming and everything went smoothly and to plan, we made sure all the shots were included into our shoot and to get extra shots that we thought worked well and that we can add in to make sure our opening title sequence is the best of our ability. Overall i think that our group went really well with our organzation as we made sure we had all the props we needed aswell as a shot list to hand so everything we wanted was included. 

There was an issue that happen the day before we shoot our opening title sequence where one of our actors for our policeman had covid and couldn’t make it to the shoot so we used the backup to make sure we could still film and shoot. But luckily we arose to our issue and got the backup in place.

If we were to do anything differently in our shoot I wish we made sure for our costumes the bottoms for the police officer were trousers, so we could get more shots involved in the shoot. However working with the top half of the policeman worked well aswell.

During our shoot I learnt some new skills when doing camera composition, placing the camera low down and on to the height of the object made for cool and exciting shots for when we come to editing. We did a shot when the camera is on the floor for a close up of the bike helmet and i was really proud of our group for coming up with that idea.

The skills I learnt in many of our camera workshops taught us how to set up the camera and how focusing the camera is very important for a detailed and expensive shot. This helped us massively as we worked quickly and clean as we knew how to work and use the camera from the tips we learnt from the workshop

The equitment we used for our shoot consists of the black magic 4k mini ursa camera and tripod. We also used strip lights to reflect the police car lights which we used the colours of red and blue flashing.

My favourite part of the day was setting up for our shoot. We created our crime scene and used all our props in action. Pouring blood over the bike and smashing the bike into pieces so it looks like it was hit was really good fun and i think myself and all of the group enjoyed it aswell. The footage that we shot i am very happy as we managed to get everything we wanted involved along with some extra clips that were not planned but are going to have a massive impact in how impressive our final opening title sequence looks.

For my next filming project i have learnt being prepared with props and your intentions is vital for a smooth running shoot. Making sure the group is happy with all of the descions along with extra props helps a lot with creating a perfect filming project.

When it comes to editing our footage i am excited to see how all of our shoots look, along side how it all comes together. We worked hard on our close up shots and extreme close ups so i am excited to put it all tofother and add music and titles over the top to make it realistic and exciting for the audience.

The only challenge i am worried about in the editing suite is making sure we don’t repeat simiular shots alongside picking the correct background soundtrack for our opening title sequence.

But overall i am very proud of how our shoot went and i think the rest of the group is proud and excited to get onto editing and finalising our opening title sequence.

Our mise-en-scene choices:

 

In our opening title sequence, the mise-en-scene we used:

- costume

- props

- location / set design

- performance and direction of your actors (positioning and facial expressions)

Costume:

For our opening title sequence our costumes were picked carefully to make sure we used the appropriate costumes for the roles.

For example:

 Forensics costume we used blue masks and blue shoe covers as well as blue gloves as a white overall. We wanted to get the perfect costume for this role to make it as realistic possible for the shoot.

Police officer costume we bought high-vise jackets and police hats to set the costume up. The high vise jackets made it as relastic as possible and perfect for the personality of the police officer.

The detective outfit was a fall suit, as its smart and not casual and the perfect costume for a detective as it is still obvious for who the character is. 

The mums outfit was basic and as realistic as possible as we wanted it to look proper. We bought the actress basic and dark clothes with leggings and was still obvious to the audience who the character is (the mum)

Props:

During this shoot it was vital that are props were the most important and key things for this shoot due to close ups and design of our opening title sequence. 

For example we made the scene that consists of a car hitting a broken bike with blood all over it and a smashed up helmet into pieces. We added fake blood to the scene to make it realistic and as disturbing to the audience as we could aswell as to make it clear what was happening at the incident.

Frensics props:

Number cards where we put down next to evidence to show how vital the scene of the accident was.

We also used police tape around the scene again for a relastic look to the scene along with another indicator to the audience that it was looked after by police and a crime scene.

We used evidence bags when shooting close ups for when frensics are collecting evidence so the audience can understand the seriousness and hows horrifying that forensics has been involved which usually identifies to the audience that a murder has occurred. 

Location and set design:

Our location for our opening title sequence was at corn hill manor. Which is a old style mansion and huge house. We decided that this would be the perfect background for our shoot as it intails to the audience that it is a big family home aswell as a rich home.

We set up our crime scene in front of the house with garden view in the background, all the props were layed out in front of the house including the car in the driveway so it was as relastic as a car would be driving up the driveway.

Lighting:

We used daylight lighting for our sequence as it wouldn’t make sense if the scene was at nighttime due to the fact that a kid wouldn’t be riding his bike around the garden at night and also you wouldn’t be able to capture the detail for the close ups. So we used clear and bright lighting yet with an element of dusk.

Performance and direction of actors:

In our sequence there were only a few close up faces of the mum and the detective. The rest of the shots were of a wide angle or extreme close up.

For the mum the facial expressions she used were terrified and schocked. Open mouthed and screaming and crying helped the audience understand the disbelief of what has just happend. The positioning of the mum was very floppy and terrified as she was made to look like she was about to have a breakdown and cry on the floor so her positioning was perfect.

As in our sequence no dialouge is used working on facial expressions and positioning was very important.

Furthermore for our detective the positioning was very formal and straight backed all the time. Good posture aswell as a poker face the entire time throughout the sequence.

In conclusion:

All of these choices for our shoot were made to make this as relastic as possible for the audience, making sure all the props are what was used in real life along with costumes.

The Narrative for this opening title sequence is to lead the audience onto thinking what has happened to the child and how. This leads the audience terrified and disturbed as seeing blood coming off a child's helmet puts chills into your spine.

The target audience for our opening title sequence is based around people that enjoy films about crime and murder as the opening title sequence leaves the audience in suspense and builds tension due to how disturbing and frightening this will be or could be.

Saul Bass - north by northwest

 North by the northwest:

As the opening title sequence opens the first thing that is drawn to my attention is the non-diegetic soundtrack. Starts out with a timid beat and light goes into a fast moving motion beat with it gives off the real of an action genre. 

The mood of this films gives off happy and cheerful through the soundtrack. 

Another thing that stands out to me is the title, the use of the arrows being put over the title is very creative and gives off a “travelling” and busy feel to the sequence. The lines also are all linear and hint to the audience this is a male lead as it is green and blue yet black and white with the lines creating squares, however moments later you discover that it is a busy office building in a major city.

The font is all in capitals yet not harsh but gentle yet all the font fits in the lines and squares perfectly.

The opening title sequence also transfers into busy workmen and ladies working and running around stations looking very busy. This hints to the audience already that the film is based in a big city (New York?) and this is important in the first few seconds of opening a film up.

Overall i think what works so well is the soundtrack over the top of alll of this, the soundtrack is busy and fast paced which replicates how the workmen are getting around their day aswell as the transitions and movement if the titles.

Saul Bass and Elaine Bass

 

Saul Bass is an American graphic designer who has won manny awards for his design in motion picture title sequences, logos and film posters. His wife Elaine Bass who is also a filmmaker and American title designer, they worked together many times on projects of directors.

Saul Bass claims he got inspired by many people in his media career but his parents were a big inspiration to him aswell as Gyorgry Kepes who was a painter and graphic designer who taught Saul Bass.

Through Saul Bass carrer he worked with huge major companies and iconic logos like:

- American telephone 

- airline companies

- Girl Scouts 

- Quaker Oats 

Saul Bass is loved in the media business because he introduced a new art form through his imaginative film title sequences and new era of title sequences to prepare the audiences. 

Planning the day of shoot

Here is our group plan for the shoot day, making the list helped us be organised and help communicate to our actors and rest of the team to make sure they know where they’re meant to be.
 

Target audience and BBFC

 Targeting the audience is important for many reasons, firstly it generates profit and delivers what the audience except and what they want. Furthermore it is very important that the director targets the audience in what rules and conventions to follow and what choices will affect your audience. 

When targeting an audience there are two important things that you need to consider:

- gender 

- age

BBFC

The bbfc put Regulations and laws and rules that the regulatory board has but set in charge of the the control a certain set of products in a specific industry. They are in charge of seeing the rules about what can and can’t be shown in films and also in charge of assigning the age certificates for every film in the UK. 

Films can’t be released until they have gone through the age classification of the bbfc.

They consider the scenes during violence, 

nudity,

 language,

 drug

 alcohol etc. 

Aswell as context weather is relastic or fantasy based animated etc. 

It depends on the format of the release. The BBFC tend to be slitley stricter when it comes to classifying films got DVD release and then films for cinema.

As a group i believe that our coursework film idea is 12A because of the scenes including criminal activity and dangerous behaviour without too much violence and not a lot of blood or gory stuff being shown.

For example our opening title sequence contains lots of blood and a crime scene yet no terror or horrible images involved which i think limits it to be a 12A rather then a 15.

Similar products and conventions research post:

 For our opening title sequence our genre is thriller and our sub genre is crime-thriller. This is because of the thriller element of the kid dying and the police and crime scene that links to our sub genre of crime and thriller.

I have picked 4 media products that have the same genre as our films and to shows:

Title : Bodyguard 

Year: 2018

Studio : BBC One 

Director : Thomas Vincent and John Strickland

The bodyguard is about a police sergeant with the police service in London  who is assigned to protect the Home Secretary who is a controversial and politician who is described as a sociopath by one of hurt aides who has plans to introduced invasive new powers for security forces. The police surge to is torn between his beliefs and duties to protect.

Characters:

 Sophie Rundle (one of the female leads) (Vicky budd) This is simmiular to our mum who plays the female role.

Richard Madden ( sergeant David) (male police officer) this also contrasts to our police officer of the male.

Setting / location:

Belfast mainly based at a police station aswell as outside so is simiulaer to our own.

Costume / props :

Police outfits, handcuffs, police cars 

Lighting:

Bright and mainly outside

Camera techniques:

The camera techniques that are often used are tracking shot and handheld when danger is happening. 

Title - Line of Duty:

Year : 2012

Studio : BBC

Director : Jed Mercurio

DS Steve Arnott gets transferred to the anti-corruption unit after he refuses to participate in a cover-up that involves shooting an innocent man to death in a police encounter. (Rotten tomatoes website)

Characters :

 Vicky McClure (Kate Fleming)- female detective  

Martin Compton (Steve Arnott) - head male defective 

Setting / location : Belfast 

Costume /props : handcuffs, police outfits and guns

Lighting : bright and bold

Camera techniques : The camera techniques that are often tracking shot, pov and establishing shot

Title - Still water:

Year : 30 July 2021

Studio: Dreamworks 

Director: Tom Mcarthy 

Bill Baker heads to France to see his daughter Allison who was imprisoned for murdering her cheating lover, Lina. However, Allison claims she is innocent, which compels Bill to investigate further.

Characters: Matt Damon (Bill Baker - main character ) Abigail Breslin ( Allision Baker)

Setting/location: France 

Costume /props: guns, costumes are non uniform dirty everyday clothes for the dad

Lighting : yellow atmosphere for it, light but not harsh lighting

Camera techniques: a lot of wide shots and close ups

Title - the boy who killed my parents:

Year : 2002

Studio :

Director : Mauricio Eca

Bill Baker heads to France to see his daughter Allison who was imprisoned for murdering her cheating lover, Lina. However, Allison claims she is innocent, which compels Bill to investigate further.

Characters : Carla Diaz (main character) , 

Setting/location: Brazil

Costume / props: based in 1970’ s the costumes are based in what they were back then

Lighting: dark lighting but bright

Camera techniques : very straight mirrored angles, all symmetrical and mostly wide angled.

Conclusion:

In conclusion all these films have many things in common but overall have the same concept of a crime scene or murder in the films. They all have around the same concept of somebody has been murdered and the storyline is finding out the truth in how or why this has happend. All these link to our opening title sequence as our idea and storyline is based on a murder and finding out the whole story behind it. There are so many differences from these films that relate to our opening title sequences for example some of the storylines, for example we know that the mother killed the child but we don’t know why she did it, in comparison to most of these films which are figuring out who did it and not knowing how or why. 

Furthermore the props and costumes used in these are all professional and as relastic as possible as they are all high end movies that have the money to spend on their costumes, however our opening title sequence is a low budget film so we hve tried our best to get all the costumes and props that we can afford without spending loads of money and most of our opening title sequence is based upon props due to close ups and extreme close ups just of props. 

Lastly, from resarching these films and tv shows i have found it very insightful to learn and see how same genre films can help our opening title sequence. I’ve learnt props and costumes play a big part in making the films the best quality aswell as they can be. Leading up to suspense and cliffhangers is also the most important and key thing to keep the audience inspired and informed to keep watching.

Editing workshop 2

 

Editing our dialouge sequence:

During our editing workshop we got given our dialouge scene that my group filmed earlier on the week, through the editing process we went through the skills we had learnt previously and used it throughout this editing workshop. Cutting and trimming clips to adjust them into our sequence. We edited our dialouge scene so the angles were all correct and the focus was on the person speaking.

A new skill i learnt today was being able to cross fade, this is a button you can put onto your audio so when the clip is running there in no interrupted sound.

One mistake i feel our group didn’t manage to complete due to lack of time and confusion was the lack of video footage. There was enough footage but not as many face close ups and some couldn’t be used due to the 180* rule. There is a front and back angle and they both don’t fit or work together as it is wrong and wont work, so this left us with less footage to edit meaning the clip is short. If we were shooting again on the day i believe all our group would change and make sure the 180* rule is in place.

When editing our final title sequence i think making some clips longer adds more suspense and effect as their is no talking it wont be led on, so making sure our footage is long and cut right I believe will make or break our final video.

This is our video we edited: