Feedback from 4th Draft

This is the feedback we got from our screening in one of our lessons. 

Although I wanted the title sequence to contain no zombies (as it confuses the audience and makes the audience continue watching), that seems to be what everyone complained about and wanted us to improve. We filmed some more screen captures of more zombie related things and will edit that in today. 

Confusingly, the class complained about the music while others liked it. 

I do like the idea of the title names being facebook related, so I have filmed something to create that. 

It was suggested that the title didn't work and to perhaps use; 'Facebook Feed' instead. 

There is a really short time to complete all this work in time for the deadline AND finish the evaluation. 

My priority is to edit in the new bits to the title sequence

4th Draft

For this piece I made the shots a little crisper and added the titles for our title sequence.

I also made the decision to have the title of the film at the end of the sequence to intrigue the audience; also so they won't notice the zombie connotations within the title sequence.

3rd Draft

This is the 3rd draft of our title sequence. I have edited everything so it's in order and used better software (hypercam) for screen recordings. I tried using foley sound for typing and clicking of the computer but it can't really be heard due to the soundtrack.

To continue, we need to create the credits and then edit them in. Also, I would like to make the cuts of the shots a little bit crisper.

2nd Draft

This is our second draft. We found that the screen was blurred and jittery, and you couldn't see what was being typed. We played around with the scale on Final Cut Pro and followed some youtube tutorials, but was unable to make it work.

To continue, I think we should refilm at home on a software called Hypercam where you can crop and select what bit to film, doing this will hopefully keep everything within the frame clear (and hopefully HD).

If I refilm tonight, that means I can upload on thursday during free periods (as I have an exam tomorrow) and hopefully get a draft then.

Feedback from first draft

On Monday Terry and Aiden helped me to reshoot the blurry/ out of focus/ too dark frames for our title sequence.

I wasn't in on Tuesday for a double period lesson. The boys presented our first draft to Shaun and this is what I was told by the boys what the feedback was:

Need to:

• Add more images to the series of photos that contain girls or suggest that the protagonists are heterosexual 
• Screengrab filming on the macs
• Remove repeated photos 
• Equalize the amount of photos per protagonist 

Catfish Title Sequence Analysis

 I chose to analyse Catfish: The Movie's title sequence as it uses a similar style that we want for our title sequence, by using online/facebook within the title sequence.

Catfish: The Movie

The title sequence begins with the production companys' titles on the screen, however they have been edited so they are more pixel and look like they belong on a computer; which would suggest to the audience that the film is about the internet and what happens on the internet.

 

 

The sequence is slowly paced through camera work, editing and sound which could show that the film is a documentary, and also that the film is shot over a long period of time. Unlike the way this is filmed, I want our title sequence to seem quite fast paced (not only to fit it into 2 minutes, but also) to emphasise that the protagonists have fun together and spend most of their time together.

 

 

 

The use of extreme close ups doesn't tell you much about the people in the film and what it is about but hints privacy. The iconic symbol of a silhouette of a man suggests anonumity and hiding. The camera movement is clean but slow paced, again suggestive of the documentary style of filming. The font in the titles is simple and easy to read as it is a san serif font. The white font contrasts with the 'dirty white' of the computer screen which makes it easy to read instead of white on white being hard to read. Similarly I would like something like this for our titles font, maybe instead of white, use a red on specific words and maybe two different fonts to suggest the horror genre.

 

The camera pans down from the blue/white contrast. The blue reminds me of social medias, I think this is more of the stereotypical facebook blue colour. The font is easy to read and stands out (because of the contrast of negative and positive space), for our film I think this font would be too simplistic for the title.

Update: Over the Holidays

Over the holidays we had completed the taking photos and videos for the facebook profiles for our protagonists and uploaded them. We also filmed our title sequence clips (such as opening the laptop and the viewing of the photos and videos). The only troubles we had were the uploading (my upload speed at home isn't too great, and therefore that took longer than it should have done) and when other members in the group were unable to film on certain days due to other plans.

Now we need to:

• Convert all the clips on mpeg streamclip to dv
• start the editing process (first draft finished by 4th March)

• Sort out the sound (sort out the soundtrack and film foley sound)  

In one of our clips, there is footage of a zombie that the protagonists don't notice in the background, this is a photo to document what our zombie looked like, we decided not to be as detailed as the make up tutorial previously showed due to the fact that the video would be filmed on a phone and not on the zombie all the time as it was to be un-noticed. 

Sound

This is the first draft of our soundtrack, we decided to make the sound sound a little muted. It sounded fine on final cut pro but has distorted a little bit when uploaded to youtube, which we will have to correct.

-make foley sound (typing, mouse clicking???)



-Use this for intro titles (tall productions/ A zombie movie???)

Update

During this lesson we went through our schedule and decided that tomorrow, we would go out and take photos for our principal shoot. Today we all updated our blogs and started to collect and create photos for the profiles of our three protagonists.

Initial Storyboards

This is the second draft of our storyboards for our title sequence that we completed in Emily's class. We also spoke of preproduction plans and creating a schedule for which thing should be completed by and what we should be doing during the holidays filming wise.

 

 

 

 

 

Group Research

During one of our groups breaks and free lessons, we started to begin thinking about what sounds we would use within our title seqeunce.

These are some uncopyrighted tracks we are considering to use for the soundtrack. We are thinking about layering some of the tracks over each other, or even recording noises and making a song from that (showing the humour element in our film).




This is the sort of make up we want our zombie's to look like, maybe not as much detail like the boils and the veins, but definitely the dark eyes and emphasis on the chest.


We are thinking about use zombie screeches/cries during our title sequence. This is what we want our zombies to sound like, however we will record our own zombie noises.

 

Group Feedback

At the beginning of the lesson, we sat down with Leanne, spoke of our film idea and got feedback on what to do, also Leanne looked at our blogs and gave us feedback on how to improve our blogs.

Group Feedback:

-Research into background things (look up zombie make up, etc)

-Storyboards

Blog Feedback:

 -Add label gadget to blog
- Sort out labels on the posts
-Create a slideshare account for any future powerpoint presentions/documents 

Questionnaire

In our groups, we came up with a questionnaire to give to people about our film, this is what we got:

 

Summary:
 Overall, our audience expect for our film to be a dark comedy/horror/action. They expect to see death, violence and zombies. They expect to see zombies, killing, news footage and an introduction to the film within the title sequence. They expect to hear screams, zombie noises, gunfire and slow deep music in the title sequence. They expect to see low key / dark lighting. They think the protagonist should be aged from high teenage years to low 20 year olds. There is a 3 - 2 on the type of font the title should be (we should play around with the title more with these fonts and ask again). The audience would typically see the film late at night and at the weekend, typically children aren't around at night and this would put the audience in the mindset to be scared, getting the audience ready for the diegesis of the film. Typically, the audience expect to see a low budget.

Need to:

• Play around with the fonts 

  • Question the same audience about the titles

    • Prelim/initial storyboards for the film

     

Enigma Code

Roland Barthes Enigma Code

Enigma - illusive - secret

A text portrays mystery to draw an audience in to pose questions and as such become intrigued in the piece.

For instance, a murder mystery will often not reveal the identity of the killer until the end of the story which poses the question,'who is the murderer?'

Narrative/enigma codes

Categorised as:

• Hermeneutic Code - Voice of Truth. : Element in a story not explained and therefore exists as an enigma for the reader, raising questions
• Proairetic Code - Voice of Empirics : Tension built up leaving the audience guessing what will happen next
• Semantic Code - Voice of Person : Any element in text suggests meaning by way of connotation which the story suggests
• Symbolic Code - Voice of Symbol : Wider level of semantic code, organises semantic meanings into broader and deeper sets of meaning. New meaning arises out of opposing and conflict ideas
• Cultural Code - Voice of Knowledge : Looks at the audiences wider cultural knowledge, morality and ideology

These codes are important so that the audience read the text with multiple meanings, the audience then take control and take an active role in determining the meaning of the text. The codes are crucial to title sequence as the title sequence is the 'taster' of the film, if the audience aren't satisfied or find themselves 'bored' in the first 2 minutes of the film, they will stop watching or not appreciate the codes.

In our title sequence, we plan to use enigma codes. We will use the Hermeneutic Code; we will show a creature in the background of a photo or video, the character will comment on this but it will not be explained within the title sequence. The use of the Hermeneutic Code will lead to the use of the Proairetic Code; the audience will guess what the creature is and how it will attack them. The Cultural Code may also be used as due to the amount of media the audience have already comsumed based on the idea off zombies will effect the audiences cultural knowledge.

Logo, Audience Profile, Codes and Conventions, Analysis of Title Sequence

This week in Leanne's class, within our film groups we were set four tasks to complete:

-Research the codes and conventions of horror, paying attention to title sequences

 

-Write an audience profile (primary and secondary) for your film's target audience

 

-Analyse one sequence from chosen genre individually and one as a group. Note any features to include in own work. 

 

-Invent a production company and design a logo for it. 

This is our logo for our production company; it is a combination of our first initials (Terry, Aiden, Louis, Lauren). As our production comapny produce films within the horror genre we decided to use simplistic and dark colours.

Codes and Conventions:

-low key lighting

-faint images

-foreshadowing of bloodshed

-isolation

-scenery – rural

-foreshadowing

-killer – glimpse of character

-sets equilibrium

-knife – foreshadowing – physical weapons

-medical imagery – experiments

-dark clothing, not suits, jeans and t-shirts, trainers

-hand held – shaky

-close ups

-tracking

-point of view shots

-low and high angle shots

-pan movement

-establishing – isolation

Features to include with title sequence:

• Handheld footage
• Generally slow paced editing (slow motion)
• Orchestral music
• Connotations of blood
• Connotations of weapons

Napoleon Dynamite

Analyse Napoleon Dynamite Title Sequence and Create a Credit Timeline

Napoleon Dynamite Title Sequence

A title sequence is the first thing an audience will see when watching a film, it is essential that the title sequence gives a good impression to the audience so they will continue to watch the film.

Mise En Scene
The lighting throughout the sequence is very natural which suggests that the film is very realistic and conveys to the audience that the film is realistic and very natural, and could also suggest a comedic element.The sequence is set in a house (or so the audience assume), as the background shows fabrics and carpets and floor tiles usually found within the home; this portrays an idea of familiarity to the audience and makes the film seem natural and realistic as the audience would live in homes like these due to the era of which the film is set in. The background of each shot is usually very plain and simple, perhaps suggesting the character is this way too allowing the audience to relate to the character. The use of this plain background makes the titles more striking to the audience and to pay attention to each little detail. All of the objects used within the sequence are ones that the audience can familiarise themselves with and use within day-to-day life, this makes the audiences feel more relaxed and allows them to relate to the character and the film more. Most of the shots show strange food combinations which makes the audience stereotype the character to a teenage boy, as the audience typically associate weird food combinations with teenage boys. The food combinations could also suggest to the audience that the character himself is weird. There are a few shots of Alien related objects such as the UFO Abduction Insurance card and the books show that the character could be stereotyped as a 'geek', as 'geeks' are stereotyped to be liking UFO and space related things. UFO sightings and expereinces typically happen in rural areas, so this could portray the idea of the character living in a rural area. The UFO related items could also suggest that the film is a spoof of a sci-fi film. The school stationary shot and the student card shot, tells the audience that the character is a a student at a school which allows the audience to relate to the character as audience memebers will have been to a school. The character seems to be organised as the character's hands and fingernails are clean, his wallet is organised, the toy cars are labelled, the character uses chapstick and could possibly be concious of his health as fruit and vegetables are shown within the food shots and the lemon sweet packet says fat free on the box; each of these parts combined stereotypically represent a nerdy teenage boy, which allows the audience to guess what the character's personality is like.

Cinematography
The use of close ups within the whole sequence show the detail of each shot and make it easy to read. This shot is very straightforward and shows the audience that whatever you see within the title sequence there will be no hidden meaning and portrays to the audience that the character is very down to earth and what you see is what you get. The use of these close ups could perhaps create intimacy between the character and audience as it shows that the character trusts the audience and hasn't really ever showed anyone what he really likes, what he eats and his drawings. There is no camera movement in the title sequence whihc could perhaps represent that the character's life is stable and also not really going anywhere. The title sequence is from a slight high angle, this could represent the social hierarchy within schools and that the audience members are higher than him and look down on the character.


Editing
The jump cuts are used to show that there is no routine within the character's life. The pace of the shots and the title sequence is very slow, which could show that there isn't a lot going on in the character's life and everything drags within his digesis.


Sound
At the start of the sequence the audience hear diegetic bird tweets which could suggest again that the character lives in a rural area as there are no sirens or traffic. The soundtrack is non-diegetic and is empathetic sound. The music has lyrics relating to school re-enforcing the idea of the character being a student. Each time a plate is put down, the sound is either emphasised or echoes which portrays the idea of the character being alone and isolated, which could suggest that his parents aren't around, the character has minimal friends and lives in a rural area.

Napoleon Dynamite Credit Timeline

0:00:00  - Start title sequence
0:00:03 - Fox Searchlight Pictures
0:00:09 - Paramount Pictures (presents)
0:00:19 - (in association with) MTV Films
0:00:26 - (starring) Jon Heder
0:00:32 - (as) Napoleon Dynamite (title)
0:00:39 - Jon Gries
0:00:50 - Aaron Ruell
0:00:57 - Efren Ramirez
0:01:04 - Tina Majorino
0:01:12 - Diedrich Bader
0:01:23 - (casting by) Jory Weitz
0:01:31 - (music by) John Swihart
0:01:39 - (edited by) Jeremy Coon
0:01:49 - (Production design) Cory Lorenzen
0:01:55 - (DOP) Munn Powell
0:02:05 - (executive producer) Jory Weitz
0:02:13 - (produced by) Jeremy Coon, Chris Wyatt, Sean Covel
0:02:26 - (written by) Jared Hess, Jerusha Hess
0:02:33 - (directed by) Jared Hess
0:02:41 - End of sequence