Completion

We have finally completed our opening sequence!! Today we worked on getting the credits done and I think they are really nice because the fonts are all different colours which suit our genre of a coming of age/ romantic movie. The music is also very effective as it creates a sense of exciting and happy atmosphere which is exactly what we wanted. Overall I am pleased with the finishing opening sequence and am glad we have completed it after all the hard work we put in :)

Bloopers

During the process of creating our opening sequence we also created a side reel of the bloopers. These are the pieces of footage we found hilarious, hopefully our audience will as well.

Progress

Progress

We decided to change our credits and make them more colourful as when we put them on the film we thought the white on black background looked a little too much like a horror film. We also distorted some of the lettering and words to make it a little quirky and give a lighthearted feel to it.

Progress

As the group had different ideas for what the credits should look like, we made two different sequences to see which style looked better.

In the end we decided the second sequence would work much better as it was much clearer to read and not too cheesy, but still was slightly girly so therefore still links to the genre.

Title for our opening sequence

As we have completed editing the sequence for our opening sequence, in today's lesson we looked at creating music for the party scene and finding the perfect title for our movie. We looked at many different examples of movie titles in romantic and coming of age film genres in order to get inspired and get an idea of the types of titles that would be most appropriate. 
We didn't want anything that was too cheesy and by looking at titles which other movies had, most of them were cheesy and included the word 'Love', and so we wanted to be more original in creating our title. Here are some movie titles I found of romantic/ coming of age genres: 

  

The title we have decided to give our movie is 'Snakes and Ladders' as we thought this would be appropriate for our genre and it wasn't something too cheesy. We decided to call this because in our movie the couple would go through ups and downs in their relationship, such as go through phases which may knock their relationship down, but then they might get back together and result in an equilibrium, climbing up the ladder again. I think this is an appropriate movie title because it suits our target audience well because it is aimed at young adults, and so they may be able to relate with these realistic situations in our movie.

Final Touches

Today we finished editing out sequence, we are nearing the end of the process. Our sequence is now together as a whole and just needs a couple of tweaks to make sure the cuts are spotless.  We have now started thinking about the more in detail features of a title sequence. The key focus for us now is music and credits. We have previously had big issues with the music and making it fit our piece, but we have found several track we believe work well with the piece they just need to be added to our piece. As for credits we have experimented with several fonts that we believe will fit the genre but have had a clash of ideas. The compromise is that we have "handwritten" style of font but that it is also clear not overly swirly and extravagant.

Progress

Today we added the music we created the other day to the sequence. We are using it during the inter cuts of the girl and boy getting ready. When the music was added the clips started jumping so we had to get the media technician to fix it. Once it was fixed it looked quite good. We also continued to edit clips and remove sound from certain clips. We also continued creating the blooper sequence.

Progress

In today's lesson we continued editing the sequence which went really well and we got about three quarters of the way through and then Nicola stayed during her free period and managed to finish the rough editing of the end of the sequence.

Nicola and I then stayed after school. I focused on refining the sequence by making the match on action perfect, re-sizeing shots and cutting out unwanted sounds etc. and Nicola had a go at creating some music since she hadn't attempted that yet, it sounded quite good however it was difficult to get the right upbeat kick to the music without making it sound too cheesy, also it was hard to find a guitar that didn't sound to dark. But it was good because it moved away from the club sounding music which we did not want.

Progress

Today me and my group stayed after school in order to complete our editing and make sure we get it to a high standard like we had before the burglary. We had struggled over the past few days with maintaining all the work we had to do in such little time. In terms of editing our sequence we are half way done, so we mainly worked on sound  and Nicola started editing our behind the scenes footage. We created good music for the part when the main girl and boy are getting ready but we struggled creating music for the party scene as it kept turning into too much like club music, and this is not something we wanted for our opening sequence. Therefore, we have tried to find some copyright free music which is more of a party sound than a club, which would also suit our genre of a coming to age/ romantic film. 

The music we had found for the girl and boy getting ready I thought was well suited because it was not only ideal for what a boy may listen to, but also a girl. Originally, we had created music similar to Legally Blonde but we were not happy with it as it turned out to be too girly, and therefore when inter-cutting with the guys parts, the music did not appear to suit with his actions. Therefore, the current music we created is much better and fits in nicely with our footage, shots and genre. 

Over the next couple of lessons we are aiming to complete our editing of the opening sequence and edit the sound onto our footage. We also need to compete our credits and figure out where they would be best to put into our sequence (i.e.. the beginning or just before the end of the whole sequence). 

Macs

We have been unable to continue on our group work as the Macs from our school were stolen. We have backed up all of our footage so we don't have to re-film but we have to edit everything again.

Progress

In todays lesson we did the final re-shoots which we decided upon due to the feedback we got from our class. We then split the group in order to use our time more effectively, Natalie and Iveta worked on getting the final bits of footage edited into place, Nicola started work on the credits/titles and I worked on the sound. This went well we completed the majority of our tasks, finishing the editing of the sequence, getting an idea for what we want the credits to look like and beginning to develop the sound for the inter cutting between the boy and girl.

Showcase Feedback

 Yesterday we had our first showcase of the rough version, it has not got any titles or sound at the moment but they are our next issue to tackle. This is the feedback we recieved from our peers within the media group. The feedbck was generally good but we need to improve a couple of things for example a issue that was raised was lighting in the beginning scenes.

Distribution Logo

Here is the Distribution logo which we made. We tried to make it fit to the style of the sort of distribution companies we think would distribute our style of film e.g Paramount, Universal. We did this by making it more mobile and interactive with the moving plants (for Example Universals logo moves around to reveal the Earth) rather than just static words. We also thought it would be quite a distinctive and recognisable logo in that as soon as you saw the plants and the colours especially (since not many other companies use these colours) you would instantly know it was NNIK Productions.

Progress

Today in lesson we had to review each others opening sequences and look at rough cuts of what it might look like as a finished sequence. I found this lesson effective because some of the people gave us some really constrictive criticism which me and my group will take on board in order to improve our opening sequence. 

Overall, we got some very positive feedback from others. They particularly liked the match on action from the girls dress into the boys hair product and they said it was very creative. They also said that it was easy to understand and none of the parts were ambiguous or difficult to understand. This was particularly important for us because we want to create an sequence which our viewers and others can understand, because if they don't then they will easily get bored or distracted.

However, we did get some criticisms such as the beginning the of the party was slightly darker and so they couldn't see the characters as well. Although being the party this was the effect we were going for, we will try to improve this by adding some light from final cut and making the whole scene easier to see. Also, some of the people said that when Ruby was talking on the phone, the extreme close-up of her face was slightly off frame so we will try to re-film that part in order to improve it.

Distribution logo

We have been looking into sorting out the distribution logo this is what we have so far come up with. We want to make it interactive like the universal and paramount pictures as we are trying to make it fit the target audience.

Progress

Today we finished putting all the clips together for the opening sequence as tomorrow we show it to the class and receive feedback. We still need to change the sound on the sequence and include our own music.

We have been working on music on Garage Band.

Re-Filming

After school today we went back and re-filmed the establishing shot, Ruby arriving at the party, the reveal of Ruby, the close up phone call (Ruby), the zoom in on the dress and Ruby putting the shoes on.

We made sure we took loads of takes in different ways for example with the establishing shot we did just a still shot of the house, a zoom, a slow walk and a pan just so that we have a variety to chose from when we start to edit them.

This went well as we got all the shots we needed in a short period of time, and they all looked good and effective.

4/2/2013

Progress-

In today's lesson we had completed the opening sequence as a rough cut in order to see the overall flow of it and what else we still need to re-film. As we are re-filming some of the main girls part's today, we shall replace the old footage from our opening sequence and edit in the new ones.
A problem is that our opening sequence is quite long at the moment (3 minutes), exceeding our maximum of it being around 2 minutes long. In order to reduce these we have found that some of the shots we had which weren't as vital were too lengthy so during this week of editing we shall need to cut these down so it fastens the editing pace. In a way this can be effective because during the inter-cutting between the characters we do want to maintain a fast pace in order to keep the viewers entertained and create a sense of excitement.
We still haven't found the right music and we have found that quite challenging because the music we have created on garageband so far is like club music and not house party and so we would need to try and find some vocals in order to fit in with our edited music.

Music

The music we have first created on Garageband was good but we all agree that it all sounded too much like club music so currently we are trying to make new music which would be suited more for a house party.
We have found some really cool loops which we have combined together so I think that overall the music we are creating  now would be more suited for our opening sequence and create the right atmosphere for being in a house party.

Re-filming shedule

Monday 4th February, 2013  

We have looked at some of our footage and so we decided that to improve we would need to re-film some of the main girl, Ruby's parts of where she is getting reedy in order to not reveal to much of her face.
Also, we need to re-do the bit where the host is opening the door for Ruby because we had trouble with sorting out the lightning as it was too dark. To improve this on Monday, we shall film this part first at around 4.30 pm because we want it to be moderately dark to not mess up our continuity editing.

Wednesday 6th February, 2013

On Wednesday we are going to do some more of the boys shots. The footage we already have is really good but we found out that we have too much of Ruby's parts but not much of the boy so we need to film some more of him getting ready. For example, a close-up shot of him getting his hair product. 

Re-Filming

Also in today's lesson we made a list of the shots we must redo and why we feel we need to redo them.

• Zoom in on dress - this shot is good as it works well in the sequence, however we need to get it to be more smooth as the shot we have of it is a little awkward and unrealistic.

• Establishing shot - after watching back the original shot that we have to establish the whole film we do not think it is good enough as it seems a bit nothingy.

• Close up on Ruby's phone call - our whole idea is that we only show close ups of the main female character until the big reveal at the party so that the audience feels as though they are seeing her for the first time with Michael (the main male) and one of the shots of her on the phone reveals too much of her face and so does not fit into our idea.

• Opening the door (arrival of Ruby) - the shots we have of Ruby walking to the party are when it is much lighter outside and so it poses a continuity problem as when Iveta answers the door to let her in, it is suddenly extremely dark outside and so does not work.

• The reveal/arrival of Ruby - this is a very important shot as it is the first time the audience properly gets to see Ruby and so it must be perfect. The shots that we currently have for this are not good enough as in one shot she is looking at the camera and in the other the camera suddenly jolts just as we are about to see her face.

• Putting on shoes - this shot is not good enough as the lighting seems some what orange and also the shoes are not framed correctly in that they aren't in the center and are cut off toward the top of the frame.

• Blusher - we all really liked this shot, however we are using this shot before the girl has applied her eye make up, and in the shot she already has eyeliner on.

• Michael shots - generally we just need more of these.

31/ 01/ 2013

Progress-
Today we spent editing our opening sequence and continued working on making the footage flow together nicely. We need to still re-film some of our footage because of lighting issues so we will hopefully do it on the weekend.
Overall, today was successful as Nicola and Kirsten spent time finding the right music and have tried to create something on GarageBand which would fit when the girl and boy are getting ready. We have all decided that it would be best to have different types of music on the boy and girl so it appears like realistically what they might listen but also looks like diagetic sound i.e. they are actually listening to this type of music whilst getting ready.
Meanwhile, me and Natalie carried editing the sequence together; I think that the graphic match from the girl's red dress and his red bottle works really nicely and is visually entertainer/ creative. 

 

 

Editing

Whilst putting our footage together we have decided that the opening will not only be romantic but also a teen like film more fittingly a coming of age film as we don't feel the emotions we have created are strictly what you would see in a serious romantic film such as The Notebook they are more relate able to films such as Mean Girl or Clueless.

29/ 01/ 2013

Today in lesson we were beginning to edit all our footage together. We split our group up so half of us were editing our opening sequence and the other half of us were trying to create some music on Garageband. While editing some of our footage we found out that some bits were good but too dark so we shall need to re-film those over the next couple of days using the lights this time in order to see the characters more clearer.
Here are some pics: 

Editing opening sequence

On Garageband

At the end of the lesson we managed to complete a rough draft of what our music for the party scene would be like which gave us all an idea of what it would sound like, what we need to improve/ add in future lessons. 

Our first draft of music we completed

Progress

Today we've started editing all our clips and started creating our own music for the party scene.

Progress

28/1/2013- So this weekend we have managed to film all of our footage and this lesson we were looking through it to make sure we have captured everything we needed or whether we need to re-film. We have started to edit some of the bits of the footage and some of us are using garageband in order to create the music for this opening sequence.
We are planning to edit as much as we can all week, swapping around so everyone gets a turn to edit and have an input in this project. 

Cast

We used a girl and a boy to play our two main characters and had other people who were in the party. Here is the girl we had used before filming her getting ready:

Ruby

Here is the boy we had used for our filming: 

Michael

Filming Day 2

On Sunday we completed out filming by managing to film the boy's and girls parts with the party scenes. Overall I think it was a successful day because we managed to get a variety of different camera shots and varied them in order to apply what we had learnt.

On Saturday some of the girls in our group had to 'dress' a room in order for the mis- en- scene to look like it's a boy's room. I think this was effective because we wanted to make sure that all the details were correct and it was realistically a room which a boy would be in. Here is a pic of the room: 

 

For the girls part, again we tried to stereotypically create a room which would be ideally for a teenage girl in order to fulfill out genre of a romantic/ coming of age film. We made sure the props were suited for this so we placed a lot of makeup, magazines, perfume, etc which helped us achieve this aim. 

 

For the party we had to dress up a living room again and make sure that there was enough props in order to make it look like a real party. Here are some location photos:  

 

Overall, this weekend of filming and setting up the rooms was successful because we managed to get a lot done and the pre-planning (pre-production stage) of storyboards, costumes, lighting  was helpful because we know what we had to do or the types of shots we wanted. Now we will be editing this and hopefully we have done a great job! 

Shooting Schedule

As we are filming a lot of our sequence this weekend we have made a schedule.

Saturday

• Buying food and items to set the party
• Dressing a room to use for guy

Sunday

• 9-12am Filming the guys scenes
• 12-1pm Lunch
• 1-3pm Re filming the girls scenes
• 3-4pm Setting the house for the party
• 4-8pm Filming the party

FIlming- Party Scene

We have planned to film the party scene during the weekend starting the 26th and 27th January. We will also film the guys parts of getting ready and then finish off with the girl also getting ready as we didn't complete all of this the 1st time we started filming. These type of shots will show his full costume and details of his face etc compared to the girl who we will only see close-up details i.e her eye, parts of her dress. This would be effective in order to create a sense of tension and when she arrives later, she is finally revealed to not only the guy but the audience also.

Example of  shots of the girl would be something similar to these:

Costume

The costume most appropriate for the girl would be something not too smart but girly at the same time, maintaining the stereotypical image of a teenage girl that is often being presented to us in romantic or coming of age films. The girl would wear something like this:

We think a graphic match would be appropriate for one of our scenes to make it more visually interesting for the viewers. A graphic match  occurs when the shapes, colors and/or overall movement of two shots match in composition, either within a scene or, especially, across a transition between two scenes

In our filming this will be used where we see the girl getting dressed into her red dress and then zooms out of the guy's red tie/ bow. The continuity editing smoothes over the inherent discontinuity of shot changes to establish a logical coherence between shots.

 The guy will wear something like this:

Audience Research

Refilming

We have to refilm the parts of the lead female walking to the party because of the snow as this will affect continuity.

Casting Issues

Recently we've had an issue with casting, in that the guy that was meant to be playing the lead has pulled out and so we are currently trying to find a new person to take his place.

Progress

Today we uploaded yesterdays shots and decided which shots were good and which we would need to re-shoot.

Filming Day 1

We filmed our first bit of footage yesterday, on the whole it went well. However there were some mistakes with using the camera and so some of the footage was not recorded, but we shall just re-record it another day.

Feedback - Love Actually

After the audience surveys its became clear that a favorite with the target audience was the film - Love Actually.

• This film follows all the conventions of the romantic genre and also includes an element of comedy. 
• The unique selling point is that it follows several different couple instead of just one couple.
• There is also an all star cast.
• It is set around Christmas linking love and a certain time of year.
• The comedy also makes it better for a younger audience.

Target Audience

As this film has romantic/coming of age genre our target audience is teenagers; primarily female as we think young femles tend to enjoy this genre more and our audience research has also proved this.

Audience Research Surveys