Evaluation:Q6 Audience feedback and comment

The first time we had showed our film opening was to our media class, this was quite nerve-wrecking to say the least, I was desperate to hear the opinions of my classmates and had my fingers (and toes) crossed that they wouldn't find it boring. So, after watching a few other groups' work, it was out turn, suddenly I felt like we were in the middle of the Sahara Desert (yes, I felt hot) as I heard the music that meant that our opening was on screen.

All in all, we had quite a positive response, from our classmates, a few people said it contained slightly too much walking but we had managed to keep their attention from our interesting edits and great music. Yay!

A general picture of our classmates' response

As you can see, the word cloud has a huge emphasis on 'Good,' 'Soundtrack,' 'editing,' and 'titles.' The 'good,' suggests that we have an overall positive response from our audience, although it isn't the greatest compliment in the world, the word 'good' simply suggests that we had our audience's approval.
The word 'soundtrack' is also one of the most eye-catching words on the Wordle. Thankfully, the soundtrack was one of the strongest points of our opening, and is also the subject to most our complements. Our original soundtrack, has a slow yet catchy melody which adds a sense of professionalism to our film.
Our 'editing' was also a positive topic, many people highlighted the fact that our editing worked really well with the music, and many people really liked the jump-cuts of Konrad walking in the cemetery.
Sadly, our 'titles' weren't such a positive topic, even though we had tried our best to make them visible (without it ruining the atmosphere of the film) we clearly had not found an effective enough solution as many of our classmates said that they were not visible enough. However, it isn't such a huge problem as many successful films such as 'The Stepfather,' contain titles that aren't clearly visible.

A video d of our classmates talking about our film....

Although we had great feedback from our classmates, they weren't our target audience, which is probably a good thing as only around 4 out of the 20 students said that they would happily pay to watch the movie at the cinema. However our feedback gave us great complements and useful advice that we can apply when making our next film, such as realising how important the soundtrack is and knowing that titles should be OBVIOUS.


When we had our cinematic debut i'm proud to say that I feel like our film went down quite successfully, many people cheered both and after it was shown and i even heard someone say "ahh, its like a music video." Which is great as that is exactly the type of opening we wanted! Sadly, the only people that were our target audience were the teachers that had kept pretty quiet during the screening but, we had asked for their opinion many times previously. They had said things like, "it's nice, slow and mysterious with a great use of scenery, I would actually watch this movie." 
This is a great piece of feedback as it is telling us that our film actually appeals to the people that we want it to!!
Our cinematic debut...

EVALUATION:Q2 How does our media product represent particular social groups?

In our movie opening we are only clearly introduced to one particular character and it seems that this character is represented as a smart and groomed businessman. This image is emphasised by the dark coloured simple shirt he wears and by the fact that the film starts by showing him leaving a clean (and quite posh/expensive looking) hotel.
This is obviously not a new type of character; tall, slim attractive men in suits are extremely common among the film industry. As a result, the world is used to lead characters looking good, having a secret then saving the day! Due to this character being so common, it suggests that this is where the success lies, the character is obviously economically powerful as it oozes class and success. This attracts viewers as they would like to escape from reality and do the same! So to some up, success sells.

Bond...James Bond

One of the most famous and recognised smart, groomed men in media is the one and only James  Bond, who is rarely seen without his fully ironed suit (well, apart from the scenes in the bedroom). I believe that (as our film is a thriller) that the first impressions of the character played by Konrad could be influenced by the stereotypical image of the smart businessman that has a dark, and possible violent side.

Another way our main character can be perceived from our opening sequence is actually quite similar, a 007 without the code name. In other words, a simple, hard working businessman. This could be quite similar to the characters shown in the film 'Wall Street: Money never sleeps.' Although I haven't seen the film, the characters involved seem to be quite intelligent and professional, and of course like nearly all characters can have something to hide...

Shia Labeouf in 'Wall Street'

EVALUATION; Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challange forms and conventions of real media products?

We didn't have a specific inspiration involving different shot types and angles but we were inspired to use a simple opening. We went to the website: artofthetitle.com where we found film openings that looked very much like our film. Dirty Harry, Duval Disco and Juno had many shots that we have used.

I really like the fact that those shots are very similar. In both the main character is crossing the road, facing the camera, holding something the their hands and the

 actors name is displayed.

The "Juno" opening sequence is made to look like a cartoon with the main character (Juno) walking to the drug store. The whole sequence shows her walking and drinking SunnyD. The whole idea of

My attempt at recreating the shot from "Juno"

the sequence is similar to our movie, it simply shows a person walking. It also introduces the character showing that she is a bit different, unique.

Even though those movies have a completely different genre I think that the opening work for both of the films.

Another movie that has many similar shots in the opening sequence is "Dirty Harry". As you can see the shot are very similar. They are both close ups of the face as the main character is walking. However the character is coming from a different direction and the setting and lighting is different. The shot from the movie is dark and sinister and our shot is light but doesn't look happy, it looks quite sad and serious mainly because of the facial expression of the character.

There are two more shots from the movie "Dirty Harry". The next one is a close up of an envelope (in the movie its an extreme close up). Both of them show an envelope with some writing on it and a hand. This time lighting is also completely different. The use of dark colours and little lighting creates suspense where as in our movie its less suspenseful because the lighting is different.

The next shot is from the movie opening of "Juno", it shows the main character, Juno, walking. Thats pretty much the only similarity. Our shot is a low angle, close up of the feet and the movie has a mid shot of Junos legs however there is something very familiar between those two shots even though they create different moods. Juno is funny and young and Paradox is mysterious and suspenseful.

Movies use less "following" shots than I thought. "Duval Disco" is the only opening sequence that actually used quite a lot of following characters. Darren Aronofsky is known for using this types of shots. You may recognise his work in "Black Swan" or "The Wrestler" which he directed.

This is another following shot from "Duval Disco". Its also a following shot but this time its closer to the person. The character in the movie really resembles our character. The shots however have different purpose, "Duval Disco' is more of establishing the location and simply introducing the audience to the characters but our title sequence is meant to, not only introduce the audience to the main character, but also create a feeling of suspense and mystery.

The last shot is again from "Dirty Harry", it shows the main character walking and the Production Company title appears. Its a mid shot from side/behind of the character. Our shot also shows the main character walking and the Production Companys name is shown. Its a long/mid shot from the front/side of the main character. Not only the shots are similar but also the message that it puts across. It shows smart looking businessmen (or successful men) walking in a fancy, posh and glamours locations.

EVALUATION:Q1 In what way does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Although I'd like to think that our group had thought of our opening without any direct links to any other films, it was inevitable to think that we wouldn't find other films and openings that had similar shots and story lines. Here are a few examples of shots that our film contain that are similar to movies previously released into the general media:

Our movies comparison to a shot from the opening of 'Durval Discos'

A shot following the character is actually not used as often as one may think. However it is said so be a shot that is very frequently used by director Darren Aronofsky, who has directed films such 'The black Swan' and 'The Wrestler.' Unlike 'Durval Disco,' who uses this shot for most of the opening, we don't use it for very long, due to the lack of interesting surroundings.

Another similarity between 'Paradox' and 'Durval Discos' 

The opening of 'Durval Discos' seems so be a kind of point of view shot of someone walking through a 'Latino' style area, although our opening is completely different, there is another shot that is extremely similar to one that we have also used in our films opening. The shot of the last from behind is slightly over the shoulder, as is ours. However, our one is from a closer proximity which changes the atmosphere as a whole. 

A comparison to the film 'Dirty Harry'

Another similar shot is found in the opening of the film 'Dirty Harry' just after, the lady in the pool is shot, the policeman (Clint Eastwood) is the focus of the shot as he walks towards the scene of the crime. Much like our film, a series of panning shots are used to show him strolling calmly during the opening of the 1971 film.

A close up of the 'Main man'

The film also consists of a close up shot of the lead character as he walks round a corner, we hav an extremely similar shot as our lead character walks round the corner to the cemetery. In the actual film, the lighting is quite dark, which makes it quite difficult to see the man's facial expression and the scenery behind him, in comparison, our shot is very well lit, showing the details of both Konrad's face and the setting behind him.

Another congruent shot is of 'Dirty Harry' putting something in an envelope, in this shot, (like much of the other sections in that film opening) it is quite dark, which is quite opposite to our scene as the envelope is seen in bright daylight. Both of the shots are extreme close ups, showing mostly the envelope with slight reference to the fingers or hands that are holding the envelope itself.

The film 'Juno' also has a similar shot as the character crosses the road.

'Juno's entire opening is actually quite similar to ours, it consists of a main character walking towards a particular destination and uses several different shot types, angles and editing techniques to make it more entertaining. Although, due to their light-hearted/childlike introduction, they had added a cartoon effect to the walking, this is something that wouldn't really have fitted the thriller genre easily and needed very skilled and talented people. In my opinion these are two very good excuses why we just couldn't have the drawings instead.

Another corresponding shot is one of 'Juno's legs, although the shot used in our openng sequence is taken from a slightly different angle, the concept is the same. The shot is aiming to show the way and and what speed Juno walks, and we attempted to do a similar thing. Both shots show some of the floor and a bit of the scenery behind the main character, but due to the diverse backgrounds create completely different pictures

So, overall, I believe we have conventionally established a character (a stereotypical businessman), a typical yet interesting location (cemetery in the city centre), as well as polishing it off with a commonly used narrative opening title sequence. Moreover, like many mystery/crime thrillers we have constructed a slow yet interesting and intriguing start to what is sure to be a thrilling and hugely entertaining movie!

EVALUATION; Question 3: Who would be the audience for our media product?

Here is an example of a person who would watch our movie:

Female:
Paulina, 23, restaurant supervisor. Paulina is single. She has a Dell laptop which is just enough for her computer needs. Paulina loves travel and music. She works full time in a restaurant but is studying and wants to work in "Event Management". She likes house and dance music and often attends concerts of her favourite bands and DJs.

 Armin van Buuren ft Sharon den Adel - In and Out of Love (sample of Paulina's music)

Her favourite hobby is shopping and partying. She likes to shop in Bershka and Jane Norman but constant working doesn't allow her to go out much. She is a workaholic which enjoys watching rented movies on her laptop or occasional movies on the big screen (IMAX). She doesn't have a car or even a driving licence. She is addicted to lip balm.

Male:
Chris, 20, student. Chris is a hard working student at a University, studying medicine as well as working part-time in HMV. Chris is in a long time relationship. He has a MacBook Pro which is used daily for education and occasional gaming which he enjoys. Chris tries to watch movies weekly in a cinema but he's overwhelmed by work and can only watch movies occasionally on his laptop. He likes music but mainly pop.


The Black Eyed Peas - Just Can't Get Enough (sample of Chris' music)

He doesn't like shopping for clothes but he loves discovering new technologies on the market.

EVALUATION:Q3 Who would be the audience for our media product?

Originally, we thought that our film would be suitable for the older teen or young adult section of the general public. However, (as well as almost everything in this project) things turned out differently. I now believe that in general, that our movie would appeal to both males and females that are over the age of 25 and under the age of around 45. Yes, I know its broad but I did say it was general! They would typically be quite middle class and attend the cinema regularly and enjoy discussing the film with friends during drinks afterwards. The typical movie that would appeal to them is an action thriller or adventure film with a thrilling twist, always  made by the leading producers/directors and starring the most successful actors.
Now, lets get a little more specific, what do these people wear? What's their favourite food? Any hobbies? addictions? nasty habits? The details we could look for are endless!

Here is one example of a perfect member of our audience...
Along with her favourite song:
'Encoder' by Pendulum

And the contents of her handbag (yes, the one in the picture) :

andd me talking about the male.....

EVALUATION; Question 6: Audience feedback and comment

In our class we had a discussion about our opening sequences. We watched every single opening and gave a feedback to the members of the group that made it. We all wrote the strengths and weaknesses on a piece of paper so that the group could analyse and acknowledge what was good and bad about their film. I think that our movie was a success because the responses were quite positive. We used wordle.net to create a nice looking image showing the words that were used to describe our film. The bigger the word, the more often it was used. As we can see our main words are good, soundtrack, editing, works and titles. Apart from the word "good", those words can be either bad or good depending on the context.  

"editing works well with the soundtrack"

"good use of slow-motion"

"interesting jump cuts"

Those are only few of many positive comments about our product. Many student also said that they "can't find any cons" which I think is very flattering and it shows that we did a good job.

Among the disadvantages we found out that some titles were unclear for some people and that the whole sequence is "kinda slow" (which was an advantage for some saying that they liked that nice, slow, consistant pace). 

From the beginning we knew that not everyone would enjoy this opening because not much happens in it. Some might think something along the lines of: "you knew that and still went with it ?!". Well yes it might not attract 16-17 year olds (4 out of 18 students would pay to see the movie) but that's good because it is not our target audience. We didn't want to pack the whole movie in those 2 minutes, we wanted something subtle that simply introduces you to the plot.

Here is the class discussion after watching "Paradox":

Here is a video from the Cinema Screening of our opening sequence:

Goodbye Film. Goodbye Blog.

Today is the deadline. For our opening sequence and for our blogs. When we first began I was kind of excited that we would be getting to use cameras and the like to make an actual opening. What I didn't realise at the time was how much work was actually put behind it just to create an opening. We did a lot of research in the beginning which I think helped us immensely. We looked at how to use a camera, different openings and everything in between from title fonts to intertextuality. I have to say it was a long process but I enjoyed most of it.

Filming was actually completely the opposite to what I thought it was going to be, because we had to record some shots again because the camera was too shaky or it was wonky on the tripod or someone came into our shot. We also had to film the same scene from lots of different angles which I also kind of forgot about. The best part I think was when we were actually planning our idea because everyone got to put in there creative ideas to come up with a really good one for our pitch (even though we changed it a few times) and I think that our final movie is pretty awesome.

Blogging was quite fun. In the beginning I wasn't really bothered with it because I thought it would take too long, but once I got into it, it was fun. It was much better to blog about what we had done in the lesson rather than write it in essays and stuff. I really enjoyed the whole process, but I'm kind of glad to say it's over.

Coming to an end

So now that we've finished our movie, all we have left to do is see it. And everyone else's. I've taken away a lot of things from this 'experience'. Working in a team is harder than you think. I have to say, I think our group are on the same level(ish) when it came to our movie. We had similar ideas and tastes on what we wanted it to be like. We got along pretty great apart from some small speedbumps along the way. When we first started I was pretty psyched about working with Konrad and Goz because we get along really well and I would work with them again. What I liked is that we didn't appoint anyone a leader, instead we were all equals in this process and made collective decisions.

I've also learnt that people are going to criticise your movie no matter what. We thought our initial idea was amazing, but when we did our pitch the class didn't really understand what it was about and we had to explain it to them for them to get it. Our teachers also thought our idea was too complex and at the time we were like 'what are they on about? our idea is awesome!' Now I've realised it was abit much for the little time we had to film and edit and I actually think our final movie is muuuuuuuuchhh better. I'm glad we listened to what our teachers and classmates had to say about our movie and that we changed our movie because I think it makes a good opening. When someone says something about your movie always take it in your stride and if it makes sense, then use it. If you don't, then ignore it.

Last minute filming

After starting editing on Monday we realised that we were missing some shots that would make our movie much better. We didn't have enough close ups which made our movie consist of only long shots. Boring or what? So after college ended for the day on Tuesday, we went to collect a camera to record the sshots that we needed. Because we didn't have the time to go all the way back to the graveyard (clearly) we thought where can we shoot it? After thinking for hours (or two minutes) we went out to the back of the college in the gardens and filmed there. Because we only needed close ups you can't tell that we're in a different place (I hope) and so after getting our shots, we went and uploaded them onto the Mac ready for the editing the next day. Last minute filming. I wouldn't recommend it.

Final edit!

Titles

We had few problems with our titles thats why I've decided to make a separate post. After looking through the LiveType gallery of various typefaces and fonts and all of the transitions we've decided that we will use something simple, like in "The Stepfather". We choose a font (...) which is quite simple, serif font. We also wanted to keep the colour plain i.e. black. Unfortunately we didn't have the background in our footage light in all of the scenes which created a problem of the titles being hard to spot. We tried making them bigger or moving them around the screen but it didn't work. This was mainly because then they were too eye-catching, grabbing the viewers attention while the movie was in the background, unnoticed. We put the titles in the order that we've discussed few lessons back. There is a sheet that i've posted a while back with a list of titles that should appear in the opening sequence(right). I'm glad that I did post it because it was very useful when creating the titles and also few other groups asked me about this list. :)

After sleeping on it we had a great idea on how to make some of the titles bolder. We could use contrasting(white) borders around the letters. We thought about this idea earlier but then it sounded tacky. We opened FinalCut Pro (through which we were adding the titles) and we tried to add those borders but we couldn't find any options that would allow us to do it. Thats when I came up with an idea of using two layers of titles, one white and a size bigger(left) and the other one black. This would both, give us the borded as well as a cool effect which would be impossible to do with normal borders. This white layer wasn't right behind each letter which made this kind of 3D look which i personally liked very much. (down)

Editing: Titles

Now that we've completed the sound part of the opening, and pretty much cut our movie into oblivion (the good type) we just needed to put the titles in. Right towards the beginning of the process, when we were just getting started on this project we evaluated the title sequences and which order the titles came in. We decided to stick to a similar way that they were put in. So this is the order:

• Candi Studios - our amazing logo that Konrad made (exciting times everytime we see it :D)
• Candi Studios presents
• A film made by Group Sixteen - our production company
• Starring - the actor (of course)
• Movie name - Paradox
• Music by - the soundtrack was made by this pretty awesome band
• Photography
• Writer
• Editor
• Director

And while all these are going on, our opening sequence will be playing at the same time. We decided to keep our titles in a simple black font because we wanted to make sure that we didn't completely distract the audience from our opening, but at the same time we wanted them to see them. We kept our titles mainly on the left side of the shot we put them in, but some were put on the right because we tried to put them on the lightest part of the shot so they weren't hidden. One thing I would say was kind of difficult was where to put the titles. In which shot and where to place them. We had to spread them out (not so) evenly but not too quick so that the audience missed half the titles and not too slow either so they were bored before we had actually properly begun. I think we got them pretty good. :)

Done! Evaluation of our opening.

So, as tomorrow is the deadline, I'm over the moon to say that we have finished our opening. Although we may have had a few disagreements on the way, it has definitely been a great and positive team effort. So, first of all, unsurprisingly, our final edit looks almost nothing like our plan, apart from the fact that Konrad is walking, we had changed the shots and storyline completely. Despite the fact that this comes across as a negative, I believe that we have all made changes and contributions for the better.

Our opening credits consist of Konrad exiting a hotel, walking to a cemetery and finding an envelope in the grave that he was visiting. Asleep yet? Yes, although this simple (and slightly boring) idea doesn't come across as a Oscar winning movie, it had created ample opportunity to experiment with different shots and angles and I'd like to think that we have taken full advantage of this fact. Moreover, the fact that we had realised that this wasn't the most exciting storyline, really helped us focus on the editing and sound aspect of the project. This was due to the fact that we knew it was the only way to really make the audience enjoy themselves.

So that's exactly what we did, thanks to our rush last minute decisions and impulse-fuelled actions, we created an opening which I'd like to think that we are all proud of. The thing that I'm extra-glad about is the fact that we managed to use an original song that we are almost certain that no one has listened to before. This gives our opening an extra edge and shows that our group is not only talented in itself, but also know talented people!
Talking about talent, one of our other unique points is the opening that was made by Konrad; the 'Candi Studios' opening clip (seen above) is quite possibly my favourite part of the whole opening, and I cant help but gloat about the fact that I had added the sound for it! haha!
After asking for a few opinions and pretending to by shy when other classmates asked to watch our opening, we recieved some great positive feedback as well as some minor constructive criticism. However, most of us were already aware of some of the flaws in our movie, we just wanted to ignore they were there as there was simply nothing we can do about it, either due to the lack of useful footage, are the simple fact that we had run out of ideas. But, one thing that received the most positive reaction was our title music, one person stated that he thought...

"The music is really great, you sure it's nothing professional?"

So that was a great positive feedback that really boosted our confidence, another was when a teacher said...

"I like it, its simple but effective, good job!"

So, before I sound like an over-confident moron (if I haven't already), I would like to sum up by saying that I believe that our thriller opening is soooooooo much better than any of us thought it would be, and I would also like to thank everybody that helped us make it. Furthermore, I would also like to say thanks to the rest of the group, for being so cooperative and hard-working (most of the time lol), we really pulled up our socks and made this film as good as it could be... hopefully we'll have the grade to prove it!

And Here it is...

Nearly done...

So, we hoped today was the final day of editing... we were wrong! Although we have completed most of our opening, we just need to polish the edges and complete those all important finishing touches.
As I had mentioned before, we had received the music just in time, and as I had 'Bugsy'ed being the sound editor from the start of the project i was both extreeemmely thankful that it had arrived and also dreading the pressure, because if the song didn't fit, we would be done for!

Here is one version of the track:



Thankfully, it did fit quite well, and when we showed our edited clip to one of our amazingly wise technicians he commented that he 'really like the music'
yaay!

So know we have the footage itself sorted, and the sound sorted, the only thing left is the titles...
We managed to put them up and arranged and placed them in places where we thought were appropriate, however this wasn't too east as much of our footage wasn't really suitable for the black writing we had. However, our group, along with many people who had seen our opening agreed that changing it to another colour would simply ruin our opening. So, while thinking about the evident problem, I had an idea!
We could still have the writing black, but just use a white outline!
Although, in theory, it sounds quite good (to me at least) this might turn out looking quite awful.. I guess we'll find out!


So after doing this, we found that it did work!  we had the normal black font then had the same writing but a size bigger in white behind it, it created a shadow effect and gave a quite mysterious effect. Although it was effective we decided not to apply it to all the tiles, just the ones which weren't absolutely clear!

Editing

Today we officially started to edit our opening sequence. We had all of our footage already chosen from our rough cut but we are not strict to the exact bits of the film, we are open to changes. I think that organisation is the key to well... doing anything to the best standards :) Thats why from the first day we organised all of our footage into folders depending on the day they were filmed in (Day 1,2,3,4 and 5) This helps us find footage quickly which saves us valuable editing time. We all did a little bit of everything, it was truly a team work. Few weeks ago we set tasks that each person will be only responsible for, but at the end we all contributed to all of the parts of making the movie and I thing thats why its going so well. We received the song from Goz's friend today which means that we could finally manipulate the sound and song so that it fits the movie well. Most of this type of editing was done by Goz as she is really good at that but we were watching the process closely and commenting/suggesting what and where should be done. Here is the raw track that we got today:

Overall we almost finished our piece except some glitches such as using black font(of the titles) on a black background. We did that in some scenes because we didn't want to change the colour of the font during the movie. We want to keep it simple, black, nothing extraordinary. We will have to figure out how to make some of the titles to stand out more from the dark background because they are not as clear to read.

Audience.

So now that we're almost at the end of our making of an opening sequence, we're going to watch them all on the BIG SCREEN. But if ouor movie was forreal, like we actually made it for the general public, then what kind of audience would watch our movie? I think we would obviously attract people who love thrillers, that's a given. I think young adults and adults would be the main groups we would attract. Say, ages 16 up. I think our movie could potentially scare the biscuits out of people, even though we don't really know what the rest of our movie is about. I have learnt that the opening to a movie is really important. It will show the producers if they were successful in keeping audience interested, or if there movie was, basically a flop.


This is how the audience will look before the movie starts.


And this is how they should look during the movie.

Edting: Some more

Today's lesson is going great so far. Our opening sequence is pretty much done cutting and pasting wise. All we have to do is finish the titles and finish the sound. Konrad made this EPIC looking production company logo for us using Adobe After Effects. It looks EPIC. Seriously. Here's a shot from his editing.

 

Another thing. Our movie is now called Paradox. We started off with Echo and then thought that it didn't really fit in with our movie. So then the word Enigma was on the cards, and then Paradox came about. We ended up going with Paradox because there are already a couple of movies called Enigma. So Paradox is almost finished. I never realised how long it would take for us to film and edit the movie, and now I can understand why great movies like Avatar and Harry Potter take so long to make.

 

We got some feedback from Bernard who said that he really likes our movie so far and says that it has 'potential'. He likes the variety and range of shots that we have and it all makes more sense to him. So, that's another good thing. :D And the weather. Is a bonus.

Editing: For the final cut

On Monday we came into lesson ready to edit for our final cut. After our final day of filming on Sunday and the minor disagreement we had, I was glad that we all got past it and was ready to edit our movie into amazingness. As far as I could remember we only had to add in our new footage and do the titles and music. It sounds little doesn't it? But it's actually quite alot. It was pretty stressful and I think we were all feeling that way. Stress x 3 = Stress overload. Not a good thing. We managed to start on our titles and fix up the opening a little. By the end of the lesson my energy was pretty much gone. But todays lesson is much more successful.

Music!

Well although it was last minute (more like second), we hav finnaalllyy received the songs! Also, due to the fact that we got the song directly from the makers (the band 'Diafora') we have zero copyright issues and their full consent to use the song. The song has quite a simple melody and and a quite solemn tone which i think is extremely suitable for our opening. Once we finish editing the footage itself, we'll put the track on, editing the music at suitable times (obviously), then, put on the rest of the titles and thenn... finitoo!

Due to our amazing music, I think (without realising) our group has created a music video style opening, slightly similar to the 'Taking of Pelham 123' movie, which happened to be one of our favourites anyway.
So, it seems like our movie isn't going to be anywhere near as a disaster as some of us thought!
yay!

Filming?!

Yesterday after putting all the parts together we realised that we didn't have an ending. We filmed the last scene at the cemetery but it didn't have a definite ending. Just few days left until the deadline which means that we cannot film anymore. Fortunately at the last minute I (we) thought about filming outside of college in a way that it doesn't seem that it is not filmed at the cemetery. This meant that I had to bring my suit again. Fortunately it was just the trousers and the shoes because our scene consisted of the letter falling and landing on the ground with the sinister (and cheesy) line: "I Know". After all I think that this ending and overall movie will be a (surprising) success :)

Candi Studios

Because our production company is not Paramount or 20th Century Fox we didn't have a good animation at the beginning of the movie stating that the movie was made by Candi Studios. College Studios does have an animation but it is widely used by other groups. I don't like being like everyone else and so not only our movie would be different to others but also the Candi Studios animation. I've used Adobe After Effects to create this shattering effect which I think looks ok :-) Since I've made this(with help of www.videocopilot.net) I can edit any bits of it such as colour. I tried to make it orange/red (colours on candi logo) but it looked a lot like fire which I thought is a little bit cheesy.

Here are some screenshots from the software at the early stages of the animation:

panic.

Well, during another stressful day of editing, it seems like I'm definitely the most stressed over the fact that our movie isn't that great, and that we only haev under 4 days to bloomin complete it!!

We have most of the footage edited to a fairly good standard and have thought of places and frames for the titles to go.
However, our music isn't as promising as I hoped it would be, the song that I had posted on my previous blog seems pretty perfect to me, as long as we don't use the track with vocals...
Right this moment, I am waiting to be contacted by the band members to see if they can organise and send me a instrumental track as soon as possible...

Fingers crossed!

Titles.

So, while we were waiting for our new footage to upload, we began to look for potential titles for our Movie....

We are also thinking of re-naming our film,
Potential names, (excluding our original idea) include;  Enigma and Paradox.  We believe these would create a sense of mystery and hopefully help build a little suspense.

However, it seems like we've encountered a small problem. The computer won't allow us to use downloaded fonts, so, our attempt at becoming a little more unique is failing.

Filming (Day 4)

Today is the last day of filming. We almost completely changed the plot of our movie. We have decided not to use the footage from our last shoot because it didn't make much sense and we don't want to confuse our audience in the first two minutes. Also the ghost idea would be more effective in a long run and not just the opening. We decided to film at the cemetery again but at a different grave and I will not be haunted anymore. We had an idea of using some mystery object and putting it on the grave but we were not sure what. WeWe had many ideas for that so we brought a range of props such as a pillow case (kidnapping), an envelope, a big coin (mystery item) and few pieces of paper (a message from the dead?).
We decided to use the coin and a letter in an envelope. At the end of the shoot I though it would be good if we film from someones perspective as if our main character was watched. This gave us a variety of shots and proved useful because later on we decided not to use the coin which was hidden in the envelope. Using shots from further away allowed us to create the illusion that I opened the letter and went straight to reading it and not looking for a coin.

Soundcheck: My attempt at adding music to blogger...

On this little window, if you click the play icon, you should be able to hear a potential track for our movie.
But, if we do use this song, it would be without the vocals, so it's not too much like a music video :-)

Filming, finally over....

Well, just like the title suggests, we have completed filming. The phrase better late than never comes to mind :-)
although, the storyline is still pretty awful, both the group and I believe that we can edit this to make it seem pretty kool.
Maybe backwards? hmm. That's not a bad idea actually, it could be like a less eventful version of 'momento'? lol

Konrad 'On Set'

Anyway, filming wasn't the most exciting thing in the world, I'm pretty sure that everyone had lost any scrap of enthusiast we had left. The fact that we were in a cemetery didn't help either, but on the positive side, we got our filming done, and we have just under 5 days to edit and make an opening to the best of our ability.
We had a slight disagreement as we were leaving, it was over the silliest thing and I really don't know why we made into such a big fuss but oh well. Noone wanted to take the camera to college the following morning.. so typical teenage laziness took over and we all went sour about the situation. But hopefully, tomorrow there will be noo awkwardness =/ lol

Filming: Part 4

Today was the day. At the beginning of this week, I posted a mini schedule for our week ahead, and now that the week has pretty much ended, I'll tell you about our final day of filming. Friday.We picked up the equipment. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.And today, we went to a graveyard in Tottenham to film. This was the one Goz and Konrad filmed at last time. I live pretty far from there so I was planning to take the train, only to realise that there was no train to go there. Because of train works. So I got a taxi (ahemmymum) to get there. We filmed alot (I think) and this time we definately got a lot more close ups and different angles (as we were told by our teacher was something that we needed) and a lot more variety to use in our opening. So the only thing left to do is to return our equipment. We stood at the cemetary for about 10 minutes deciding who was going to bring back the equipment on Monday, and then we came to the conclusion that we all should just come in. I thought it was unfair that I had to bring something in seeing as I bought both in last time, but I think all of us coming in is fair enough and only now do I realise this. Thats something I've learnt over this process. Everyone in our group thinks differently. We all have our own opinions and views on everything, which may not always agree with someone else's. But I think its a learning curve in a way. Making sacrifices for the group and meeting half way in decisions. All we have left to do is add in titles, add some sound and finish editing. Easier said than done.

Pictures to come.

Editing: Rough Cut

So. Wednesday was the rough cut deadline lesson. Our rough cut consists of....well alot of clips shoved together. Which is pretty much the definition of a rough cut. I think it was good we had this deadline because we then got a good idea about what we still needed to do. Here are some shots from our lesson. We used Final Cut Pro to edit (obviously) our rough cut and we'll obviously finalise the movie there too.

What we still need to do:

Re-film the graveyard scene (now completed)

Finish the opening!!!