Feedback From opening sequence

FEEDBACK

after screening our sequence to an audience this is the feedback we got:

- suitable lighting
- sets up questions
- good use of lighting
- good use of editing
- good soundtrack works well with content not too sure about fonts of titles.
- nice camera work - good range of shots
- nice mix and match of color for titles
- great atmosphere in the party scenes
- suitable use of soundtracks
- protagonist is noticeable
- clear genre - teenage romantic comedy
- suitable music and title
- conventions : alcohol, smoking, drugs, sex
- good lighting
- genre clear
- protagonists identified early
- clear its a teenage romantic comedy because of the age of characters
- shows main characters at the very beginning
- music fits well
- good soundtrack
- good sound bridge
- good job
- needs Keeley in it
- how were group q1-09 aloud to use pre-made music
- good sound bridge : diegetic and non diegetic sounds
- liked the drugs
- good use of transition blurry edges on screen
- genre clear from teenagers at the start
- protagonists obvious from the start
- good use of diegetic sound
- effective lighting - emphasising on smoke at the beginning
- good music, suits genre
- nice transitions between shots
- follows rules of continuity well
- good stereotypical characters
- establishing genre well (appropriate music)
- identifies several possible protagonists - those with dialogue, main ones? - yes reinforced at the end with second piece of dialogue
- sets up questions for rest of film

Planning

As our chosen genre is a ‘teenage romance comedy’ we have thought carefully about how we will present out opening sequence. We have decided together that the opening sequence will be taken place at a house party, which is very relevant to the genre we have chosen, as teenagers are most usually stereotyped to be linked with drugs, sex and partying. As we have chosen our teenage romance comedy to take place at a party we will need to organise people to act as if they were at a party, to do this we have to make sure we are very organised so we are able to get all of the people to be apart of it, otherwise we will not be able to make the ‘appearance’ of a house party realistic.

Cast
Plastic #1Plastic #2Posh Girl Main Girl Main Girl’s best friendSlutSlut #2 (with main girl’s boyfriend)DruggieMain Boy (Main girl’s boyfriend)

Shooting Schedule (plan)
We have though carefully about how we need to include a storyline in the opening sequence that will later lead on to some form of romance later on in the film. We came up with the idea that one of the girls going to the party will walk in on her boyfriend with another girl leaving her heartbroken and alone, perhaps leading to a story or her finding another love in her life.
The first shot will be a long shot of the main girl character walking with her friend to the front door of the house party.

We will then have an over the shoulder shot of both the main girl and her friend talking to each other whilst waiting for someone to answer the door, here we will include some dialogue such as “I shouldn’t be here: you know I’ve got a boyfriend”, making it clear the viewer that the main character has a boyfriend and is un aware that he is at the party.

After the dialogue has finished, the ’posh girl’ opens the door greeting the two girl’s, we will then use a shot reverse shot showing the girl’s outside then to when their walking through the door.
Then we will use ’random’ shot’s of different aspects of the party showing dancing scenes, alcohol and drugs (obviously fake), we will use them in a sense of flashes to show ‘passing of time’.
We are then planning to use an over the shoulder shot of the two girl’s looking at the party, and through their shoulders we will see the dancing scenes of the party, we will then switch the camera to be facing the two girl’s for an reaction shot, though the crowd of teenagers dancing.
We will then start a process of introducing the other main characters and ‘clicks’ of the film, using panning and tracking:

The first character we will be introducing in this sequence will be the ‘posh girl’, we will have a medium shot of her walking through and giving money to the ‘druggies’ for drugs, their we will also be introduced to the druggies. Once the posh girl is out of the shot, the ‘plastics’ will walk into the scene walking past the druggies again and using facial expressions to show their personality and feelings towards druggies. We will then use a high angle shot looking down at the plastics walk through all the crowd, whilst all the other teenagers part and stare at them as they walk through. Then we will have a low angle shot looking up the stairs as both the plastics walk up them, we may have a close up of just the plastics shoes. Once the plastics are upstairs we will use a shot reverse shot, of them on the upstairs landing, where the ‘slut’ will walk out of the bathroom with a boy (presuming they had sex) and she pushes the plastics out of the way. The slut and the boy will then go into a bedroom together, once they are out of the scene the main girl character will then walk out of the bedroom, going into another, then using a shot reverse shot we film her going into the other bedroom where she find’s her boyfriend with another girl. Then we will use the last piece of dialogue which will be of the girl saying : “what the hell is this”, we will then have the last medium shot of her slamming the door, which will then be the end of the opening sequence and the name of the film will appear.

In conclusion this will be the main layout of how we will present out teenage romance comedy, however we are planning to shoot other shot’s that will be randomly added between the main shot’s to emphasis it being a ‘out of control party’ and also to show passing of time.
There will only be some dialogue at the beginning of the opening sequence and at the end, throughout the rest of it we will add stereotypical teenage music that will be usually found in a teenage romance comedy.

Our Amazing Group

Group Q1-09

Final Cut

This is are final cut we have had to take out the lady gaga soundtrack because it is part of the exam board rules and instead we continued on our garage band soundtrack. We also changed the titles at the beginning as they were to fast and didn't look right and finally we added in the tittle of our opening sequence which is Lovelies.

orginal planning idea

Our original idea was that the opening of our sequence would see our characters introducing their names e.g-
Pia: would write her name on the mirror.
Naomi: would write her on a fridge or white board of some kind.
Marianne: write her in drugs.
Sian: have her written somewhere on her.
We kept most of our other ideas the same, however we decided not to use this as we though it took up to much time, also we did not feel it looked right and fitted in with the opening sequence and we did not know if the audience would understand what it was about so we decided not to use it.
We also didn't use the Lady Gaga music because we needed more of the garage band and their was not enough time in the our video for the just dance as well. Instead we used my dirty little secret by All-American rejects as we felt in was more appropriate as it was more of a party teenage song and it fitted in well as our opening sequence is about a teenage boy cheating on his girlfriend, so the song made sense.

Music Analysis

Music


First of all our group thought of typical teenage romantic comedy music like
"Pass that dutch - Missy Elliot"
Then we came across the music video for Lady Gaga which to our surprise had loads of shots and scenes that we were going to be filming in our opening sequence like partying, kissing, drunken mess, lipstick a girl writing on the mirror etc. so we decided that we would use
"just dance - lady gaga" for our opening scene.



This music video was a lot like what we wanted our film opening sequence to be like, only with more writing like the girl does on the mirror with her lipstick saying "dance" we thought we could introduce our characters this way, although not only with the lipstick on the mirror.

However after filming these shots, our group did not like the shooting effect and the way the filming looked, so decided not to use them shots introducing the characters and just simply have them coming up in the smoke of someone smoking a cigarette therefore also decided on the music to be:
"dirty little secret - all American rejects"



None of the shots in the music video relate to our film opening however the music is very teenage Rom com and the dirty little secret relates to our story line so we thought we would use both lady gaga and all American reject songs and have a sound bridge like they did in 10 things i hate about you.

After our rough cut editing and music, we could not have lady gaga's "Just dance" because where we placed it on our storyboard was non diegetic sound and was not aloud, so we used our Garage band music instead.

file:///Users/mediastudies/Documents/Q1-09%20FILM%20OPENING%202008-9/Music%20Garage%20bAND.mp3

Rough Cut

This is our rough cut, we added in the music, titles fades and we will add more effects and editing for our final cut.

Teacher Comments

Further to our conversation in class yesterday, action points to take forward from the rough cut to final cut include (you may have been working on some of these points already since we talked about them):

- Edit your sequence so that the total running time is approximately 2 minutes

- Replace the brief segment of non-diegetic sound (the Lady Gaga track) with music you have created using Garageband.

- Ensure that your use of a pre-existing music track is only for diegetic purposes and segments (namely the party scene), which you are basically doing already, but given that the music is diegetic, the fade out when you cut to the exterior of the house is probably inappropriate and in that context would work better as a straight cut.

- Add titles (credits and the name of your film) to the sequence. Remember to make it look like an opening sequence.

Shooting Schedule

Shot 1- Credits- Valley girl production- this is of some pink lips with a cigarette in and we have smoke that you can see move a little bit at the end.
Shot 2- You can see Marianne lighting up a cigarette which we use for the rest of the credits, where we have a 'Rock star production' , and all of our names coming through in different colors. Over the top we have some music which we created in Garage band. This shot is a close-up.
Shot 3- We can see Ginti and Rubie walking along the road to the party, dressed up in party clothes, the music gets quieter and we hear them have a small conversation and wait for the door to open. This is filmed at a mid-shot.
Shot 4- Naomi (who's party it is) opens the door for Ginti and Rubie then shuts it. This is a mid-shot.
Shot 5- We see a close up of Marianne lighting a cigarette again but this is when the music starts and we get the idea that the film beginning is about to begin.
Shot 6,7&8- We then see a few different shots which are very quick and just add effect to the party scene, there's a lot of bottles of alcohol, shots of a TV and some random bits with people dancing, being mad and getting close. We use close-up shots for these.
Shot 9- The next scene is in the party where there are lots of people dancing in a mid-shot, it then zooms in to a close-up where we can see a reaction shot from Ginti and Rubie. The next few shots just show people carrying on dancing, having a good time.
Shot 10- We can see Marianne and Alex in a mid-shot acting as druggies then a mid-shot of Naomi coming in to buy some.
Shot 11&12- This follows in to Marianne taking some drugs and then get a reaction shot from Bruna ans Sian who are just walking past and don't agree with it.
Shot 13- We have another mid-shot scene with dancing and Bruna and Sian walking through the crowd.
Shot 14&15- We get a low-angle shot looking up the stairs where Bruna and Sian are walking up, this then links on to a mid-shot where Pia and Joe are coming out of the bathroom looking guilty and push through Bruna and Sian.
Shot 16&17- Here are some mid-shots of Ginti, Marianne, Naomi and some other people dancing, we then see a mid-shot of some stunt tricks on the stairs form Alex.
Shot 18- We see a mid-shot of Pia and Joe walking together again, they walk over Ryan who is passed out on the floor, then looking guilty walk into a bedroom.
Shot 19&20- We see a close-up of Alex and Mel making out in the bedroom but then Rubie walks in who is supposed to be Alex's girlfriend so obviously gets annoyed. Then see a reaction-shot of her slamming the door.
Shot 21- Here we have the name of our film, which ends the opening sequence.

10 Things I Hate About You Analysis

10 Things I Hate About You


The music starts up firstly and then the first of the production companies is introduced (touchstone pictures) the logo is simple, blue, times new roman writing, with a blue circle to the left of the writing a flash travels through the writing from the right towards the circle and flashes into a lightening strike inside the blue circle.
Then the film itself presents touchstone pictures in a teenage doodle type text.
As the music gets into the song the film credits carry on in colorful doodle writing to say (a mad chance / jaret entertainment production)
The establishing shot is a cartoon sketched picture of new york from a high angle of the city viewing the tops of the buildings, the camera shots through all the stages of the picture being drawn over and over again until its a real life photograph which turns into the opening scene.
The camera then starts to pan track over the city into a street.
Whilst the film starts, it introduces the title of the film "10 things i hate about you" the actors begin to be introduced
(Julia stiles, heath ledger, Joesph Gordan-Levitt, Larisa oleynik, Larry miller, Andrew Keenan, David krumholtz)
The opening scene proceeds into the story,there is a sound bridge from where the soundtrack turns into the music, where a load of fun giggly girls pull up in a blue car and are dancing to the music (which is the soundtrack but bridges into what the music coming from the red, loud car that then pulls up next to them, with one of the films characters driving listening to rocky loud music they have a tense moment between them, then they pull off from the traffic lights.
The scene cuts into a college where it shows students doing different activities, carries on with its actor introduction,
(Susan maypratt, Daryl chill Mitchell and Alison Janney, David leisure, Gabriell's) union then goes on to introduce casting.
The camera then follows the girl from the red car through the college as she rips down a poster for prom in anger. then the scene cuts into the film which is the end.

Rock N Rolla Film Analysis

Rock N Rolla


The beginning of rock and rolla’s opening scene starts with a tracking shot of a old dark warehouse because its so dark and gloomy its quite hard to make out.
The camera tracks to the right towards a wall this is where the production companies start to be introduced.
All companies are introduced in a way that looks like it is graffiti on to the wall as each logo has a white paint dripping effect and each look a little bit splashed on and messy, with the walls looking gungy and wet, to match with the old warehouse.
The first production company appears (A Warner Brothers Production) the production logo is the initials WB in a shape of a shield, the logo is very famous so the audience will already know that its gold however its faded so it looks white for the graffiti effect.
As the camera pans and tracks from logo to logo the noises in the background are noises you would hear in a warehouse e.g. clogs and wheels turning and metal clanking there's not much noise but every now and again especially going from one production to the next the noises sound, much like the noises from a rarely used dirty machine.
The camera then pans down the wall and across the floor to the next production company (dark castle entertainment) which is an outline shadow of a castle with the moon behind it with right writing producing the name of the production.
The camera then goes up the wall and tracks across the floor, the next production company is in the distance in what looks like a arched, stone door way the camera pan / zooms into the logo showing (a toff guy films ltd) the picture is in black and white (like the other logos) and shows a black man sitting in a leather arm chair holding a gun in one hand and smoking a cigar with the other he is wearing what looks like a posh suit and has a lot of jewelry and a crown on his head.
The last production shown, the camera pans to the right and is just writing which introduces (a guy Richie film)
The soundtrack is still consisting of dripping noises and metal clogs, the sounds go really well with the start of the film.
Before the last production fades away the voice over begins in the background which starts introducing the storyline of the film
(voice over: people ask the question, whats a rock n rolla? … and I tell ‘em, its not about drums drugs and hospital drips, oh no, there's more there than that my friend, we all like a bit of the good life, some the money, some the drugs, others the sex game, the glamor or the fame, but a rock n rolla, oh ‘es different, why?, because a real rock n rolla wants the fuckin’ lot)
The way the voice over speaks to the audience is very informal and sort of friendly, very slang like.
While the man is saying the voice over the picture starts fading in with the establishing shot, from the dark its far away and the camera again pan / tracks into the picture getting closer and closer showing the audience the back of a boy/man with his top off swaying from side to side, as the camera gets closer it starts getting clearer and lighter so the audience can start to make out more, like what the mans doing, which as the camera gets nearer the man pulls a gun from behind him that’s shoved in the top of his trousers as the man turns around to face the camera the camera is zoomed in so much the frame is only his middle half showing he has a really big bong in one hand he pulls the trigger of the gun and a flame pops out the end (of the lighter) and he lights his bong.
Then there are flash backs of this man downing shots of vodka, having hard sex with a girl in a public toilet, and then pulling two guns out from a holster then throwing them up in the air and pointing them out in front of him.
This image of him with the guns freezes and turns into a cartoon image where then the name of the film blasts out onto the screen, the camera pans from illustration to illustration with animation bursting out from each person introducing characters there the animation also draws part of the background setting where the cartoon characters are
(Gerard butler, tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, mark strong, Idris Elba, tom hardy, Karel roden, Toby kebbell, jimi mystry, Geoff bell, Matt king, featuring jimi piven, Chris bridges)
The end of the illustrated characters is a man and the design fades back into the real image of the man they zoom into him and the voice over procedes, now the audience know that, this is the person who has been talking to them
(my names Archie, formally known as Archie boy)
The screen goes black which is the end of the opening scene.

i could not find the opening sequence to rock and rolla however many of the opening sequence is in the trailer therefore we have added that.

Genre research and influences

Our film is a romantic comedy and will included teenagers and the normal thing that they get up to, so one of the programmes we looked at that includes all of these thing as well was skins. It is a TV show that shows a group of teenage friends, who basically go to parties, drink, do drugs, have sex go to school and various other things. It also shows teen romance which is obviously what our film is mainly about. skins shows the issues teenagers have.

We also looked at mean girls as it shows the different clicks of group their are at college for example; plastics, nerds, etc. This was useful as we are thinking of having a party in our film and there will be different clicks and social groups their.

The video for lady gaga was also quite suited to our media as their is a house party going on in the music video, like their there will be a house party in our opening sequence. It shows people drunk and getting with each other so normal things that happen at a house party which we may include in our opening sequence.

story board

This is our storyboard is shows the main events that will take place which is teenagers at college and then a party scene that will take place. The theme tune is Lady Gaga as we felt it was quite an upbeat song that fitted well with our storyline. The video also ties in well as it happens at a house and there is party going on. We are not sure whether it will be the tune we actually use, but it will be a similar party like tune. The storyboard also shows that there will be a main guy and girl that will end up being the main character in the film and the two that will end up together.

Mood Board

This is our Mood Board we thought it represents all the things we are going to include in our opening sequence such as; sex, drugs, alcohol, teenagers, romance, music and partying. It is the basic aspects that would happen at a normal teenage party which is what our opening sequence will be including flash backs of a party, so all these thing will be included in our film. Our main key feature will be that you start to see the beginning of a romance going to happen which will obviously be what the film is about, however we are only doing an opening clip so it will just insinuate who is going to end up together, but will hopefully be very obvious so the audience can see who it will be, all the other like sex and drugs etc will be included in the storyline aswell.

Genre Conventions

There were 5 different genre conventions that we had to choose from:

• Teenage romance comedy

This involves having a cast involving Teenagers that may have scenes which could make it obvious that it was of that age, like filming in a college or having actions that are quite stereotypical of a teenager like smoking, taking drugs, having sex etc. The romantic side would be filmed like maybe having inexperienced teenagers and also the experienced and following a story of two in love. For example- John Tucker Must Die

• Supernatural thriller with lead woman

Supernatural is usually considered as fiction and having fictional characters playing, involving the thriller side would make it quite an action film with lots happening in it that would keep you involved and may be quite scary at times. So it would have different supernatural sort of out of this world things in it. The lead would be a woman, so giving women the more important part than men. For example- The Ring

• British Social Realist drama 

This would be showing a lot of different people in England and how they live. The different cultures in life, poor, rich. How people live and deal with different situations. The story usually involves a lot of different types of people living in different places and looking at how they live their lives so differently. For example- This Is England

• Crime caper with ensemble cast

Usually a group of main characters who are involved in crimes. There's usually lots of scenes with action where you see maybe gruesome parts, a lot of fighting and shows how people can commit crime very well. There's hustling, lying and  most of everything they do is illegal. For example- Oceans 11

• Children's adventure movie

This has a target audience of children, so it usually has easy conversations with young people in and adults who could be nice and easy to understand. Adventures are exciting where there's a lot of action and the story is fiction with a lot of interesting characters and scenes. For example- Chronicles of Narnia

production logo

This is our production logo, we thought it suited the genre we are doing which is romantic comedy. We thought it was well suited as teenagers often smoke which is what the girl is doing. Our production logo name is A Valley Girl Production so the fact that it is a girl smoking also tied in well with out production logo name. The girl is probably around a teenage age again fitting in well with our genre of romantic comedy and teenagers. We thought writing a Valley Girl Production in white would be a good contrast with the pink lipstick and the white cigarette. The production logo would be on a black back round again contrasting with the pink. Our logo is also quite girlie which we thought would be quite suited as our names production name had the word girl in and is based around girls.

We got the picture from of a photography website and in photoshop we edited out the black around it and added on our production name.