Poster

Student Film Opening

I think this film opening brings up a lot of questions right from the start. We immediately see that something bad will happen because there is a man on a computer however we do not see his face which makes him seem mysterious and sinister. The lighting is low key which shows us that the girl is in danger because we link darkness with fear and danger. The way the websites have been done on screen is very good and i like how they have linked the titles in with this. Also the editing on the girls vlogs is good because it makes it seem more realistic, as if the girl actually has her own blog. I think the production companys logo needs more work because having a boring logo does not fit in with the opening. At the end of the opening, the way the film title is slowly typed out reflects what the film is about and what its genre is

Film Title Sequence

The Box Trolls

0:05-0:08 Directed by...

0:08-0:12 Produced by...

0:12-0:16 Screenplay by...

0:22-0:26 Isaac Hemptstead Wright

0:30-0:34 Toni Collette

0:35-0:39 Simon Pegg

0:40-0:44 Director of Photography

0:45-0:49 Visual Effects

0:50-0:54 Animation supervisor

0:55-1:00 Character designer and character sculptor

Richard Morrison

Richard Morrison is famous for the work he has done on film titles and how many he has done for lots of popular films. After watching his video i picked up a few hints that i will try and use when i do my film opening.

- There should always be a storyboard for your opening scene. This way you can change and swap things around, plan out where your titles will be and how they will look in the scenes and also it gives  you an idea of how your opening scene will look.

- Everyone should come up with ideas for the titles, this way you have a wide range to chose from and you can mix ideas together to see which works best

- Find a narrative that suits the film. This gives the opening scene a meaning.

Blog Reflection

So far this year I have learned how to use lots of different programmes for example Premiere, Prezi and Photoshop. I found Prezi the easiest to use because it loads of cool different features and layouts and it was so much simpler than Powerpoint. It also is more fun in terms of user interaction. I feel like my blog could be around 13-15/20, this is because I think there could more stuff on there, film openings etc, so that anyone viewing my blog would have a more fun experience. Also I think that i could add different fonts etc to make it look a bit better and i feel that i haven't made use of all the features provided to me. Things i think i need to focus on in my blog are checking for any spelling mistakes, explain in more depth and make sure all tasks are complete

Previous Student Film Opening

 The music for this film fitted the genre very well. One thing that stood out to me a lot was the titles, i thought that writing them down on different iconic things was clever. However this continued for a very long time.

Previous Student Film Opening

I found this film very interesting because i thought it was clever that there were twins. The plot was very good and opened up a lot of questions as to what the girls past is and why she has got her sister involved. I think there could have been a wider range of shots involved and the music/audio was very grainy. However the titles for this were very well done.

Previous Student Film Opening

This was my favourite film out of all the ones we watched in class. The one thing that stood out to me the most was the titles which were something i would expect out of a professional film. It was immediately apparent what the genre of the film was. The use of what i think was a bomb was good because as they chased the boy it started to create questions which is essential at the start of a film. The only downside to this film was that the chasing scene was a bit too long however the angles and shots they used to film this scene were very good.

Sophies Choice

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I watched this opening scene of Sophie's Choice as part of my research to find out what the genre convention are for the opening scenes of drama films. This opening scene reinforced my research as just like the other opening scenes it had a voice over of a character talking about his life and what was going on in the time period he is in. Also, the music in this opening was a calm, soft and slow music. This helped me research the music that I will use in The Wish List's opening scene as I know what type of music to look for. Lastly, this opening reinforced my knowledge that drama films have serious font titles, but this film is different from If I Stay as the titles are before the film title. This made me do further research. This revealed that I can either put the title for the film before the opening scene or in the opening scene as it does not matter. This is because many other drama films have the film title at the beginning and in the middle of the opening scene so I could not come to a conclusion.

i watched the opening scene of Sophie's Choice as part of my research to find out genre convections for opening scenes of drama films. Just like the other opening sequences, there was a voice over of someone talking about their like and what was happening at the current point in time. It also had soft, calm music playing in the background. This helped because i now know what type of music i will find when we come to picking the background song for our opening.

Representations

Improved Script

Based on our feedback we decided to make some changes to our script, We decided to take parts out because people said they thought it was too long and quick, so if we shortened it, it would be slower and we thought that there would be more emotion in it.

New Titles

We decided to redo the titles for our films because we thought it seemed a bit unprofessional to have some names recurring so we decided to add in some new names, they are:

• A production by Watering Hole Studios.
• Distributed by New Line Cinema.
• Soraya Tormos.
• Issy Payne, Jimmy Allway and Beth Gant.
• Directed by Henry Payne.
• Produced by Soraya Tormos.
• Executive producer - Owen White.
• Casting by Lucy Harding.
• Edited by Katie Harragan.
• Written by Libby Collins.
• Director of photography - Bonnie Fitch.
• Costume designer - Alex Heard.
• Music by Issy Payne.

The Wish List final draft

This is the final version of our film opening  of The Wish List. After receiving feedback we made changes based on what we were told by our peers and teachers.

Feedback

Here you can see our class writing down feedback on our film opening

After watching each other's drafts for the film openings we recieved feedback on our opening.

The most repetitive feedback we received was

- The Doctors voice was too boring and dull, it did not sound realistic enough and it seemed as if it were being read of a script
- The end scene was too long however people liked the fact it produced a lot of questions about the film and that it was a good ending to a film opening.
- Make sure the music plays throughout the whole opening because it gets boring without it.
- Sophia's voice over needs to be said slower and there needs to be more emotion in what she is saying
- The titles are very quick so thy need to be made longer. Also the font was boring and vague.
- Better transitions are needed to make the shots join well.
- The glare effect on the flashbacks immediately tells you it isa flashback so there is no confusing, it also adds a lovely effect on the scenes.
- The phone call is too loud and sounds too grainy, this needs to be edited.

Poster Ideas

First Draft

This is our first draft on our film opening of The Wish list, once we receive feedback from my teacher and our class we will change certain parts.

Mood Board

From the films My Sisters Keeper, If I Stay and The Fault In Our Stars, I got the inspiration for my film plot. I liked the way that the flash backs in If I Stay showed Mia's past and the way that the girl in My Sisters Keeper looks at a photo album that reminds her of what she has done in her life. This helped me come up with the idea that Sophia would open a photo album that was half empty to signify that her life is incomplete and is nearly ending. I also came up with this idea to incorporate the flash backs into the opening scene. I liked the way the flash backs  and reality in If I Stay were transitioned using a fade transition. I would like to use this in my film opening as I feel that it will make it evident to the audience that Sophia is remembering events that have happened. Also, I feel that it will be very effective in the film opening as it will create a sense of the clips moving gradually into each other rather than cutting straight away. This would ruin the way that the opening scene is supposed to be slow and calm.

Music Ideas

We were given the task in my group to find the music that will be played in the opening scene of The Wish List. This task was hard to do because I wanted to find a smooth, soft song that wouldn't interrupt the dialogue of our film. One song we found was Salvation by Gabrielle Aplin. We thought this would be a good idea because it is a slow song. It is a famous song so we had to find a cover of it to avoid copyright issues. The only bad thing with this film is that the pace picks up so we decided we would chose another film.

I also searched up sad, soft music that YouTubers had composed themselves or uploaded that were not well known songs I found these songs.

I found these four songs as back ups in case Salvation by Gabrielle Aplin does nit go with the opening scene. I chose these for clips as I liked the way they are soft, calm songs. The length of the songs are a good length as the music will run for a long time. The four songs are smooth songs and will go with the theme of the opening scene.

Title Font

 

Me and my group used Microsoft Word and a website called Da Font to see what font will look and suit our film opening the best. We typed in the title of the film many times and put each one in different fonts that we thought looked good and simple as we wanted our titles to look like the titles in drama films such as The Notebook. By having a serious, simple font we thought that it would make the genre of the film more evident to the audience as the serious font reflects that the film is about something serious such as a real life situation and not a teen film. We chose not to use the first on the left hand side as we thought that it was not serious and would make our film look like a teen film by the fact that it is bubble writing. We chose the second font on the left hand side to e the font for the title and the tiles. This is because we thought that it was simple and serious and is not the same font as other film titles as it looks unique. The last font on the right hand side is too thin and looks like a font you would use in a documentary film, not a drama film as it is not serious font. So we decided not to use it.

Shot List

The shots that will be in the opening scene that me and my group are creating for our film The Wish List will include the following.

• Close up.
• Match on action.
• High and level angle.
• Tracking shots.
• Pan left and right - in close up shots and long/medium long shot.
• Tilt down - first shot (medium long shot)
• Long shot.
• Extreme close up.
• Medium longshot.
• Extreme long shot.

We are using a variety of different shots to show our skills in creating videos. By using different shots and movements in the shots we hope to create an effect which will make the opening scene look like a realistic film opening rather than just a film opening that was made by students and to make the film opening more interesting to watch. 

Institutions

 

Me and my group decided that for the film we are creating the opening scene for we will use one of our own production studio logos and a real production studio company. We had a group meeting and decided that we will use either mine or Issy's logo as they look more professional.

 

This logo is my logo for the production studio company that I created called Watering studios. If we use this logo I will place a fade effect so that the logo fades in and out. This will make the logo look more professional and interesting for the viewers to look at.

 

 

This is my logo that he created called Freedom Studios. I like this logo as it is simple but effective. However, the wreath around the eagle is blurry which ruins the logo. This will effect the decision on whether mine or Issy's logo will be used in our opening scene.

 

In the group meeting we decided to use New Line Cinema production company.

 

New Line Cinema

New Line Cinema was founded in 1967 and has produced successful films that with mainstream and niche audiences all around the world. It is an American film studio which first started as a distribution company but has turned into an independent film studio. It is owned by Time Warner and merged with Warner Bros in 2008. It has a history of producing and distributing drama films such as The Notebook, My Sisters Keeper, The Time Travellers Wife, the Sexy and The City films and Seventeen Again. All these films were successful so we thought it would be a good idea to use it. Lastly, since New Line Cinema distribute My Sister's Keeper me and my group thought that it was the right decision to use it as My Sisters Keeper is a similar film to the Wish List.



In conclusion me and my group decided to use New Line Cinema as the distributor of the film opening we are creating called The Wish List.

Filming Schedule

This is the shooting schedule for my group, this allowed us to plan exactly when we would film certain scenes and where. It was hard to plan this because no everyone was available to film together which was a issue. However we managed to get all our filming done on the scheduled days despite no everyone being there.

Titles

• Casting by Jimmy Allway.
• Costume designer - Soraya Tormos.
• Music by Issy Payne.
• Editors - All Names.
• Productions - mine or Issy's production company.
• Distributor - New Line Cinema.
• Director of Photography - Beth Gant.
• Executive producer - Jimmy Allway.
• Written by Issy Payne.
• Produced by Soraya Tormos.
• Directed by Issy Payne, Jimmy Allway, Beth Gant and Soraya Tormos.

Risk Assessment

This is the risk assessment for our trip to Southend for our filming. We had to take into consideration everything that could go wrong, including falling onto the train tracks and dropping the camera off the pier, we also had to say how we would stop these things from happening, for example we would have the wrist strap on to stop the camera from falling. 

Film Poster Ideas

For our film poster I have decided to look at other film posters that are of a similar genre to ours. The first film poster I looked at is the The Fault In Our Stars. This has a similar storyline to it however there is no boyfriend in our film which means our poster would have to be very different to theirs.
In the poster we can see the two main characters lying down next to each other on the grass, we can see they are very happy together. We can also see that the girl has breathing tubes, suggesting that she is ill/dying which is how it is similar to our film and why I chose it as inspiration.

Another film we have compared ours too is The Notebook, these two film posters are very similar because they both show two people in love. As you would expect, they both show the main characters and this is something we will do when creating ours, TFIOS poster does not show the names of the actors which is unusual however it makes it look very simple and focuses more on he main image and title which we will do in our poster.

The last film we looked at when making our film was my sisters keeper. This has a similar plot line to ours which is why I am looking at it for ideas on our film poster. This poster does not show what the film is about, we cannot see that the girl is going to die, it leaves the viewer confused as the what the plot is and this is something we don't want to do.