Question 6

Question 2

Question 3

Question 1

The Wish list is a  film  under the genre of drama and is under the sub-genres  life story, emotional drama, inspirational  and message movie.  Our film opening was influenced my other similar drama films such as My Sister's Keeper, The Fault In Our Stars, Sophie's Choice and The Notebook. After watching these films openings, me and my group were able to find out the conventions of a drama film opening and used the conventions to create our film opening for The Wish List.

Genre and how the opening suggests it

The conventions for a drama film opening are the following: 

• A storyline that presents a real life situation with realistic settings, stories and characters.
• A film that portrays a journey that a character has been on in their past or in the present day.

A storyline that is dramatic and emotionally moves the audience when watching the film. Also, something with intense social interaction.

However, the conventions for a drama film opening scene are soft, calm music in the background, simple credits in serious, clear fonts, voice over of the main character speaking about their life, the title of the film shows up on the screen near the middle of the opening scene and the opening scenes are not packed with different clip. They are calm opening scenes. In our opening scene we have suggested the genre of drama though the use of the voice over of Sophia talking about how she is feeling and about life. This suggests that the film is under the genre of drama as it informs us that in this film she is the centre of attention and who the film  is about. Also, when the voice over plays, Sophia is introduced so it becomes clear to the audience that she is the one speaking. In the background of the opening scene, me and my group decided to place a emotional, soft to reflect the emotion that is in the voice over. This suggests that the film my be an emotional drama film. This is once again made clear by the scene of Sophia walking into the doctors, which informs the audience that something is wrong with her an that is maybe serious. Therefore, suggests that the film is under the sub genre of emotional drama. The fact that at the beginning of the opening scene only Sophia is introduced informs the audience and makes it clear that the film is under the drama sub genre of life story a only Sophia is introduce.

In the opening of My Sister's Keeper, the main character is one her own and then the voice over of her begins. The voice over is her talking about her life making it evident that it is about something that has happened to her to show the genre of drama. This is similar to our media product as we introduced Sophia and then her voice over began to make it evident that she is the one speaking and that the film is about her life story. We also made it evident that the film is about something that has happened to her by the use of flash backs and the photo album pictures. In the opening scene of My Sister's Keeper the music is soft and calm conforming to the drama opening scene convention. In our media products opening scene the music is emotional and soft. It isn't very calm though as it gets a bit dramatic towards the end but we wanted this as it goes well with the rush of emotions and memories going through Sophia's mind. As we want this the music doesn't really conform to the drama opening scene convention of having calm, soft music. Instead it challenges it.

The title of the film

The title of drama films either come up like a normal title or has its on screen to show its importance. The Notebook title comes on screen like a normal title during the opening scene. Me and my group liked the was that this kept the opening scene flowing rather than cutting it. We didn't like the way that The Fault In Our Stars title cut the opening scene. In our media product we placed the title near the beginning of the opening as a normal title but placed it near the middle of the screen and made it bigger rather than having it as a normal title like The Notebook has done.

The title of our media product is The Wish List. We made this the film title as it is a short snappy name which is easy to remember and because it informs the audience that the film is to do with someones life as a wish list is created by someone about the wishes that they want to come true in their life time, relating to the sub genre life story. Drama film titles do not reveal much about what the film is about, for example, the title The Notebook does not reveal that the film is a romantic drama film. As ours describes one parts of the film, it does not reveal that Sophia has a life threatening illness and that she may not survive.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         


                                                                                                                      

 How are the characters are introduced?

In our media product, Sophia is introduced straight away informing that she is the main character and who the life story is about. Through the use of the photo album, we introduced Sophia by showing her life from being a baby to her gradually growing up into a child. By the use of the photos, this makes the sub genre of life story become clear as it shows Sophia's life which is what a life story is about. Sophia is also introduced in our media product through her flash backs. This also makes the sub genre of life story clear as it is showing us her life. Sophia's friends are introduced through the flashbacks. This shows that they are important characters but are not as important as Sophia as they are not presented at the beginning of the opening scene.

Our media product introduces the main character and the important people in the main characters life similarly to The Fault In Our Stars. In The Fault In Our Stars opening scene Hazel is introduced straight away which makes it clear to us that she is the main character and who the drama film is about. Then the second main character who is an important person in her life is introduced in her flash backs. This shows that Augustus is an important character in the film and suggest that he is a an important I the story line of the film.

Title font and style



The title font and style for drama films under the sub genre of life story and emotional drama have serious, clear, plain titles that reflect that the film isn't a  comedy or a rom com but a film that has a serious story line. Our media product uses this convention just like My Sister's Keeper. In our media product we have used the font called Adobe Caslon Pro as it is a simple, serious font that reflects the seriousness of our products story line. We have gone with the classic white colour text against the background as it stands out from the objects in the scenes. We decided to use a serif font as it look fancy like posh hand writing in a diary, which is what we wanted to come across as the film is about Sophia's life. So we wanted it to resemble the neat hand writing in a diary.

Setting/location

The setting of the film is in the modern day in town called Chelmsford. Most of the film opening is set during the day approximately near mid day and one location is set in the evening. We used different locations for each of the flash backs to resemble different events that have happened in Sophia's life. This makes our media product resemble life story as the flash backs show Sophia at different ages. The Fault In Our Stars has done this in the opening scene by having Hazel and Augustus together but in different parts of their time together. The locations in our media product are realistic places rather than being in space, which means that the audience can relate to the locations that Sophia and her friends have been to and become more intrigued with the film. In our media product we have used a natural location (the sea side) that would appeal to the audience as they are always is drama films and natural settings are to do with nature, which is all about life. This links to our media products as it is all about life. The rest of the opening scene is set in Sophia's house in the present day and in the past. This resembles a family setting, which links to the genre drama as drama films traditionally have families in then some way or another. The Notebook uses family and natural settings in the opening scene.

Costumes and props

The costumes of the characters are modern, smart and casual. We chose this style of clothing as we wanted the characters in our media product to look older and represent their ages. The flash back where Sophia is about ten years old with her friends at her birthday party they are all wearing graphic t-shirts. We did this to create a more childish representation. The main four characters including Sophia are wearing clothes that represent their personality. Sophia mostly wears a denim jacket, t-shirt and a skirt which makes us believe that she a is tomboy. However, her friend Kaitlyn is wearing a leather jacket, a blouse and jeans which suggests that she is a elegant female. The boys are wearing jackets, t-shirts and jeans which suggests that they are layed back, ordinary twenty year old boys. In If I Stay, the main characters Mia and Adam are wearing casual clothes. Mia wears clothes that suggests that she is an ordinary girl but when she is in acoma, she wears a pale outfit with a white top which suggests that she is innocent and pure. Adam wears black leather jacket and graphic t-shirts that mostly are related to past bands. This makes it clear to us that he is rebellious and is interested in rock band music. The main prop in our media opening is the photo album. This suggests the sub genre life story as it shows us pictures of Sophia in the past. We brought donuts to use in one of the scenes to make the flash back to look like an iconic scene as

Camera work and editing

The frames that we used in our media products opening scene are medium long shots, medium shots, close ups, extreme shots, long shots and tracking shots. We used the angles level. high, low and worms eye and the movements tilt down, pan right, pan left and tilt up. To join the clips together we used the transitions straight cut, flash dissolve and fade dissolve. We used the flash dissolve as it made the flash back clips look clearly different to the present day clips and it gave an interesting effect of Sophia flicking through memories in her head. We used the straight cut transition the most as we felt that it bed suited most of the clips and other transitions that we tried didn't look right. The pace of our media product is slow apart from the transition between the first too shots as the first shot changes to the second shot quickly. We edited the flash backs in the order that they are in to Sophia through her life -from a younger age to the age she is in the film. The special effect that we used is called the lens flare effect which creates spot lights on the shots which makes it look like the sun was shinning at the camera when filming. We liked this special effect and used it on the flash backs as it made the shots brighter in some areas. It also added a dream like effect to the memories and made the differentiation between past and present clear in our media products opening. However, in The Fault In Our Stars the only frames are close ups, medium long shots, medium shots and extreme close up. The transitions used and movements are dissolve, straight cut, zoom in and tilt up. It is a simple opening scene, whilst ours isn't simple.

Story and how the opening sets it up

The story line of our media product is a twenty year old girl called Sophia has a normal life. She is surrounded by friends and family, is in university and is enjoying life. until, she is told by her doctor after having tests done that she has got cancer. Sophia realises that she has done nothing with her life and creates a bucket list, which her friends help her complete before her life ends. Also, a series of events such as a love interest will happen along the way. The opening of our media product sets up the storyline by introducing Sophia straight away. This makes it evident that Sophia is the main character.

Question 7

Above is my Prelim task and below is my final film opening for The Wish List

When we did our Prelim task we had very little experience with the programmes and equipment we were using however I thought we had a good job considering our lack of experience. 

However when we did our final film opening we used a much wider variety of camera shots to make our film look better. Editing was much better on the final film opening because we had more time to use the features on Premier and play about with the effects which gave our opening a much more professional look.

Doing a Prelim task beforehand was definitely a good thing because it gave us an idea of how to use the software and were able to learn from the mistakes me made first of all and use them to make our final opening much better.

Question 4

Question 5

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.