My Contribution to pre-production and construction Blog Post #64

My Contribution to pre-production and construction

Blog Post #64

In terms of role and allocation, I was allocated to create the risk assessment, location recee and the risk assessment.

Location:

First of all we had to pick a suitable location for the project, Initially I had pointed out that we could film in Hemel Hempstead town, but because our treatment states that the use of weaponry would be involved we decided to pick a safer option due to the fact that some concerns were raised about having a model gun in public. So as a group we decided to film in a house rather than a public place, the property belongs to Jeremy (member of the group) and the house was ideal for the media product. So, after knowing the location I created a location recee PowerPoint slide to show what scene will belong where.




Shot List:
As well as this I took all responsible action for the shot list, this was a vital piece of the pre-production because it shows the construction of the final media piece without this we would not know the shots we need to use for the final piece, furthermore it makes our work more organised as we are constructed our final piece according to the shot list. The shot list outlines the possible shots, the duration of each individual shot, the number of the shot, what type of shot it is and a brief description of the shot.

Risk Assessment
As well as that I had the job to create a risk assessment, the risk assessment was assessed in January, and I had to outline all possible risks this was done by looking at the storyboard and location and outlining the risks and possible solutions and how many people were responsible if any media technologies were broken.



Lead Editor In terms of construction; I played quite a significant part. My role was being lead editor, I created the draft of the opening title sequence, this took me around 8 hours to edit. I created it on Final Cut Pro X which is a software available for Apple Macs. Whilst editing I had to ensure that continuity was maintained, this was then given to Jeremy Cannock he used my draft as a baseline and replicated my one as it was shown onto Adobe After Effects; he then created an improved version on Adobe After Effects which consisted of transitions, which is why my name is listed under editing in the final piece. 

How I edited the opening title sequence draft:

Below is a video showing you how i edited the draft and what the timeline looks like:

           


My Camera Contribution:

I also played a small part of being a cameraman, I filmed several shots . The first couple of shots that i filmed was the high angle shot which was recorded on the top of the scaffolding looking down at the officer (Jeremy) as well as this the third person shot where you see Harry  Denn(the assassin) holding the gun. Another shot is when i was filming Harry on the scaffolding, the idea of the shot was mine I wanted to created a shot that has emphasis on the assassin to show his menacing identity. Below is a video showing the shots i recorded with a narration. 

                 

                                                      Opening title sequence draft:

                 


In terms of construction I also play one of the main characters within the opening title sequence, I was one of the agent, this was a challenge to me as I haven't really acted before, but I like to take on challenges and I believe that has boosted my confidence.

How I created the movie title:

I also created the movie title 'Vindicate' at the end, below shows a video of how I created the title, I recorded the screen using the 'ScreenFlow' software.

                

Foley:

I also recorded my own Foley as well as my group because after editing the draft it came to realisation that there was far too much background noise. In terms of Foley i recorded my dialogue and exported the soundtrack. Whilst hearing the recorded sound, there was a slight issue the sound was only coming through one ear on the headphones, but because I have had previous experience in Garageband (as i record YouTube commentaries) i knew what the issue was, the audio was selected under Stereo which meant that it only comes out from the right side of the speakers/headphones, by selecting mono it enables the sound to come through both ears, I believe this makes the sound of our project more three dimensional as you can hear the sound from both speakers/headphones.


How i changed settings so that the sound
came from both speakers/headphones



Myself recording my own Foley

Text Sampling:

I also sampled some 3D text for our opening title sequences, these were created on photoshop and took a whilte to render out the text and put it on the video individually, unfortunately these 3D texts were not used in the final opening title sequence as feedback suggested it was 'breaking the conventions' and seemed like an action film text rather than thriller.

I have posted the opening title sequence with the 3D text below:

            

How has all the research helped me? Blog Post #63

How has all the research you have done helped inform your final opening title sequence?
Blog Post #63

All the research conducted over the past months has helped me a lot in producing my final opening title sequence. This goes all the way back researching into genre, before I did not know the clear conventions of a thriller genre as much as I do now. As well as this I know what makes a good opening title sequence, the five main aspects about it (narrative, genre, setting, atmosphere and character) and what is expected from an opening title sequence.

I believe that attending the BFI (British Film Institution) trip run by Pete Fraser has also helped me informed my opening title sequence, this is because It became clear what the pros and cons were whilst creating an opening title sequence. For example Pete stated that a lot of students forget to add around 24 credits (average number of credits expected in an opening title sequence) which puts their projects at a disadvantage, by knowing this and the researching the ordering of credits it enabled me not to make the same mistake as previous students. Furthermore analysing previous students' work helped a lot because it made me distinguish aspects that I could take on board and aspects that I could avoid.

Researching about sound has also been very helpful in order to inform my final opening title sequence, this is because sound makes fifty percent of a film, before researching I had no clue what Foley was, but after researching into Foley and sound I have realised how the power of Foley and voice-overs can make a project stand out and seem more professional, Foley was used in our final opening title sequence.

Furthermore researching into other aspects such as production indents and independent distributors has made me realise that if my film was to be distributed then it can only be distributed by independent distributers as my opening title sequence is an independent British film. Furthermore indents are also important as it allows the audience to familiarise with the company as they may refer back to it at a later stage.

In conclusion, I personally believe that all this research has helped me produce an overall fantastic piece of work, without researching into these factors my project would have not been half as good. I believe that researching and planning is vital when creating a media product such as an opening title sequence. 

The opening title sequence and relating to Pete's five aspects Blog Post #62

Vindicate - The Opening Title Sequence
Blog Post #62

Below is our final opening title sequence, fully edited. As you can see the feedback received from the opening title sequence draft has been listened to as various aspects have been changed such as shortening the drawer scene and adding our own Foley.

          

''How does your opening title sequence fit Pete Fraser's 5 important aspects (genre, narrative, character, atmosphere and setting)?''

Genre: In terms of genre, you can clearly tell the genre is thriller this is because there are different suggestions such as the use of props as our opening title sequence consists of weaponry. As well as this some of the shots were conventionally of a thriller film, for example the use of a point of view (POV) shost and high angle shots connotes this because in thriller films there is usually a high angle shot to show who is of power and who is vulnerable. Moreover, the characters are key conventions of thriller films, because you would expect an antagonist such as the policemen and an antagonist (the sniper assassin) to be introduced within the opening title sequence.

Narrative: Narrative was the most significant part of our opening title sequence, this is because there was a lot of enigma throughout the opening title sequence. This enigma began to really take place when we see the scene with the assassin, this is because it creates a questions in our head such as to 'why he is there?'  and 'why he is attempting to kill the agents for?'. Furthermore another form of enigma was towards the end where the sniper bullet goes off and the movie title 'Vindicate' is shown, this creates a sense of mystery because we do not actually see the agent being shot, this could create questions in the audiences head such as 'did he really get shot?' and 'does he survive?', which could lead to audience interpretation. 

Character: In terms of characters, there are two main characters; these are the two police agents. They are portrayed as brave and outgoing as they take matters into their own hands, the lead character (agent 1) is represented as a brave authoritative character, this is because he gives orders to his partner, for example when they enter the house agent 1 signals agent 2 which way to go which suggests confidence. Having a sidekick is quite common in the thriller convention for example in Hot Fuzz, the main two characters are a police double act (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost). Another character introduced in the opening title sequence was the assassin, he is presented in a dark mysterious way as he is wearing a hood and we don't hear him speak at all. Having an antagonist is also a key convention of a thriller film, the assassin also does not care about the death of the agent which suggests that antagonists will do anything to get their own way. 

Atmosphere: Relating to atmosphere, within our opening title sequence the use of fast paced cuts creates tension because this makes the audience feel as if something bad is just lurking around the corner which keeps the audience on their toes and their eyes glued to the screen as well as this tense and eerie mood, has been created by with the help of the soundtrack which complements the genre, the soundtrack is fast paced and instantly suggests that the genre is of thriller.

Setting: In terms of setting, our opening title sequence is set in a house, this is quite a common place for a thriller to be set in because it helps the audience identify the type of character they are. For example, in the opening title sequence 'Se7en' we see a psychopath at home getting rid of his finger prints this instantly suggests that he is mentally ill as well as this in 'Psycho' the female character gets murdered in the shower in a hotel. Setting is really important, we showed long shots of our characters to give the audience a sense of setting, the fact it is situated in a common place such as a house could suggest that there is nothing to worry as the location 'house' seems like a safe place but it turns out to be disastrous. 

Feedback and Alterations to rough cut Blog Post #61

Feedback and Alterations to rough cut:
Blog Post #61

To my opening title sequence, I linked the opening title sequence draft to my contacts on Facebook to see what could be improved on, I received various feedback which are posted below.

As you can see from photographic evidence, a lot of people said that there was too many background noise, to prevent this as a group we re-recorded the dialogue and created our own Foley in a music studio on soundcloud, the software we used to record the Foley was on Garageband this completely got rid of the background noise that was initially in my draft edit, By getting rid of the background noise, it made our project sound a lot more crisp and clear, as well as this the use of Foley made our opening title sequence more three dimensional. 

Re-recording my dialogue and recording Foley in the music studio

Other comments suggest that one of our shots was far too long, specifically speaking this is the shot where I was looking through the drawers, one of the person giving feedback stated that they became less interested as this scene was to long, one of his suggestion was to shorten the length of that scene.

After receiving this feedback, we decided to shorten the length of the scene but still get the message across. We done this by cutting out the excess clip on Adobe After Effects. I personally believe that listening to audience and getting feedback is critical as they are the people who are going to primarily watch it.

Opening title sequence ROUGH CUT Blog Post #60

Opening title sequence rough cut:
Blog Post #60

Below is my opening title sequence rough draft, I created this on Final Cut Pro X it took me around 8 hours to create this draft as I had to maintain continuity and ensure the opening title sequence looked aesthetically pleasing. Being lead editor meant that I had to use all my previous techniques learnt in the preliminary task and inflict it within this.

            

Below is another video, this time explaining how I edited the opening title sequence draft:

                                

My Own Production Company Indent Blog Post #59

                My own production company indent

                     Blog Post #59

After researching production company indents, I decided to design my own indent whilst using the program PhotoShop CS6. This is an amazing software which enables you to create your own logos including custom fonts, shapes, colours etc whilst having multiple layers.

So we wanted something plain but effective for our production company indent, so as a group we decided to go with the name 'Evolution Films', furthermore we didn't want to overcomplicate the design so we decided to chose simplistic colours such as black and white. 

Screenshot of my production company indent in progress

As you can see the image shows my production company in progress, PhotoShop enables you to have multiple layers which makes logo making easy and presentable.
The process began by myself selecting a new document and entering the pixels: 1280 x 720. I had to ensure the pixels were at 1280 x 720 because that is the aspect resolution for High Definition films, so by putting the aspect ratio to this it means that the production company indent will fit with the recorded footage with the canon 700D. 

The text box on the right allows you to enter font of your choice, allow PhotoShop is already pre-installed with hundreds of default fonts, I wanted our font to be even more unique. So I decided to go on a website called 'DaFont.com', which has many more custom fonts and chose one that stood out. The font which I ended up using is called 'Bebas Neue', this was done by downloading the custom font and importing it onto the mac. 


After importing the font I made the background black as this was the chosen colour, I also added a new layer writing out 'Evolution Films', soon after I added a line in between the two words to make it look more aesthetically pleasing but not over complicated. 

After completing the production company indent, it was time to render the image out, this one done by click on 'File', 'Save Image As...', 'JPEG', the image was rendered out as a JPEG image because it it is a supported file which can be easily imported into the opening title sequence timeline on Adobe After Effects. I also saved the image as a PSD (PhotoShop Document) file so that I can come back and edit it accordingly if any slight alterations are needed to be made. 

Production Company Indents in Thriller films Blog Post #58

Production Company Indents

Blog Post #58

A production company indent is a visual image which can be in the form of animation to show which company has helped produced the film so that the audience can familiarise with the company. Furthermore if they enjoyed the film they may refer back to the production company and view their other films. When it comes to editing my final opening title sequence I hope to use my own company indent this will be done on PhotoShop. 

   Existing company indents:

Dreamworks' Indent

Pictured above is the indent from Dreamworks' production company. as you can see the design is aesthetically pleasing and instantly after seeing this production company indent I can familiarise it with big films such as Shrek and Kung Fu Panda.

Paramount's Indent

Paramount also have a nice but simple indent, the background landscape shows a mountain with clouds surrounding it. Paramount have produced thriller films such as Paranormal Activity and Shutter Island. 

              

20th Century Fox's Indent

 20th Century Fox have a unique indent accompanied by the background sound i'm sure we are all familiar with. Again similarly this makes the audience familiarise with the production company itself as we can associate this company with films such as Avatar and Prometheus.

Character Profiles Blog Post #57

Character Profiles

Blog Post #57

Agent 1 (Portrayed by Jeremy Cannock)

Age: 37

After working for over 10 years in the police force, agent 1 is at the top of the hierarchy in terms of role allocation. He is mentally and physically strong and is an intelligent man who knows a lot about the police industry. Having over decades experience, he is very tactical and smooth when dealing with most police cases. He is also a caring person who will look out for a friend regardless of their position in the police force.

Agent 2 (Portrayed by Fateh Khaled)

Age: 25

Only just recently joined in the police force, agent 2 has been teamed up with agent 1 to get trained by the best. They have grown close in terms of friendship, and look out for each other. Only having recently joined the police force, agent 1 has been teaching him some more advanced tactics that wasn't taught at training. Agent 2 is smart but also daring at times, he takes his job seriously and professionally.   

Assassin (Portrayed by Harry Denn)

Age: Unknown

An unidentifiable man who is ruthless and spiteful, his is portrayed as an antagonist who is out to get anyone in order for his job to be completed. It isn't clear who he is sent by or who he is working for, but it is clear that he is after the two agents. He is also stealthy, who doesn't like to be seen, he usually wears dark clothing to represent his foul mood.