Main Post 1: Conventions of an opening sequence

The opening sequence to any film is a key part as it sets the standard and the tone of the film about to be shown, this helps grabs the audience's attention and will make them instantly forget everything else and focus on the film before them. Therefore it was only right I research into popular opening sequences to see what works and what has the better effect on audiences. By researching into different opening sequences it will help me find out what is conventional for different genres and what I should put in my short film's opening to convey my chosen genre. 

Casino Royale
I watch the film ‘Casino Royale’ the more recent version released in 2006 which was the twenty first film in the James Bond series, which are all know for being action-thriller-drama. The animated sequence lasts for just over three minutes which includes images relating to the film setting up a number of narrative themes. The conventions used to show the genres of the film include the mis-en-scene as in the opening sequence you are able to see cards - or the symbols and patterns of the cards, and guns which is usually signified with gambling and gangsters which is regularly seen in an action film. The editing used also helps represent the genre having the backing music to the opening sequence 'You know my name' which in itself is a confident title the song's main notes are played throughout the film as a substitute for the James Bond theme, to represent Bond's youth and inexperience as opposed to the twenty other films showing him in later years. The classic theme tune which is usually a sound motif for the other films only plays during the end credits to signal the climax of his character, the soundtrack is all very dramatic showing the drama of the genre.

Here are screen grabs taken from the opening credits.

Confessions Of A Shopaholic

I thought I would look into a different genre than 'Casino Royale's' action-adventure so I could see a wide range of conventions used not only in one genre, also as 'Casino Royale' is more animated then real footage I thought I would choose the opposite . Like the majority of films 'Confessions of a shopaholic' starts by showing the companies producing the film with backing music that carries on through whilst there is an opening shot of glittery shoes in a box with lots of bright tissue paper on the floor which is usually signified with women which is also anchored by the title 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' with shopping and bright colours usually being signified with women. The shot of the title is also in pink which connotes femininity, the theme of pink continues through the sequence as the cast and some of the crews name appears also in pink. The opening music is very different to 'Casino Royale' as 'Casino Royale's' opening theme has a mystery behind it yet with the song being called 'You know my name' which is almost arrogant unlike 'Confessions of a shopaholic' which has an almost unrecognisable song. Unlike 'Casino Royale' there is a voice over of what would appear to be the main character and from her voice we understand she's a women explaining her love of shopping and how it started setting the tone for the movie telling the audience it will involve shopping and expensive prices, perhaps showing us the dilemma also.  The lighting changes throughout the opening sequence hinting at the mood of the character, as it shows the young 'Rebecca' who is dressed by her mother the lighting is natural and slightly dull which is anchored by 'Rebecca’s' opinion of her mother's dress sense, however when it's a more mature older 'Rebecca' in her twenties the lighting seems more artificial but also goes with her mood as she's smiling whilst strutting down the street. There is a variety of shots used also to show her location which helps the audience place her and also a high angle shot to show her vulnerability in any shop, there is also her point of view as she looks at herself in the mirror showing her to almost be vain but proud of herself which helps the audience get a sense of her personality.

Here are the screen grabs I have taken from watching the film.

Post 12: Evidence of how to improve and meet targets

- Make sure that when we have schedualed to film that there are no problems with the location be it the space is unavaliable or there are people to close to the camera.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/picking-locations-for-your-film.html This site is targeted for a larger production however the tips still apply and next time around i intend to look at more then one location and scout around.
  
- Try to keep within time limits so if there are any scenes that could be refilmed we have the choice or if any other problems happen to appear.

http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/time.htm Although this site isn't exactly talking about managing time for filming the principles still apply and I found the tips helpful so for my next task I will hopefully have managed my time better.

- Create the script with more detail and emotion so that the finished product looks realistic, which would hopefully help with the our acting also.

http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-write-great-script.html Although these tips are aimed at an ameture screen play writer the principles still apply and I found them helpful and I intend to use these tips for the next task so the script is more powerful.

Post 11: Targets

After completeing my preliminary task I have discovered some of my weaknesses that I should aim to improve on. The targets i wish to achieve are;

- Make sure that when we have schedualed to film that there are no problems with the location be it the space is unavaliable or there are people to close to the camera.

- Try to keep within time limits so if there are any scenes that could be refilmed we have the choice or if any other problems happen to appear.

- Create the script with more detail and emotion so that the finished product looks realistic, which would hopefully help with the our acting also.

Post 10: Evaluation

Luckily I’ve already done GCSE media and was therefore at an advantage when it came to knowing about; shot sizes, location recces and script writing however doing the preliminary has allowed me to develop my skills in a range of areas especially working with a team which was very useful as I learnt how we could incorporate numerous good ideas and turn it into a strong great idea. Whilst we were doing the pre-production we as a team had to learn to communicate and find out everyone’s strengths and weaknesses which were great as we could help each other out if need be. Thankfully we never found working together a challenge as we always discussed everyone’s ideas and let them have a say, which was great when it came to getting creative trying to find out a unique and original idea that none of the other groups would think of. During the task I have learnt that there are many risks whilst filming and watching for continuity, by doing a risk assessment at the place of filming we managed to evaluate everything that could go wrong  so when it actually came to filming there was no risk of someone or equipment getting damaged.  Although I know from previous experience how to handle the equipment I’m positive I’ve learnt more by completing this preliminary task.  

Other skills I learnt came from overlooking important details such as during filming we realised the library was unavailable so we had to reschedule and do it after school instead, some of the shots were not perfect due to our acting so we had to redo a fair few. The skills I learnt from having these obstacles in the way were how to be more independent as before in GCSE we were kept in a more controlled environment, but now when our group faced the obstacles we sorted them out ourselves only informing the teacher of what our changed plans were. 

When we had finished filming and were happy with the footage we had we then moved on to the post production using the editing suite and although we had followed instructions carefully when both filming and editing and having previous knowledge of the process of using the editing suit we did have some problems to overcome such as our camera would not correspond with the editing suite and refused to capture, yet we simply changed the camera and this meant we had overcome yet another problem. I was aware of some of the skills needed for the editing suite though thanks to completeing this task I am more confident in my skills as I've learnt how to crop footage and edit it together, how to label each rush and how it's important to take note of the in and out code. Not only did I gain more confidence in my skills when it came to editing the footage but I also gained confident in my editing skills as I learnt how to add credits at the opening and closing of the film and how to add fading effects.

Looking back over the finished product of our preliminary task I realised that we had not stuck to our script completely as we unfortunitly ran out of time so this could prehaps be a target for me to work on, another target could be to vary camera shots as there were groups of certain shots together which meant the tention could have suffered as the camera shots didn't help build tention but kept it average.

Post 9: Post production report

To capture our footage we connected our camera to the computer and captured the footage on the editing suite. We then as a group went through the captured footage (rushes) and wrote down the; shots, takes, and we decided if we were going to use it or not, we did make a few mistakes during filming when it came to our acting skills so this did help us decide what we could use.
After we had gone through the film and named the rushes we then began to edit the film, using the notes we had made earlier when capturing the film. We then went through the footage and cut the clips we wanted to use the logging rushes helped us with this because we were able to find were one clip started and ended and what we no longer needed. We did this until all our clips were put together in a rough cut.

In code	Out code	Scene	Shot	Take	Description	Yes/no
00:00:03:11	00:00:12:06	1	1	1	Charley walking into the library	Yes
00:00:12:10	00:00:18:22	1	2	1	Charley is in the library walking towards the table	Yes
00:00:19:04	00:00:18:22	1	3	1	Bobbi calls Charley over	Yes
00:00:25:06	00:00:22:05	1	4	2	Bobbi calls Charley over	No
00:00:22:11	00:00:30:02	1	5	1	Charley walks towards the table	Yes
00:00:27:13	00:00:30:14	1	6	1	Charley sits at the table and starts talking	Yes
00:00:30:14	00:00:34:04	1	7	1	Bobbi leaves	Yes
00:01:12:14	00:01:40:06	2	1	1	Charley and Katie talk	No
00:00:34:06	00:01:00:06	2	1	2	Charley and Katie talk	Yes
00:01:00:06	00:01:04:07	2	2	1	Charley begs for forgiveness	Yes
00:01:04:04	00:01:05:22	2	3	1	Charley runs out	Yes
00:01:06:04	00:01:10:01	2	4	1	Slams the door	Yes

Our group then went through the rough cut to check if it actually made sense, of course there were a few problems and we had to edit parts out that we had missed. For example when filming we counted to three and used the clapper board each take before we said our lines, so we cut out the pauses and the image of the board to make the footage flow better. Luckily because of our location we didn’t need to edit the sound as you could hear everything clearly, we talked about having diagetic music in the background but we thought it would take away from the script and so we decided against music.

We then began to add in some effects, such as strips in the beginning of our film and a cross fade effect at the end of the footage. We then created opening credits and end credits with a black background and white writing so there would be a contrast so the writing would stand out well.  
Watching over it I’d say that our group did do well when it came to editing however we did come across a problem in our final product yet we were aware of our mistake and in our future task we will make sure the same doesn’t happen again.