Main Post 5: Title Timeline

As a group we watched the opening titles of films so that when it came to creating the titles for our film we        would have an idea of how to structure our opening titles. Below is the opening titles to 'Catch Me If You Can'.

Main Post 4b: Narrative/Character Research

In our group we agreed that to be able to portray our characters and have a clear narrative we should research into it.
Here is a link to Opra - Sexual Grooming where we found out the steps in sexual grooming that go like so; 1. Targeting the victim
2. Gaining the victims trust
3. Filling a need
4. Isolating the child
5. Sexualizing the relationship
6. Maintaining control
By researching these six steps we were able to develop the rest of our film using these steps as the basic plotline trying to keep as realistic as possible when it came to Sophie and Alan's relationship.

This link Protect your children leads to information targeting parents so they are aware of what to look out for to keep their children safe. Below is a list of what makes children targets;
Unpopular
Feels unloved
Seeking attention and friendship
Low self-esteem and lack of confidence
Isolated from peers
Spends time alone
Often unsupervised
Experiencing family problems
This site seemed to focus on how the Abuser targets the 'vulnerable' as they are the easiest to get hold off. Therefore to keep our film realistic we have to use a few of the points above to prove Sophie is 'vulnerable'.

As we had an idea of our plot ending with the girl's ringing the NSPCC we checked there website for any information. Here is the link: Understanding Groomers. It not only told the parents how to protect there children but how the mind of an abuser works as seen from a quote below.

"I look for a child who seems to be lonely or sad looking for attention. Then I take my time gaining her trust and becoming her freind. In time she will do anything I ask."

This site also had stages of grooming however there were only four steps in comparrison to opra's six.
-Sexual motivation
-Overcoming internal inhibitions against acting on that motivation
-Overcoming external impediments to commiting sexual abuse
-Undermining or overcoming the child's resistance to the sexual abuse

From this website we have gathered information on how the mind of an abuser works which gives us inspiration when writing the script for our abuser's voiceover.

Main Post 4a: Plot development

Below is the plot development that my group created to show the characters, narrative and plot in more detail so we could get a better grasp on our film's storyline and what stages our plot line will go through.

Our group researched timelines and found this website http://www.lightsfilmschool.com/  to be the most informative. It gave us the needed information on film timelines and we created two timelines one being from a well known disney film 'Cinderella' and the other for our film 'Behind Blue Eyes'.

Here is the timeline for 'Cinderella' that we created;

Below is the timeline for 'Behind Blue Eyes' that we created also;

The title of our film is ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ and it falls into the social realism drama genre. Our target audience for this film are people specifically between the ages of 15 to late 20’s.

The logline for our film - a sentence under 25 words that summarises the film, is;
“Her skirt was short, her tie was loose. They always look older than they actually are….don’t they?”

A young girl aged 16 – Sophie, is best friends with Paige aged 17. Sophie mum is a carefree single parent and her father has never been in the picture. Paige’s father is also a single parent when Paige’s mother died during child birth; the two girls have grown close through the loss of parents. The girls often hangout at one another’s houses and do homework and have sleepovers and therefore they trust each other’s parents.

It begins with a male voice over who has not yet been revealed, there is a shot of Sophie and Paige in Paige’s bedroom doing homework and gossiping. Sophie quickly goes to the bathroom and whilst washing her hands rolls up her long sleeved top and shows bruising and red hand marks. Sophie goes back into the bedroom and they continue on with homework until Sophie realises that its 18:00 and she has to go home.

Paige tries to talk Sophie into grabbing a lift with her dad trying to get away from him for a couple of minutes (making the audience question why she wants her father out of the way). Paige finally guilt trips Sophie into grabbing a lift with her father.

Sophie gets into the car with him and he starts driving and talking to her whilst touching her, she starts doubting the whole relationship and says it’s not right making the father angry. He turns things around on her making her feel guilty telling her it’s all her thought she wanted the relationship to happen (though it is obviously lies and actually the father that has been encouraging the relationship). She gets out of the car.

Sophie and Paige meet up in town and Sophie can’t take the guilt any longer and confesses her relationship with Paige’s father to her then Paige confesses to Sophie how he also has been physically abusing her. The girls are both upset and worried so tell Sophie’s mum who doesn’t believe that the father could do such a thing leaving the children vulnerable about what the father might do next. Sophie and her mother have a dramatic argument. So go to the police station and explain everything that’s happened even against the mother’s wishes, the father is arrested and taken in.

The Father is taken to prison where he receives counselling where it is revealed that it is his story by showing him talking to the counsellor.

Main Post 4: Group meeting

Our group held a meeting in order to discuss what genre we would want to do in our short film. Below is a write up of what was said when we had our discussion:

'Behind Blue Eyes' discussed by Bobbi Rhodes, Charley Daugherty, Katie-Mai Taylor and Alex Mullins
Charley:Hey guys, so has anyone got any ideas about the opening sequence?
Alex:I don't know, what genre should we do?
Bobbi:
Well what would people want to see more of?
Katie:
Looking at our questionnaire results drama seems to be wanted a lot more.
Bobbi:
Thats a good idea! I think drama usually involves problems, we have to make sure it relates to real life situations.
Alex:
Well what sort of situations could we do?Charley:
What about a relationship between two teenagers?
Alex
Yes, we could do them splitting up.
Katie:
We could but it might be a little bit boring, what about an abusive relationship?
Bobbi:
That would be quite hard to act out and we would have to be careful with the conventions we use.
Charley:
Well if we look at a few dramas and also short films that we have been watching in class I'm sure there are certain conventions that we could achieve.
Katie:
We could also involve editing to make it seem a lot more dramatic.
Alex:
If we can do it I think its a good idea.
Katie:
Ok so where are we going to film it?
Alex:
Either at someone's house or maybe at school?
Charley:
I think the school because then we can do some work during our frees.
Bobbi:
Thats a good idea, I also like the idea of maybe a flash back rather than her actually being there now.
Katie:
Or we could just use the sound rather than acting because from our preliminary task I think the acting let us down.
Alex:
Then it will show our editing skills.
Charley:
Everyone happy with this idea then?
Katie:
Yes
Bobbi:Yes
Alex:
Yes

Main Post 3: Research into opening sequence designs

For my research into opening sequence designs I decided to watch the Kyle Cooper interview in hopes of gaining new ideas for my opening sequence. The Kyle Cooper interview was very insightful as it helped me get a better insight into the importance of an opening sequence and exactly how much thought and planning is needed to produce an opening sequence and there is a huge industry purely focusing on producting an opening sequence.

We watched the title sequences in both 'Se7en' and 'Superman' which were both well planned however the sequence did depend on CGI (Computer Graphic Images) which gave them the ability to create more effects and changes to there opening sequence then we would be able to as we are limited to resources and are unable to use the software.
However just because we are unable to use CGI does not mean we can't use our editing skills to make our opening sequence interesting for the viewer, we will be able to use effects to create atmosphere such as fades and ajusting the colours. Watching both 'Superman' and 'Se7en' showed us that sometimes being adventurous and taking risks whilst making our opening sequence could be the best style of an opening sequence if we were able to pull it off as it would interest our viewers and grab there attention. Since the opening sequence gives the viewers an idea of what the film's plotline will be the opening sequence has to be impressive. I found that by watching the Kyle Cooper interview it has given me new ideas that I will think about trying to incorporate into my opening sequence.

Here are the links to the interview;
Kyle Cooper interview part 1
Kyle Cooper interview part 2

Main Post 2: Choosing your genre

Looking at secondary market research I have been able to find out what is currently the top film genre's which will be useful to me as I will therefore have an idea of what would be a suitable decision when it came to choosing the genre for my film.

I looked at the website http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/media3.html where I was able to find a graph of the most popular film genres;

Where it was revealed that the top 3 film genre's where;

Drama 30.7%
Action-Adventure 16.2%
Romance 12.4%
I looked into other websites and found that the demand for these genre's had been consistant so it would be in my film's best interest if I were to pick one of the top 3 genre's as it would have a greater chance at success.

Using the information from numerous websites we have decided to make our film fit the Drama genre, the reasons for this is it's always in the top 3 for popular genre and also we thought that trying to make an Action-Adventure would be far to expensive and we did not have access to the correct equiptment or technology to film it. We also thought about Romance or Horror however we thought it would be to difficult to show in our opening sequence.

Here is an image of what our questionaire looked like;

We made 20 of these questionaires so our results would be more accurate and have a wider range in comparrion to 3 however we did make the questionaire slightly bias by only asking the age group from 19-24. Our feedback from the questionaire showed us that drama was a popular choice due to it being realistic and it appeared to be what our audience wanted to see more of. Therefore it would only seem appropriate to go with what our audiences wanted and wished to see more of. We all as a group like dramas so we ourselves thought it would be a fun challenge trying to make a powerful opening sequence that appealed to audiences. More then half of the people we asked all said that the things they usually expected in a good opening sequence is an introduction to the characters, possibly hint at the location and get the basis of the story-line. This was very helpful as when it comes to deciding what to put in our opening sequence we would consider what our target audience had said made a good one.

In our group we decided we would each ask 5 people to fill out the questionaire which would mean our results would differ. We then spoke about our findings in the group and created a tally chart using our primary research so the information would be easier to read. 

Evaluation
Using our questionaire we found out many usful pieces of information such as; when it comes to 18-25 year olds the most popular genre is Drama followed closely by Action, all throughout our questionaire Sci-fi was the least popular. Our questionaire seemed to show that everyone said they liked the genre Drama, they explained this was because they found the way the sound track linked to the mood of the character interesting and they enjoy how dramatic the genre was and found the tension addicting.

When it comes to the opening sequence of a film everyone on the questionaire said they expected to be introduced to the characters and location and for the tone of the film to be set. This is crucial to remember as we know what our audience expect and what we need to include when it comes to filming our own opening sequence. It appeared that everyone wanted to see more of the addicting dramas because of its popular storylines. All of this information shows us that drama is what is expected and is not only popular from our questionaire but our group also, who look forward to making dramas.

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.