What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

How did you address/attract your audience

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product

Inspiration for our title sequence

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the creation of my opening sequence I have used many different technologies and software I have also learnt valuable skills with these which will help with future projects.

Research and Planning
- Powtoon
- Blogger
- Emaze
- Youtube
- PowerPoint
- slideshare
- Adobe Premiere
- Adobe after effects
- Photoshop
-Piktochart

Filming:
- DSLR camera
- Tripod
- Green Screen
- LED light

Editing:
- Adobe premiere
- Adobe after effects
- Photoshop
- Soundcloud
- Adobe Audition.

Some technologies that I had not used before are presentation software's  such as Emaze and powtoon. I found that these were excellent ways of displaying information as they came with custom templates which could be filled with information and pictures. This software became one of my favorites when making blog posts as it provided the information in a clear and organized creative way. The software was also very easy to use so I picked it up very fast. I developed my presentation skills through using this and put this toward more creative posts for my blog. A time where I used this was for our target audience research, this was an important part of our research so I wanted it displayed clearly and creatively.

A second technology that was new to me was Adobe audition. In our opening sequence we needed a sound effect that simulated talking through a phone. For this we decided to use adobe audition, after a small tutorial we were able to record our message and apply a filter that made the voice sound as though it is on the receiving end of the phone call. This was interesting to use as it helped me develop audio editing skills, so if I ever need a special filter or effect i know to use adobe audition as it has many different. This was very beneficial for our groups work as it now sounds as though our protagonist is talking to someone on the phone.

In our opening sequence our decided to use silhouettes, to do this we needed the use of the green screen and the LED light. The green screen was something that was very new to me as I had seen them before but never used them myself. The green screen was very interesting to use, we had to make sure that the camera was only in frame with the green screen and that the LED light was placed correctly for the lighting so the shot wasn't too dark or bright. We also had to place our actors correctly as we wanted the titles to appear on our silhouettes, so framing of the shots were taken into account for the titles placement.

Thirdly when editing everything together we used the software Adobe Premiere Pro, I myself had not used this program a lot at all and so I wasn't very sure where things were  or how to cut/edit. However when putting together our sequence I have learned many valuable skills in Adobe. For example we had learnt how to import our silhouettes and change the background colours and match the title on top by changing fonts and colours. Which made a massive impact on our opening sequence as corrctly positioning our silhouttes and changing the background colours to fit with the sequence helped to make the story make sense.

Finally when researching and planning, to display my work in a creative way I decided to also use piktochart. This contained may different stylish templates to display information on this, with different sections for images and text. I wasn't very familiar with this software but after using it for a while I became very familiar with it and it became easy to use. This is just a section of a piktochart I have created, as you can see it displays information in a very clean and simple way but has many ways to style the information. From gaining these skills I can put it toward future projects when I am wanting to present information in a creative way.

What would be the audience for your product?

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventions of an opening sequence:

- Eerie/fast paced soundtrack
- Slow build up of soundtrack
- Production/distribution logos
- Fast crosscutting/cuts
- Flashbacks
- Establishing shots of setting

- An eerie and fast paced soundtrack helps set the tone and atmosphere of the sequence and help the audience identify what genre the opening sequence is. The soundtrack tends to start off slow and build up as more and more things are revealed throughout the sequence leading to the climax.  This engages the viewer as they are following with the music. This is seen in the opening sequence se7en where the music picks up as more and more shots are revealed.

-  Crosscutting help engage the audience in piecing the opening sequence together and to make them think what has happened in the past that links to the story. Crosscutting also helps the audience identify different characters so they can understand them better and follow the story knowing everyone involved it also builds a lot of suspense and tension as we are constantly switching from environment making the audience feel very uneasy about what is going on. We have used Crosscutting in our opening sequence to when the partner Jack Matthews is killed. Shown below. It is also used in se7en as they are crosscutting from different objects and settings.

- Production/Distribution logos are used to also identify what kind of film it will be from the companies that are taking part with the distribution of the film. For example our opening sequence uses the Vertigo Films ident as they are known for producing many thriller movies and so with our opening sequence being a thriller it was the perfect match to begin our sequence with.

- Establishing shots in an opening sequence help the audience identify the location of the sequence and from that to be able to pick apart about what kind of film it will be as if they are local shots it will typically be low budget and so the audience can recognize this. We have used many different establishing shots for our sequence as we switch from a few different environments, and so it just helps our audience to know where we are and what is happening rather than trying to figure it out so they can just focus on the story. Like shown below we have established an office like setting.

In our opening sequence titles play a crucial part as we have made our own silhouettes for them and have carefully thought about placement and timing for each of the title on different shots. Titles help credit all those involved in the film but also give the audience an idea of what the film will be about based on the actors and director that has shot the film. For our titles we took inspiration from James bond as they use silhouettes and as we wanted a very thriller/detective feel we decided to use these, after experimenting we found that the silhouettes worked very well and effectively for setting our tone and mood of mystery.      

Finally introducing our characters and creating the setting. In our opening sequence we feel as though we have done this in a creative way as we do not give too much away about our killers environment we have done this to leave the audience wondering, we did however show our crime scene using an array of long shots and close ups of certain parts, we have also done this to the office setting. We have done this so our audience does not get confused by the changing environment and can work out where they are in the film. Creating a setting is crucial as it helps set the narrative for the audience and allow them to see what type of characters we have and make their own judgements and opinions based on the introduction,  We see this used here in while it is not a thriller it does give a clear indication of the establishing

shot and our introduction to the main character by how they are placed in the shot.

               

             

Changing Main Title

In our sequence we agreed that the custom made title we had used looked more like a television series type title rather than a serious opening sequence. We decided to instead create a title in premiere pro and use the typewriter font with the colour scheme of white and red to make it seem more like an opening sequence than a TV series. Below is our custom made title that we are no longer using.

The Unit Final

The Unit Draft feedback

During our lesson we had other groups come and watch our 1st draft for our short film called "The Unit" We were then given feedback on this for things that we should work on to improve the extract.

We had many positive comments toward our draft but also we did have to take into account the points that were not so good about our draft. For example one of our EBI's was that the silhouettes did not look like it fitted into the sequence, as a group we discussed this and decided to change our sequence order around so the silhouettes when introduced would make sense and looks correct in their placing

Another point we had was that some of our shots lasted a little bit too long, as a group we agreed that some shots were longer than others and so when rearing our sequence we spoke again about how long we want each specific shot to be so that it would be long enough for the audience to see but not so it drags on for quite a while.

A third major point was that they could not follow the story very well, however we were doing a title sequence so there isn't really a fixed plot/story to follow as we are using different object and actor shots to display our titles.

Overall there were some many positive comments that our group were very happy with but also some very good points that we have to deal with to make our draft better.

1st Draft The unit

Improved Animatic

         
With the help from our peer review feedback, our group made a second version of our animatic and made improvements to it, one of our points was changing the length of different shots and making them shorter as some shots last for a long time so we decided on different shorter lengths for the shots.

Another thing that we had to do was add more title sequences to fit the names of the crew of our extract to make it fit with the necessary names, (resizing, font ,style)

Finally we decided to add music in the beginning to help immediately build suspense after our groups intro, we did this so the audience immediately can guess what genre our extract is. This helps identify our genre as does our shots but this helps the animatic just build a bit more early suspense.

Creating title Images

As a group we decided on making a title sequence, due to this we thought that silhouettes would be a really interesting effect for our titles to appear on as we introduce our different characters, and to also keep mystery about our different characters due to it being a thriller.

 To create the silhouettes we had to film the different actions of our characters doing different things so we had a large selection of different silhouettes to choose from. We then created a grey-scale background in Photoshop, we then exported them into the composition and placed them on a lower layer so they would not overlap with the shots.

We have chosen silhouettes to almost create a James Bond type feel as we are using police detectives and a murder investigation for our extract and so it would fit very well.

Shooting Schedule

Titles and credits

The titles and credits help indicate the beginning and end of our extract and so are an important part when creating a short film. We have ordered our titles from least to most important so the audience can see who had what role throughout the film and also so it looks authentic and doesn't just end abruptly. I do however think the credits roll quite fast and so we would need to slow them down so the audience can read them properly. The titles help identify the actors/movie name again which plays a really important role in the film.

Costume List

Font research

 Using the word Hamburgevons to show of the typography of each font, I searched for possible fonts to use for the main title as well as the headings. As we have not come up with our Main title, it's difficult to tell which one would work for our opening sequence. How ever I feel that a messy, rugged font such as "True Lies" would look great for the Main title . It shows aspects of mystery mixed in with horror. It's dramatic and bold as well as strange. For the headings I thought a type writer font (Like "times new yorker")would work great as it would relate to our theme of detectives and their cases.

Title ideas

Casting

Actor: Matthew Tizzard

Character: Jack Matthews - The recently deceased co worker of the protagonist - Hugh Green

I volunteered for the role of Jack Matthews as I have had previous experience in performing. My appearance combined with the costume will match that of the characters bio and the features found out from the target audience research. Besides my looks and experience i was also chosen as i don't mind getting dirty, lying down on our set in the middle of the street, in front of people. Plus it might be fun.

Props list

Background music and sound effects

 I choose this as a draft or starting point for background music as it is calming however it still builds tension slowly for the audience by the use of the piano. I also think that we could are able to put sound effects over the backing track because the music itself is not over developed and complex so it wont be too manic like of an opening sequence if the sound effects were put over the piano.

 I have chosen this as it sounds as more of realistic Gun shot rather than the actual hand gun sound effects it also has a steady continuous after effect of the shot which makes it more dramatic and i would like to put it in the first 30 seconds of the opening sequence before the audience is first visually introduced to the opening sequence. 

Animatic Reviews

     Things that we will have to work on for our animatic are:
     - Sound Track
     - Timing on some shots lasting for too long

Overall I think the idea of our animatic is very successful due to the different titles and the customization of the colors on certain words. Our animatic is above 2 minutes so there is no worry of it being too short or too long, also with our soundtrack it links in a way to our storyboard as the shots we have fit the soundtrack we are using. Our storyboard is well detailed but some shots are placed a bit "randomly" which could potentially confuse the audience when observing or watching out sequence.

Animatic

Locations

 For our opening i thought that this alleyway would be good position to film it. Firstly it fits into our setting displayed in the storyboards, it's dirty, rundown and is a dead end, both for the alley and the victim.

The alley is also secluded meaning were're less likely to be distracted by members of the public whilst recording.

The set also comes with its own props! meaning less effort on our part. Of course we would still need to add a few more, such as the tape. On the downside it is unclean and could potentially req a futher investigation of the set as well a clean up.

The whereabouts of the alley is close to rose hill roundabout, by a block of flats.












------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 I found a alley way near a local high school so it is in a safer area. it also has many angles allowing us to have many creative shots with angles and extreme close-ups.

 The actual alleyway itself is tidy and clear from any harm of objects that could be dangerous. This also gives us more space to lay our props in specifically places of the alleyway because of the amount of space given.

The Background of the shots are suburbia which fits into the sketches of the storyboard. it is also near a local park with a clear field so the 'victim' is able to be followed like in our storyboard.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For our opening title sequence we have taken the idea of our crime scene to take place in an ally. Therefore, in order to prepare for our filming we had to establish specific locations that we were interested to film in and also set our storyline that would be appealing to the audience keeping them interested and one that also fitted the thriller genre. Taking into consideration the British market that our independent film our aiming towards, we used a local location in Carshalton. The local setting also is supported by our feedback from our survey that we completed with results identifying that viewers preferred to see a local setting for a thriller compared to an extravagant one.

Presentation Feedback

 For part of our planning for the extract we were asked to present what ideas and the plot of our story that we had so far. We were then given feedback from the class about what was good and what we could do better.

The feedback that we had been given proved to be very useful and so we have made some significant changes to our extract so it can be even better.

For example, a question that did keep coming up was, if we were going to show how the colleague died and if we would follow his story. We decided that we would not show the colleagues death and so that would add to the mystery of them finding out who the killer was without knowing the exact way he had died.

By doing this it also made the opening easier to make as we did not have to film two different people in separate locations.

We also had decided that our main characters name Hugh Green, was a bit too "old school" and so we will be coming up with a more modern and gripping name as the name was also brought up in the feedback.