Main Task

For our main task we were asked to put together a 2 minute opening sequence which included the 180 degree rule (which we also used in our preliminary piece) and different edits, camera shots and angles. We had to think carefully about which genre we wanted our opening sequence to be, whilst thinking up a unique story for our opening sequence which would also meet the requirements of OCR. For the main task I am working with Maddy Page, this is because we both work well together and are able to suggest a range of ideas.

Planning
We first of all decided what genre we wanted our opening sequence to be. Once we had decided the genre of our opening sequence, we began to draw up a spider diagram of different ideas we liked and thought would be successful, this helped us to decide on which idea we liked the best and allowed us to start to develop the idea. We developed the idea by drawing up a table which had two columns (camera shots and camera angles) this made it easier for us to work out which camera shots and angles we were going to use at different parts of our opening sequence. After we were sure of what camera angles and shots we were going to use, we drew up a storyboard for our chosen idea.

This is what our storyboard looks like:

Things we need to think about

Before filming we have to think about what props we are going to use, the location we are going to film at, what sound we want to play during our opening sequence, who is going to be acting in the opening sequence and also we need to think of a time that is suitable for all of us to film.

We decided that we would film at school because the school has a isolated woods area. This area fits in perfectly with our idea and gives a extra eery effect.We thought that Dom Bennett and Becca Owen would be the best people to act in to be in our opening sequence because Becca was a Drama student and Dom was a good and reliable actor in our preliminary piece. A key thing we needed to think about was if we were going to film in daylight or at night, we decided that filming in the daylight would fit in better with our storyline, this meant we needed to film in a limited amount of time so that the lighting was the same throughout our opening sequence.

Our chosen idea's main plot:

Dom rapes and beats Becca up and then abandons her in a isolated feild, Becca struggles to get up and searches around for her phone, once she has found it she rings for help. She tries to walk off to find some help but trips over whilst Dom's voice echo's in her head.

We thought that this was a good idea, because we knew that it was easy to make thriller's look authentic with the use of make-up, eery music, lighting and isolated areas.We decided that it would be more creative and interesting if all dialog was spoken in french, this also would help to give our sequence the eery effect that we were hoping to achieve.

Films that inspired us

La Haine

The french black and white film La Haine, released in 1995, was written, co-edited and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. The film is about 3 teenage friends and their struggle to live in the banlieues in Paris. Real footage was used for the movie, during 86-96 when riots took place. Money was an issue in producing the film, a lot of the actors weren't professional and Kassovitz used simple effects and a handheld camera. The film was recieved very well, from 14 reviews it was seen to be 100% certified fresh on RottenTomatoes.com and 8.1 stars on IMDb.

A la folie ...pas du tout

A la folie...pas du tout (He loves me ...he loves me not) is a 2002 french film which was directed by Laetitia Colombani and stars Audery Tautou. The film is about a woman who is in love with a married doctor who becomes dangerous when her attempts to make him leave his wife fall through. A la folie... pas du tout was given limited release to 23 movie theatres in North America and it was also a box office success grossing in $2,802,202 in France alone. It recieved a overall positive reception, getting a 73% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes.com.

Irreversible

The 2002 film Irreversible was edited, photographed, directed and written by Gaspar Noe and several reviewers declared it one of the most disturbing and controversial films of 2002. The film, which is in reverse-chronological order, is about a woman who is brutally raped and beaten by a stanger in a underpass, her boyfriend and ex-lover then take matters into their own hands by hiring two criminals to help to find the rapist so that they can get their revenge on him. A lot of the scenes were shot with multiple takes which were then invisibly edited together using digital processing. Irreversible holds a 56% approval at RottenTomatoes.com and the response to the film was overall very divided.

We got our idea from films such as Toy Story, Pinocchio and Small soldiers. These were films that we grew up watching and knew well. We thought that the idea of toys coming to life was quite a creative and cool idea and that it would be fun to see our own toys come to life with the use of stop-motion. Even though the films that inspired us are high budget films (unlike our low budget independent film) we hope that our opening sequence looks believable, just like Toy Story, Pinocchio and Small soldiers did.

Filming
The camera we used was a Panasonic SDR-S26. We used this camera because no-one in our group had their own camera that we could use, so we decided to borrow a school one. We were lucky to get this camera as it was quite hard to get hold of one at school (because so many people needed to borrow them). It was a relatively good camera which provided a good clear picture and was easy to use, so we were able to get the camera shots and angles we needed.

In order for our opening sequence to fit together we had to make sure we always filmed in daylight. This is because we had to film David waking up in the morning and getting ready, and it wouldn't of looked right if we filmed it when it was dark outside.This was quite difficult at first because when we would go to film after school it would still be getting dark quite early, this meant we could only film small parts of our opening sequence each day we filmed. We used Close-ups of David to show his emotions and his body language, we also used them to show the audience what David was doing, like when he opens the curtains in his bedroom. We used establishing shots and long shots of Davids house and street to show the location and the exact place the story is taking place. We also used shots and movements such as panning, tracking, mid shots, low angle shots and high angle shots, these shots allow the audience to understand exactly what is happening in our opening sequence and help to build the story.We each took it in turns to film, so we could all experience what it was like to use the camera.

Once we had filmed the first bit of our sequence, we watched it back and realised that the camera was really shakey, during our filmed work. We wern't happy with how it looked so decided as a group that we would film it again.

Props we used

The main props we used in our opening sequence were children's toys and teddy's. These were provided by individuals from our group. The toys were easy to get hold of as most of us had old toys from when we were younger or small brothers and sisters. We got a range of toys which we thought would look good in our opening sequence, such as Toy story characters (Woody and Buzz), teddy's, toys cars and soft toys. We gathered all the toys together and decided which toys we wanted to use and which ones we didn't, we wanted to focus on certain toys so it didn't look too messy(this is why we didn't include all the toys we had).




Here is a picture of the toys we decided to use.



We also used a mega sketcher as a prop, it was used at the end to display the title of our opening sequence. Stop-motion was also used at this point to make it look as if the title was being written at that exact moment, we thought ending our opening sequence like this would be a nice effect.




Costume

We used a casual costume for our opening sequence. This was because our sequence was about a boy waking up and getting ready for a normal day, so we thought that casual clothing would be the most appropriate. We felt that if we chose any other style of costume it would have stood out and made David look out of place.

Sound

We will use Diagetic sound and Non-diagetic sound in our sequence. Non-diagetic sound is usually put in when editing and is used to create an effect, background music in a film, or the sound of laughter in comedy's is a example of this. Diagetic sound is a natural sound like footsteps, breathing, a door closing, characters talking.

We have to think carefully about the Non-diagetic sound we want to play during our opening sequence. We want something which will fit in with the genre of our film, so we will narrow down a selection of songs which we think will be appropriate.

Location

Our story is set in a children's bedroom, so we had to decide as a group whos bedroom we would use. We needed to take into consideration how easy it would be for people to get to that persons house and also how authentic it would look. Two out of the four people in our group live in eye, so we thought that would be the best place to film. David was happy to let us film at his house and use his bedroom, he had a bright room and old bits from when he was younger, which helped us to make it look authentic.

We edited the picture above to give it a cartoony effect so it would fit in with our family friendly film.

This is the street David lives on. It was also where some of the filming took place.

Risk assessment

We filled in a risk assessment, so that we were aware of safety hazards and so we would know what to do if anything did happen.

Characters

We only needed one character for our story as the main feature of our opening sequence was our toys coming to life. We decided as a group that David would be the best person to act in the sequence as he acted in our preliminary and felt comfortable infront of the camera.

Editing

The software we used to edit was Sony Vegas 8. It was quite easy to use and gave us a range of edits and effects. We experimented with the different edits which helped us to decide which ones worked well with our sequence and which ones really didn't. A problem we had whilst editing was moving the stop-motion pictures we used, this was difficult because there was so many of them. Everytime we deleted or changed something we had to move all the pictures and it took up a lot of our editing time.We each took it in turns to edit and suggested things to the group which we thought would work well.

After audience feedback we decided as a group that we needed to change some of the story because the audience didn't understand exactly what was going on in the sequence. A few ideas were suggested and we sat down and drew up a new storyboard. We had to think carefully about the changes we were going to make, because we didn't want to have to change it again after we had filmed it all. Once we made the small changes to our story, we began to film again, insuring the camera wasnt shakey by using a tripod, so we wouldn't have to film it more than once.