Friday 26 April 2013

!!!THE END!!!


Evaluation question seven- What we have learnt about technologies from constructing this product?

Here is the sound cloud file, where my production partner talks about the technologies we have both used and what we have learnt throughout the process of creating our opening title sequence.

Preliminary task (evaluation earlier in blog)

Earlier in the year we created this preliminary task, the evaluation of the teak can be found earlier in my blog, although the video was not uploaded due to technical difficulties. Here is the final preliminary task. Please note that there is no sound in this short film, this is explained in the evaluation earlier in the year.

Evaluation question six- What has changed since the preliminary task?


We created this short video to discuss what we have learnt since creating our preliminary task, it details the differences between our preliminary task that we made in january and how we have used the skills we have learnt since then in order to create an effective and successful opening title sequence.

Evaluation question five- Attracting our target audeince

We both created this Prezi presentation to look at how successful we were in attracting our target audience. Not only did we conduct a survey which concluded that 92% of our target market were intrigued enough to want to watch on, but evaluated our opening title sequence against a list of requirements I set up after conducting our market research. 

Evaluation question 4- Who is my target audience

Our target audience is young girls ages eight to fifteen years, this is because we identified this as the main target audience for various media publications and items such as games, magazines, newspapers, clothes and toys. We created a great deal of research into the existing products and decided to use some of the elements which are presented in these, such as the bond between horses and people, although, we decided to challenge the 'girly' aspect surrounding ponies, by making Tye (TJ) appear quite heroic, strong and powerful.

Here are some of the existing products that surround the genre 'ponies' and 'horses'. As you can see, due to the colour schemes of all of the publications, games, toys and clothes, they are all aimed at young girl, after conducting a great deal of research, it became clear that they were all aimed at young girls aged between eight to eleven years. This meant we would aim our film directly to this social group, as their was a high demand, and it would be well received by this social group.
















Evaluation question 4 continued...



Evaluation question 4 continued...





Evaluation question 4 continued...




Evaluation question 4- Interviewing the public





These videos show a short interview with various members of ravens wood school, they are all answering a series of questions about the opening title sequence and giving us some additional feedback.

Evaluation question 4- Going about answering it


Thursday 25 April 2013

Evaluation question 4- responses

This video shows the various comments from both people on the social networking site 'Facebook' and from online survey maker 'Surverymonkey'.

Evaluation question four- Target market

 
This short video show, explains and evaluates various responses from both Facebook and Survey Monkey.

Evaluation question three- Distrubution

We created this article to appear as if it were in the 'G2' supplement of the Guardian newspaper, as you can see it is presented as if it were a professional document.

Evaluation question 2- Moodboards and evaluation

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Evaluation question one- How characters are introduced

We learnt that in our opening title sequence we introduce characters through the use of narration as well as through our continual storyline. This is similar to some opening title sequences as well as different. This is explained in this video.


Evaluation question one -props and costume

We learnt that the costumes we created were similar to other opening title sequences, and were key in setting the time of that particular scene...
E.g - The newer TV in Old Nancy's scene tells us that it is set in recent time whilst Young Nancy's costume with the shawl and old dress with patches of odd fabric sewn on to it shows that the film was set at an earlier date.

We featured a saddle as a prop in our opening title sequence which showed that the horse was about to get ridden, this prop is common to other horse films.

One way in which our opening title sequence is different to others is one of our most significant props is that of the photo frame, this is used to help tell the story and connect the same character at different life stages. I haven't seen this in any of the opening titles that I have analysed.

Evaluation question one- Introducing genre

We created this presentation to look at how genre is introduced in a 'real opening title sequence' and then compared it to my own. 

Evaluation question one- Camera shots and angles



we first looked at my shots from my opening title sequence and then searched the IMDB website for photos/stills from other horse films. This has given me a visual comparison of shots of both my own  and "real media products". It is evident that there are some similarities as well as differences in the shots, but due to the limited locations you can take a horse to and the kind of shots you can get with a hand-held camera without compromising safety, my shots (although a range) could be seen as simpler. 

Evaluation question one- Location

 This picture shows part of our animated storyboard and what we imagined our location to look like...
The next image shows a shot from the film 'flicka' a genre specific opening title sequence that we conducted research on We wanted a shot very similar with a similar background, you can see the image below is very similar, although due to the weather on the day and having no access to professional lighting, it doesn't look as summery as we had desired. Therefore it doesn't replicate the location as effectively as we would have wished. If we were to have a more flexible deadline, we would have been able to select a more appropriate day on which to film the shot, and it would have represented our location more effectively.



Evaluation question one- Editing

We looked particularly at the dream-sequence editing and how it was similar to other dream sequences. 

Evaluation question one- Sound


My group partner and I had a conversation about the sound used in our opening title sequence and how it used, developed or challenged forms of real media products. This conversation is presented in the form of a transcript, on Slideshare... 

Evaluation question one- Style and font of titles


This slideshare presentation is to investigate the style, font and colour of my titles and the effect of that and how they can be linked to the genre and main themes of my opening title sequence. I compared and contrasted them to the other opening title sequences that I researched. 

Evaluation question one- placing of titles and what i have learnt

This Prezi presentation is to evaluate choices and investigate decisions about the placement of the titles in our opening title sequence. It compares our choices to our production context which was an essential influence during the film-making process. 

Evaluation question one- comparing titles

I C
We created this easy-to-understand table comparing the similarities and differences between my opening title sequence and the ones that I researched earlier in the project. I looked at factors such as the time when different people are credited and who was credited.

Evaluation question one- placing of titles


Much like in the research process when we created timelines to look at the placement of the titles, we created a timeline to look at the placement of titles for our own opening title sequence. This can be seen in the following presentation. The pictures below show our timeline I created for "Walks of Life" and the one we created in January for the independent film "Napoleon Dynamite". 

Approaching evaluation question one


FINAL VIDEO!!!

Click here to watch our final video..

Evaluating- Question One


My group partner and I had a conversation about the sound used in our opening title sequence and how it used, developed or challenged forms of real media products. This conversation is presented in the form of a transcript, on Slideshare... 

Thursday 18 April 2013

FINISHED EDITING!!!


We have now completed editing, our nest step is to complete our evaluation. We will do this as a group, and complete each question together so that we both have an input in each response and are able to evaluate our video effectively and efficiently.

Creating Titles- behind the scenes

Here you can see us adding the titles to our opening title sequence. We used the software we used to edit is called "Final Cut Express". This software made our sequence appear somewhat professional.

Creating Titles

At the start of the project we began to look at various other opening title sequences, one thing we identified is that they all have titles, well most of them. Except the film Spirit (one of our genre specific sequences), so we decided that our opening title sequence will have titles, we included, who wrote it, who directed it, who cast it and the actors names. (Except the horse). We used the software "live type', we created videos and added them to our edited sequence, we decided to fade them in and out, as we didn't want our titles to be invasive, and we didn't want them to distract the viewer from the scene.


Editing- cross disolves

We created our own cross dissolves using the pen tool, this made our opening title sequence have more of an edge, we ensured our clips dissolved well into one another so the sequence flowed. The pre-set cross dissolve was only effective for some of our scenes, so by creating our own ones, it made our opening title sequence more like how we imagined it.


Editing- behind the scenes

 Here you can see a selection of our chosen shots






Tuesday 9 April 2013

Editing- Slow motion

The scene before we see Older Nancy wakening from her dream, there is a shot of teenage Nancy cantering towards us on Tye. This scene we thought would appear more 'dream like' if it were in slow motion. And make it easier for the audience to understand that this is the case, that this is older Nancy's dream and that she is remembering the past. We slowed down the shot by 50%, this makes the scene more 'dreamy' and it fits in well with the rest of the scenes.

We also decided that the 'cross dissolve' effect would be perfect for the transition of both shots as again, it would make it appear more 'dream like' and fade it in well to the next shot.

Difficulties whilst editing

We are currently editing our opening title sequence, in one of our favoured shots, the ambient sound from other horses and commotion from the stables is to loud, therefore we have had to mute the clip, but now the scene ha lost all diegetic sound, so we are unable to here the horses hooves as they meet the ground. To overcome this issue we went onto youtube and found a rights free sound effect of a horses hooves as they meet the ground in the pace 'walk' which is the pace in which TJ (Tye) is moving in. This means that although the diegetic sound is not real, it fits in with the shot, and enables the shot to work with the rest of the shots throughout the opening title sequence.

Editing- Music

My production partner and I have decided in order to make our opening title sequence more atmospheric, we will use some background music (score). We downloaded the song 'Eternal Hope' from the webisite incompetech. The music is peaceful, and sounds somewhat 'dreamy', which fits in well with the dreaming aspect of the opening title sequence.

Editing

We have now selected all our favorite shots and have now begun to place all the shots in the correct order. We will also now begin to trim down the shots to make them more snappy and lead on more effectively and match both our hand drawn and animated storyboard.

Television shot

Part of the editing process is selecting the music that will be the diegetic sound of the television, the film already has music, but it is copyrigted, therefore we will have to mute the clip and choose rights free music. The diegetic sound will make the sequence more atmospheric and give it more of an edge. We will need to use rights free music, there are various websites in which we can find rights free music including...
-youtube
-incompetech
-blindfold sound
-beautsuite
-premium beat
-creative commons
-free play music
-akmmusic
- royalty free music
free music archive and
-purple planet

After looking at all of these websites, we figured that the website with the highest quality music that we could have was from the website 'icompetech', therefore we began to create a shortlist of the music that we preferred.

After analysing all the tracks we choose the piece 'Midsummer sky' by Kevin MacLeod. The piece is elegant and main instrument is a piano, this goes well with the elegant movement of TJ (Tye) and fits in well with the rural setting.

Editing 'Walks Of Life'

Now we have finished filming all of our content, it is time we begin to edit. We will be using the software 'Final Cut Express' to do so. This software is efficient and will give our final opening title sequence a professional edge. Throughout the editing process we will ensure that all framing is correct, that we abide by the 180 degree rule and various other rules of filming. We will cut clips in order to make them more snappy, and we will also choose the best shot of each scene we have shot in order to make our opening title sequence look higher quality.

Shooting schedule

This is our shooting schedule-

Behind The scenes- Taking TJ home

After a long day filming, we decided that it was time TJ was returned to his stable, we fed him and ensured he had a full bucket of water and a fair amount of hay, we rewarded him for all his hard work. TJ's coat was soaked through from the rain, so we had to wait for him to dry off before putting his rug on to ensure he remained warm for the rest of the day. He was kept inside for the rest of the day.

Behind the scenes- Walking TJ

After filming TJ and Samatha, we took him for a short walk to enable him to cool off, this meant that he didn't go straight back into his stable, which meant that he didn't get stiff joints and become lame.





Behind the scenes- Choosing the path

These images show my production partner (Georgi Honnor) and two of out actors (Samantha Bint and TJ) Choosing a path in which TJ would canter up, we choose the path in which we thought were lighted effectively, naturally and also which was not too muddy, this meant that all our time spent grooming TJ (Tye) did not go to waste, and he remained in good condition for the rest of the shots.


Behind the scenes- Warming up

Before we filmed the opening title sequence, we decided that it would be a good idea that Samantha took TJ for a few trots and canters so that he was warmed up and therefore didn't hurt himself during the filming process. This ensured that we considered health and safety.


Behind the scenes- Grooming TJ

Getting TJ (Tye) ready for filming, this involved catching him in from the field, grooming him thoroughly, using a variety of brushes specifically designed for horses, this included a curry comb, a dandy brush, a body brush, a 'flick' brush, a face brush, a mane and tail brush and a hoof pick. We also polished his hooves using a special hoof oil that conditions and keeps their feet in excellent condition. We did this to ensure that TJ was looking his best and looked clean and wee cared for on camera. We also spent a while feeding him, where he ate a large scoop of chaff, mixed with half a scoop of pony nuts and a whole scoop full of sugar beat. He thoroughly enjoyed his breakfast, once he had finished eating, we left him for half an hour to allow him to digest his food before running around, it is important that we left a break in between eating and riding, as large amounts of exercise straight after eating can cause the horses gut to twist, and can lead to a fatal condition called colic.



Props we will need- Tye

The props we will need...

Tye-
Saddle- Tj's owner already owns this
Bridle- Tj owner already owns this
Head collar- TJ's owner already owns this
Lead rope- TJ's owner already owns this

Props- Older Nancy

The props we will need...

Older Nancy-
-Remote control- Bette owns this already
-Television- Bette owns this already
-Sofa- Bette owns this already
-Picture frame- We purchased this and placed an image of Samantha and TJ (Teenage Nancy and Tye)


Props- Teenage Nancy


Props we will need...

Teenage Nancy-
-Riding Hat- Samantha already owns this
-Ridding boots- Samantha again owns an adequate pair
-Riding clothing- Samantha own all of this

Props- Young Nancy

The props we will need...

Young Nancy-
-Dress (old fashioned) - We made this dress using a variety of materials, we sewed them together, and made her dress a bit grubby to add character to it, and make her look more adventurous and that she wasn't afraid to get a little bit dirty.

Location- Older Nancys home

We decided that we would film older Nancy in her own home, this is because we figured that she would feel comfortable and confident in her own home and the acting would be more more relaxed and come across better. Not only would Bette feel more confident in her own home, but because of previously visiting her home we knew that it was suitable for filming, she had a good layout of furniture and everything was clean and tidy, again, a perfect location for filming.

Location- Biggin Hill Footpath

We decided that we would film Young Nancy on a footpath in Biggin Hill, the footpath is green, and directly links in with the title of our film 'Walks Of Life'. The footpath is easily accessible and has enough natural light in order to make the shot look effective and professional.

Location- Lullingstone Stables

This is the place in which we will film Samantha Bint (Teenage Nancy Moore) and Trojan Solo (Tye) for older Nancys 'dream', in the opening title sequence. This choice of the location was obvious, because it is where TJ is currently stabled. It is also a very scenic location, with lots of green space and a very smart yard, which is clean and tidy. An ideal location for filming.