THRILLER TITLE SEQUENCE FINAL EDIT

Evaluation- Question 6- What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Blogger was one of the websites that I used the most in the creation of our sequence. It is where I recorded all the steps and the process of the creation, and therefore was always a referal.



Art of the title sequence was used briefly when brainsorming for inspiration. It has a wide selection of title sequences to choose from.

Final Cut pro was a programme which greatly helped towards the creation of our sequence. It is where all the editing of the title sequence was done.

Livetype pro is a software which was used to create the titles. Despite many attempts on different titles, we finally created the erroded styled titles that appear on the sequence. The programme allowed us to play around with effects.

Photofunia is a website we used for 'advertising' our title sequence. It allowed me to upload screengrabs from our title sequence or any other image, and super impose the image onto a wide range of photos such as billboards, magazines and leaflets etc.

Soundtrack pro was an essential programme to the creation of our title sequence. It worked by allowing us to watch the title sequence in the left hand top corner, and therefore create timed cohesivness between the sequence and the created composition of sound.

Evaluation- Question 7- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at our preliminary task, I can see a visual progress. Whereas before we only began learning how to u se a tripod and the camera, that inexperience is reflected in the technique of filming i.e. unstable shots and also obvious shots. Despite not having many people for our final production, which therefore restricts some of the shots we can do, we managed to include a wide range of shots such as match cut, jump cuts and stedi cam technique and excecute it in a professional manner. The combination of editing, good filming and well planned shots, our final production has an overall professional and well excecuted edge, that our preliminary task did not.

Evaluation- Question 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Arlington Road - The Grove


Both the producer's name from Alrington Road's title sequence and our title sequence are both basic images as backgrounds with white font on top. Alrington Road's title are basic, capitals which work well as the simplicity of the titles do not create distraction from the title sequence itself. In contrast, ours is a more erroded, distressed title font which is cohesive with the dysfunctional feel of our title sequence. The differences are quite obvious in the fonts as one is basic and in block-form whereas the other is slightly more dysfunctional.

There are great similarities between the two clips as they both feature white font against a simple background.

Both of these shots feature font of a small scale against a faded background of an image.

In both of these shots, the directors name is placed on top of quite a vivid and dysfunctional image.

There is a obvious visual similarity between the two shots. They both feature a roads name on a road sign from a low angle. However the colouring of the two are at opposite ends of the spectrum, as one is a grayscale whereas the other is red.

The similar comparison between these two shots is that they both are basic white font against a black background and they both were placed at the end of the title sequence.

The visual similarity between the two shots are the dogs. However, the dog shot from Arlington Road is depicted in a more artistic and abstract manner, whereas 'The Grove' captures the dog in a more effective way (as he is caught staring at the camera)

The visual similarities between these three shots is that they all feature a gate in a different colour scale, red, orange and grayscale.

Evaluation- Question 5- Who would be the audience for your media product?

5) Who would be the audience for your media product?
The typical target audience member of our film would be a young male….
Being very techno-savvy, the contents of their ‘manbag’ would be technology-orientated. For example, they would probably have some form of a Smartphone i.e. an iPhone or a Blackberry, as this is not only a reflection of being techno-savvy, but also Smartphone’s hold a status of high importance. It is likely they carry an Mp3 or a laptop, or some technological device. Ideally, they would wear a watch to symbolize practicality and time- insinuating they have many upcoming events. They would be interested in currently successful films such as Arlington Road, Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ and iRobot and therefore our film would target them on a mass appeal as it shares similar elements with each film. A character summary for the demographic would be; James is a 22 year old who lives in fashionable Shoreditch, and works in advertising. He is quite fashion consious and reasonably intrested in sports. He reads alot and is interested in current affairs. On Friday after work, he goes to the Slug and Lettuce in Islington and once every other week goes to Glassworks in Angel.





Contents of James Bag:

Evaluation-Question 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media product does not represent a social group as it is not very specific to any individuals. It is not gender or age specific and can therefore appeal to a wider demographic. Within the whole of the title sequence, there are only two characters which are featured for a reasonable amount of time. There is the man taking out the rubbish who seems affluent, middle class and well groomed. He is seen stepping out of his conventional, middle class surburban house and walking past his expensive cars to his neatly lined rubbish bins. In contrast is the man who is seen suffocating in a bin bag. He is depicted as sweaty, frantic and in a state of panic. There is not much background information one can draw from the character apart from the fact he is in whatr appears to be a horrible situation.

Evaluation question 8: audience feedback

Evaluation 3&4) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

The Screen on the Green, RIO, Ritzy

As our film is an independant film, it would not be distributed by any of the big 6 companies. It is likely that it would be distributed by an independant film company such as Working Title or Studio Canal, it is likely that the cinemas that would show case it would be independant ones such as RIO in Dalston, The Screen on the Green in Islington, and Ritzy in Brixton.


The Ritzy cinema has been located in Brixton, South London for over 100 years. We would distribute our film here for the Ritzy does not just showcase small independant films, but also is a music venue.

Screen on the Green is an independant cinema which showcases independant and foriegn films. Having only one screen, this cinema completely devotes itself to the films it showcases.

The Rio Cinema is a purpose-built, single-screen, 402 seat cinema in Dalston, London Borough of Hackney. The building dates from 1915, has a 1930s art deco facade and is English Heritage Grade II listed. It offers a mix of popular mainstream films and art house releases, selling about 70,000 - 80,000 tickets every year.


Ways of advertising:

Billboards- Billboards are the biggest way of marketing. They attract the attention of all and their scale often means they can be seen from a distance. They often are good at targeting people who are on the move which therefore widens the demographic appeal.



Magazines- Magazines is also a good way of advertising because people will often take more time to focus on the advertising. Depending on the type of magazine is also a factor which affects advertising greatly. For example, Star Trek advertised themselves in Heat magazine which widened their demographic to more females. We would aim to do this aswell because therefore there would be advertising for a larger audience.

Evaluation question: 8 audience feed back

storyboard

Feedback: Rough cut

The rough cut is fairly good, set aside that it isn't muted and we wont be having them sounds in. It needs to be much longer and some of clips dont have no effects or change to them which seems boring unlike the title sequence of arlington road. Also, it doesn't really look like a title sequence since no titles are on it or sound. However we like it so far and, we just neeed to add more effect and more clips. Overall we were pleased with our rough cut, It showed real pontential and progress. The teachers were impressed with our variations of strong bold shots, from the panning of the houses to personal close ups of the captured victim. The different effects makes the sequence edgy and unpredictible. Alot of work still needed to be done including muting the sound, adding music and adding the titles. Also more clips needed to be added.

Skills audit: Editing

Final Cut Pro was the software used for most of the editing. It is hard to record which effects we used step-by-step, as many of our clips are results from multiple effects. to change just the fence red we first went to video filter and then color correct to highlight just the fence as red. So many transitions, effects and color corrections were made to our clips as our title sequence primarily relies on editing that it is near to impossible to remember all the editing. We added the 'noise' effect to some scenes as it gave them an eroded and distorted impression. We changed the color corrections of many clips to red as we wanted to create a sinister feel by consistently reminding the audience of 'danger' or 'blood'. A lot of the time we overlapped clips to create continuity between clips. However in some cases it was done to create a dysfunctional impression. This idea of creating dysfunction was also created when turning come of the clips negative. A lot of the time the editing corresponded with the sound i.e. if the clip goes negative, a sound effect is made. Towards the end of the title sequence, certain clips such as the pan of the houses, or the shot of the dog seem to 'double'. This effect appears like the same clip has been doubled and overlapped in a fast motion, giving a distorted and dysfunctional impression and making the audience feel uneasy.

Skills audit: creation of soundtrack

These are some of the screen

grabs from our Soundtrack

Pro. Unfortunately Blogger

would not let me upload the

screen grabs any bigger.

Using Soundtrack Pro, we experimented with the range of sound effects and musical instruments before creating a final music composition. We initially created a stronger composition which had more influences from the musical instruments as opposed to the sound effects i.e. there were piano notes to try and heighten suspense. However, after exporting the sound onto the title sequence, we realized they were not cohesive. This is because the contrast of both the sound and the title sequence was too opposite. The title which by itself is strong and distinctive in its editing, clashed with the dramatic and sinister music. It was then obvious that the title sequence itself was strong and interesting enough that it need not be eclipsed by titles or music. Therefore we focused on a simpler musical composition which was stronger in 'weird' sound effects rather then musical instruments. We also tried to create continuity between the cutting of clips which often meant cropping a sound effect using the razor tool in the toolbar on the right hand side, and using the particular part which could be used between scenes i.e. a dysfunctional murmur or 'buzz'.

This is the soundtrack to our title sequence:

Skills Audit- creation of titles

This is the Media Browser where all the effects, backgrounds and fonts are.



The rest are screen grabs of the decision process.

This is the Media Browser and

the Toolbox.

Before deciding on the completed titles, I experimented with the same text but tried a variety of effects, fonts and textures on Livetype. I kept the canvas blank throughout as I intended to export the titles so that they were in front of our title sequence. I had a consistent eery theme which I wanted the titles to evoke, however I also wanted to keep them simple as I did not want them to overpower the editing of the title sequence itself. Depending on the importance of each title i.e. the director, production company, main actor etc, essentially affected the scale of each title. Those with a higher or more important status were made larger than some actors. I played with the scales and fonts on the toolbar next to the canvas. After exporting the finished titles which were heavily manipulated by the 'grunge' effects, I was not completely happy with the outcome. Still keeping my existing titles an option, as a group we all contributed to create completed titles. By evenly experimenting with the many effects available on Livetype, the result was simple and haunting titles that corresponded with the vibe of the film.

Final edit of livetype and sound filming practice

As i wasn't in for the first half of the lesson whilst the other members of my group were filming, I missed out on the filming experience. However, I arrived in time for the editing on Final Cut Pro. Alongside my group, we worked on creating titles for the film using Livetype and all of its effects, and exporting the titles onto the film. Once the titles had been added, using Soundtrack Pro we added a musical composition to the film. This was good practice of using Livetype and Soundtrack pro, as all the experimenting would be useful when creating out title sequence.

Filming 'on shoot photos'

Here are a few 'on shoot' photos taken from filming. It highlights each of us using the cameras on the tri-pods and also the location shots. As we wanted to reflect the conventional, middle-class lifestyle, we wanted our location to be a tree-lined, suburban road. Initialy we chose Cassland Road in Hackney as it evokes wealth and is situated on a peaceful, leafy square. However, as a group we decided on Danson Road in Bexleyheath as it had more suburban elements to it i.e. it was further away from central London, there were green spaces between houses and the scale of the houses helped to create a wealthy impression. Also, as we needed to shoot the 'resident-taking-out-the-rubbish' scene, we needed a resident who would be willing to participate or lend the exterior of their house. As Nigel lived on Danson Road, we knew we would be able to shoot the scene without worries. In order for there to be fairness, we each took turns filming.