THRILLER TITLE SEQUENCE FINAL EDIT

Evaluation question 8: audience feedback

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?

• Editing - in the preliminary exercise we used a few editing methods. One of these were match cuts that I thought we executed pretty well. In the final product we used quite a lot of different editing techniques, including match cut, cross cut and jump cut. In addition to these editing techniques we used quite a few special effects that heightened the mood we had created for our final product.

• Camera - We did use a variety of shots in the prelim but in the final product we used a wider variety of shots. These shots included ECUs MS, LS, the LS contrasted well with the ECUs. We also used camera movements including tilts pans and zooms.

• Sound - In the prelim we used sound from the camera which was of poor quality. So in the final product we decided to not use diegetic sound directly from the camera mic. Our title sequence was mostly music with bits of diegetic sound effects put placed in the post production process such as, the breathing and the footsteps.

• Mise en scene - Our prelim had aProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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  the mise en scene ready because it was set in college but in the final product we worked hard to try use mise en scene to our advantage. We used smart clothing, wealthy surroundings and big houses to create the impression of a wealthy sub-urban

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

Evaluation question 5: Who would be the audience for your media product?

As shown from my montage of images the main target audience will be male, quite fashionable and also quite intelectual. A lifestyle summary for a person that would watch this move: Richard, 24, Manager at Burtons menswear, hobbies include watching films, socialising and reading. Favourite genres of films are: action, thrillers and some comedy. Likes to wear designer clothes and is very fashionable, drives a car. Favourite pieces of technology, laptop and ipod.

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

I found an opening title sequence that was made by other AS media students last year which they uploaded onto youtube. They have had quite alot of views since they put it up, they are almost reaching 2000. I looked through many student thriller opening title sequences, among all the other videos this was one that stood out to me and i think they executed their task very well. They use an excellent variation of camera angles and the story line is gripping and the acting isn't too bad. They have used a good flash back technique and the contrasting black and white effect is used sets the mood of the film. Another thing i also admire is the dark desaturated effect that they have used throughout to create the "film look".

They have been able to reach a wide audience audience through use of the internet by uploading it to youtube. They might have posted it on various social networking sites and sent the links on email or embedded the video on their personal website. Through all these forms f marketing they have been able to reach a diverse international audience, anyone anywhere in the world can see their video on youtube, This makes this a very good way of distributing their film due to the lack of having an actual film budget.

This is the Title sequence I found on youtube. It is called The Abduction

Another way of distributing our film could be through a distribution company, As we used working title as our distributor on our title sequence we could use them to be our distributors.

If we were to use this way of distributing our film, we could use similar ways to how they distributed shaun of the dead. It could be released as one of their "experimental" films.

It could be advertised through billboards and posters in public places where it would attract a big audience. Also it could be advertised through facebook, youtube, and other websites that will get a lot of views and also in magazines that are read by our main target audience.

The type of cinemas that would exhibit our film will be independent cinemas such as:

Screen on the green

Ritzy

Rio

Evaluation question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

There wasn't many characters in our title sequence, I could only find one or two shots of a character that could be defined as part of a particular social group. This shot is of the mysterious man (me) taking out some rubbish, He could be seen as the antagonist. The man is represented as a quite well off middle class person, this is shown by some of the mis en scene.

His clothes are very smart/casual, he is wearing smart shoes a black shirt and a smart jumper and smart trousers. In the mans driveway there is a range rover and in the background you can see a big house. Also the house next door has a garage. All these signs represent the man as this particular social class.

This is a shot of another character in our film, he features in the film in brief periods in a series of close-ups so you cannot really decipher what social group he maybe part of, because he seems to be captured or held somewhere this character could be seen as the protagonist of the movie.

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

Our%20title%20sequence%20more%20or%20less%20follows%20forms%20and%20conventions%20of%20an%20actual%20thriller%20title%20sequence.%20We%20followed%20the%20order%20in%20which%20titles%20normally%20come%20up.%20Starting%20with%20the%20production%20company%20and%20following%20with%20directors%20and%20other%20non%20acting%20roles%20and%20then%20titling%20main%20characters%20afterwards.%20Another%20thing%20we%20we%20also%20followed%20was%20the%20title%20of%20the%20actual%20film%20that%20%20displays%20at%20the%20end%20of%20most%20title%20sequences.%20In%20terms%20of%20shots%20even%20though%20ours%20was%20a%20different%20kind%20of%20opening%20title%20sequence%20we%20still%20began%20with%20an%20establishing%20shot.%0A%Pr

Skills audit: Creation of soundtrack

After all the editing was done, It was time to create the soundtrack for our title sequence, The soundtrack is an important part of the title sequence, you have to get it right because the music sets the mood of the title sequence.

Before we started, we imported the video into Soundtrack pro to play on the side of the screen in time with the title sequence. To do this all we done was export the video for Soundtrack on Final Cut pro then import it into Soundtrack.

At first we were just experimenting with different sounds and tried to fit them to our movie. We went through quite a lot in the sound library on the bottom right of the soundtrack pro screen and we couldn't find one that could fit perfectly.

Background sound

After looking through many different sounds we found some long droney sounds that we thought fitted perfect. To get them on the tracks we just had to drag it it from the browser onto the track.

We kept building it up with different sounds and fitted it to the movie. We tried to make it uneasy and mysterious without over-doing it, because if we put too much sounds on it, it would just ruin the soundtrack so it was best to keep it simple. I had to add more tracks to fit all the new sounds that we were putting on soundtrack.

Sound effects

After finishing the long droney sounds it was time to add some sound effects. I added a kind of walkie-talkie signal sound for times where I used the dip to colour dissolve video transition.

I also added the footstep sound to go with the shot of the man walking and I added a reeverb effect to make it echo, when I added that effect a window came up so I could change different parrameters to make it sound perfect.

Other sound effects I used were the breathing when the captured victim came on screen and the walkie-talkie sound effect when the cctv footage is on.

For the breathing we didnt want the breathing to be the same throughout the whole sequence of the captured victim. When it started flashing with the blink video filter we wanted the breathing to get faster, I tried to do this on Soundtrack pro but it wouldnt let me change the tempo of the breathing sound effect so I exported the breathing sound effect seperate to the rest of the soundtrack. When I imported it into Final cut pro, I was able to change the tempo using that.

Overall the soundtrack wasn't too hard to make, even though it took long looking for all the right sounds that would fit our title sequence.

Skills Audit: Filming

We spent a three hour lesson and a whole day on the weekend filming on danson road.





At first we filmed the gate, I did the filming for this bit, I focused the the camera and used the tripod to do the panning motion.











For the rest of the day we walked up and down Danson road and filmed things that we thought would be good for our title sequence, It was hard to keep catching things happening because everytime we moved to a new spot I had to set up the tripod fast enough so we can catch the action happening.





We also filmed in the park next to Danson road where we could get shots of trees and the lake and the boats being moved by the wind.



We also spent another lesson filming the scene with the captured victim, we used a black bin liner which we got Nauhel to put his head inside. We also used additional lighting, that we aimed directly at his face so it wouldnt be too dark to film and that his facial features could be distinguished. We filmed a series of close-ups with him inside the bag and we took shots of different facial features. It was hard to focus this bit of the sequence due to the small confined
space of the bin liner and lack of light but I was able to focus it enough for our shots to work.

Skills Audit: Creation of the titles

After finishing the editing and music of the title sequence, titles needed to be added. We experimented with different fonts and text effects to try and get the correct font that would correspond with the ominous mood that we had created alread with the editing and music. We had to fit the titles as well as we had done fitting together the editing and music.

Firstly we thought about going for a simple block text with a weird ghostly effect. Nahuel made these titles,

These titles were good but I felt that they could be developed more to make them fit with the title sequence more. I decided to make some titles that I thought would fit better with our sequence to have an option of another set of titles.

When I was making my version of the titles I went through a lot of fonts and tried to look for fonts that were different and not too simple and that would add to the ominous mood of our title sequence. I found a font that was perfect for the job which was called "cracked" it had a grungey feel and I thought it would fit perfect.

After I chose the font I placed our edited title sequence in the background of livetype. I did this by exporting the movie for livetype in final cut pro.

With the movie in the background I could find the best place to put the titles on the screen. I placed the titles where I felt they looked best and where they were readable.

As a style of the titles I decided to make the first bit of titles smaller than the actual name or if it was a main actor/actress their first name would be smaller than their surname. for example: Music by Dave Webb. Also another style that I tried to maintain through out the whole sequence was changing the colour of the text between different shots from black to white or from white to black.

At first I put effects on the titles that made the writing move in a ghostly way but I felt that ruined the title sequence and made it look cheesy and cliche, I wanted to make it as professional as I could as well as making it fit with the clips. Because I had made the titles with the movie in the background it was easy to just export and place them on the time timeline as a clip on its own in Final cut pro.

At the end we decided to use my titles instead of the first ones originally made by Nauhel. We felt that they fitted the purpopse better than the other ones.

Evaluation question: 8 audience feed back

storyboard

Final edit of soundtrack and livetype practice - bag drop

We were given the task of filming a bag exchange scene to give us a bit more experience with using the cameras and editing our own footage. Instead of a bag exchange we had to do a bag drop and pick up because only one of us could record and act at one time because two people from our media group were absent. Despite the shortage of people we were still able to film a decent bag drop scene taking in consideration we had about an hour to plan and film the scene. We were able to edit our clips in final cut to make it appear that the bag had been left there and then picked up some time later. After we edited the clips we then added some titles and music .

Skills Audit: Editing

Editing our title sequence was a very very big job, hours upon hours of editing was needed to create the exact effect that we wanted for our title sequence. I did most, if not all of the editing for our title sequence. I had a lot of clips to play around with. Our title sequence did not have much of a set storyline even though there was the bit of the mysterious man taking out the rubbish and the captured victim being kept somewhere, other than that, our shots could be random and didnt need to make much sense. Our decision to make the clips random was so that it would create confusion and make an ordinary sub-urban area look far from normal and more sinister. We had huge inspiration from Arlington road and we wanted our title sequence to look as succeseful as it did.

I layed clips down about three or four at a time to try put them together and make it flow fom clip to clip. For our opening shot we wanted an establishing shot from the sky coming down looking at the road, after that I just put different clips down in a random order. I slowed most of clips down because I felt that it gave greater detail to what is going on, on the screen, it gives you longer to look at it.

As I put these clips in order I used various video filters to create the effects that distinguished our title sequence from the rest.

here is a list of some of the video filters that I used.

Colour corrector - This was one of the main filters that we used, this enabled us to change the colurs of the clips and we also found out how to colour one specific part of a clip, we used this in most of our shots to make them red and the fence clip was the one where we changed the colour of one bit of the clip.

Invert - This filter was just to make clips negative and we combined this effect with the colour corrector to make the colours alarming and distorted.

Noise - I used the noise filter to add random pixel noise to the clips to give it a distorted effect.

Blink - This filter created the flashing effect on the eye scene.

Timecode Print - We used this filter to create the cctv effect with the woman in the window. to create the cctv effect we also used the noise filter and changed the settings for it to show horizontal lines instead of noise pixels.

All of these video filters had their own settings that I was able to adjust to make the clips look exactly how we wanted them to.

As well as video filters I used video transitions betwen clips.

Dissolve - This transition fades clips into eachother, I used this effect on some of the clips.

Dip to colour dissolve - This transition blends a clip into a colour of choice then into the next clip I used this transition on the puddle clip and one of the fence clips.

Fade in, Fade out - I used this on some the clips to fade clips together, I never used both the fade in and fade out on one clip, I either used fade in or fade out.

Another effect that I used was putting clips on top of each other on the timeline and reducing the opacity of the top clip.

The whole editing process was very time consuming, a lot of time had to be spent on perfecting the effects and making sure that the clips flowed instead of it just looking like a random set of clips put together. A lot of thought was put into to editing this whole title sequence and I had to trial and error different effects to find the right ones that would make our title sequence work.

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.

Intro to Cameras & health and safety tutorial

In one of our media lessons we had an introduction to cameras. We learned the basics of using the cameras and how to film effectively and safely. we also learned how to use tripods and how to set up shots properly and using basic functions of the camera. Such as using the focus ring to focus our shots properly and switching from different memory cards.

Pitch for our title sequence

This is the last slide in our pitch which for some reason, would not load with the rest of the pitch.

Planning of preliminary match cut exercise

We also did another filming exercise practice with match cuts before doing it in our title sequence. This was to practise match cuts when two people exchange dialogue so that we can make it look as professional as we can. We did the match cut on Final Cut Pro.To do this, we filmed it from my view and from Nahuel's view We had to film lots of times to get different angles and shots. We were successful with the match cut exercise.

Skills Audit Livetype and Soundtrack pro

We learned how to use two different programs that will help with making our title sequences.

one of the programs we learned to use was: Soundtrack pro.

Soundtrack pro is used to make the music for your recorded footage, having music and sound in your title sequence is very important because it sets the mood and directs the audience to what they are going to expect to see. We learned the basics in soundtrack pro and practiced by playing around and making our own little pieces of film music. We learned how to browse through all the different sounds and drag them onto different tracks. Also we learned how to cut and shorten the clips using the blade tool.

Soundtrack pro opening screen

Another program we learned to use was: Live Type

Live type is used to create the actual written titles for your clips. We learned how to create text and put different effects on them. on both programs we learnt how to export the titles to put them into final cut to be edited and to be merged with footage, also in both programs we learned how to import the video footage we are making titles or music for to be in the background on the programs.