Preliminary Sequence - Did you feed the fish

I felt that our "Did you feed the fish" task went well. I was a bit nervous as it was my first real practical in a-level media but I have experience from year 10 and 11. Obviously when you plan anything out it becomes easier as you know what you are supposed to do so when we arrived at our now different location we all sat down and decided where to start filming. We decided to start filming from back to front as we would work our way down the building filming. If I were to re-do this task I would have done this a different way, in that I would film in order of how the actual final piece goes but this did not alter the production it just made things a little bit more complicated. I think that the location we chose was excellent and went well with the context of the film. The outfits e.g hood and dark clothing went well with the characters as it was casual and not completely ott. As we shot this in HD I felt that the quality came out very well, yet as it was windy on the rooftop the sound was not up to scratch. The acting was not the best but I feel that as long as the camera angles, mise en scene and quality was brilliant then this would over shadow the fact that we are not hollywood actress's, however we did try our hardest. The filming experience was fun overall as we worked well as a team and all knew what we had to do and could make input knowing that it would be listened to. We had all studied this piece of work and knew what was to be put into it which made the whole process alot easier and run smoother. Overall I feel that every factor of this filming for example, the location, the quality of the camera, the angles and continuity all made the piece alot better, I believe that for our first piece this was a good one and I am proud of it.

Initial idea for opening sequence of film

Our idea is to have the genre of horror, but we do not know entire what the story is yet, but we do know we want it to be interesting, and to use some sort of unique and strange clothing and props, we want our opening sequence to make the audience want to watch the rest of the film, and for the opening sequence to not give too much away about the film but give the audience a clear idea of what the film is about. 

Preliminary Sequence – Did you feed the fish

When my group, Anna, Madihah, Catherine and I were planning on making this sequence, we had planned that we would add some comedy into it, yet keep to the script.

We started on making our story board and planning everything out, including writing down the props that were to be used, who would be what character and the clothing and location. We had come up with an idea that we thought would work well. We thought the camera shots we decided to use fit with what we were filming and that it would work well with the feel we wanted to get across to the audience.

Although when we came to filming in the building we wanted to film in, we had not checked if it would be open on a Sunday, and it was not.

So we thought fast and decided to use the rooftops of a department store in New malden, kept safe and watched by a member of staff, we filmed from the back to the front, we found this was easier. We all sat down and decided how we were going to film it, and wrote down what we were going to film first and where and how. While filming we did come across some problems as my camera went out of battery but luckily we had two other cameras with us so we could continue filming.

We tried the same shot a few times but changed them each time so they looked the best they could be. I believe the editing went well and we produced a good piece of work, although we could of planned better by checking the opening and closing date of our building of choice. Our original storyboard was not used entirely; we did keep most of the clips and shots we wanted to use, but had to change a few because of the change of building.

Watchmen opening title sequence

CHANGING THIS CLIP ---- ADD CLIP

At the beginning of the movie Children of men the screen is black, we then hear various news reporters reporting of the things that have been happening around the world. This helps the audience to understand what has been going on and the significance of this. We see a few titles and then we are shown a scene of a café full of people and we are aware that the people are watching a news report as we can hear this yet not see the TV screen. The colours are very dull and almost grey, it is obvious that this is not a happy scene.  We can see that this is a big deal to the people watching the TV screen by the expression on their faces.  A man is then trying to get passed these people who are watching the news report, he orders a coffee and we are shown the TV report that is telling us that the youngest person on the world has died, we hear someone crying in the background. The news report is telling us of how a boy died and shows 2009-2027, this shows us that this is the future. The camera follows the man into the screen and as this is done we see the rest of the street and the condition it is in, we can see more elements of the future as there is advanced technology on the bus. We see the man about to put some alcohol into his coffee; this is followed by an explosion from the café that the man was just in. This mundane view of how the world now is makes it clear to the audience that something is not right, this is unsettling and is a good introduction to the movie. This makes us want to watch it more as it can explain how the world got to this point.  

Juno opening sequence

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The sequence starts with the Fox soundtrack and fades into a childish hand drawn font with the words “autumn” to show was season it is and to introduce the film. We see a extreme long shot of the setting and the character in a red outfit to draw attention to her, we hear birds singing to show that it is the morning. We then see a long shot of the main character and a chair, this shows that this chair has some significance.

We see a close up of the characters face and then see a flashback of a memory which plays some significance to the chair. We see a shot of the girls feet as she is getting undressed walking towards a boy sitting on the chair, it is clear about what is going to happen. We then see a extreme close up of the boy saying something in the girls ear. The scene then quickly changes to a dog barking at the girl, which snaps her out of her flashback of the memory. We then hear a narration of her talking about the furniture. A tracking shot is then shown of her walking along the road drinking her bottle of Sunny D, as some light hearted music starts to play to get the introduction to this movie in full swing.

The style of the introduction then changes to cartoon and everything you see has been drawn, it shows titles of the crew members. The girl is shown walking through streets with leaves and people around her, she looks very relaxed as she walks and you are shown her drinking her drink a lot.

 We then see roughly a minute or two of this until she reaches her destination and it comes back into real life.

Phantom of the opera analysis

Part one of ‘Phantom of The Opera’ starts in black and white with little lighting (low key lighting). Within the black and white colours being used it is clear that the black is more prominent.

The lighting is low key, this means that the people and objects are lowly lit. You can see that only half the people’s faces are lit, making a more gloomy and intense feel to the scene. The light that we can see in this scene appears to be coming from above. It is purely natural daylight and coming from the top of the theatre.

Silhouettes are used heavily to add a more mysterious feel. Another technique which was used was to shine light down in rays, which creates a dramatic feel to the scene.

Further on in the scene a chandelier is shown and hoisted up into the air. When this happens light becomes a lot more visible, light is very evident here to add an effect of surprise and shock. The audience would then understand that this is a significant part of the scene.

Colour is then introduced into the scene. A wipe effect is used as colour is slowly brought to life where ever the chandelier passes. The colours introduced are rich colours of red and gold. These are very regal colours and add the effect of the theatre being very grand and bringing it to life.

Light is then visible and not shown in any way to add an intense feel. The light is simply there to light up the theatre and show how it has been brought to focus.