TITLES DESIGN

You need to start thinking about how your titles will look - they are an integral part of you opening sequence and should not be an afterthought.

Titles should reinforce the themes of your sequence - here's an idea of what's possible. See me for help getting you started.

PRODUCTION LOGO DESIGN

Here's an example of a production logo you could produce in After Effects. It's a little gaudy and on reflection the font was a bad choice - but all it took was downloading a texture from Google images and a bit tinkering. 

Editors... sketch out a design for a logo, then come see me for help with getting you started.

Ideas for good planning and research blog posts.

Research:

• Analyse opening sequernces (not trailers, not fan-made clips, not sequences from any other part of the film). The main idea here is to understand how openings work, both artistically and technically.

• Write a generic conventions report – a few paragraphs on typical characters, storylines, locations, props and style of your chosen film genre… include pictures and screen-grabs. Describe how they might influence your production.

• Audience research. The most important information here is how your research will inform your production. Whatever you do, don’t conduct the research then go ahead with whatever plan you had regardless of it.

• Skills… do some research into what skills you will need to complete this project. If, for example, you are planning on including titles which glow brightly, or appear on screen with a textured appearance or have some other effects applied to them – who will you achieve that?... Look up some tutorials, ask me, and most importantly, do some tests. (open up Premiere or After Effects and have a go – NOW – not a day before deadline.

• Planning:

•  Post ‘production meeting minutes’. If you have a conversation with your group about your opening sequence, that counts as planning. Who was there? What was said? What did you decide? How did you arrive that that decision? What were the other options? Why were they rejected?... during your evaluation you will need to account for your creative decisions, so writing them down now will help you.

• Write a treatment. That’s your idea for the sequence written down as a shot by shot account of what your sequence will look like.

• Script – this should be written in the correct format – see me or follow this link for the right approach to your script… you must write one even if there’s no dialogue.

•  Storyboard – this should be at least 15 panels and also follow correct conventions which essentially means including clip duration, transition/editing notes, camera direction (movement, angle etc) and a description of the action.

• Shot list – unlike the storyboard this is a checklist of each and every shot you will need for your sequence. If you are shooting a conversation for example you will need the whole thing from at least three different angles (master shot including both characters, and over the shoulder shot of character A, and an over the shoulder shot of character B – then you might get creative and include a low angle or canted angle to give you options in the edit)… all of these will appear on the shot list so you don’t forget on the day.

• Production schedule – this should be a detailed account of when you will shoot and edit the sequence and who will be required on which days.

• Create a production logo – as a group come up with a concept, then the editor should produce this using Photoshop or After Effects – look for tutorials or see me for how to achieve it.

•  Production updates – whenever you make some progress (when you produce the storyboard or script or logo etc) update the blog – has it been done to the required standard? How does it help move the production forward? Have you learnt anything useful along the way?

• Test shots – if you are ready to shoot – but don’t have your actor/costume/location or can’t shoot the real thing for any other reason, do some camerawork/editing practice. Use each other or use any available person to stand in as one of your actors and test your storyboard ideas with a few test shots… these can then be used to test out colour correction or special effects in Premiere Pro – these can be posted to the blog… both I and the moderator will be very impressed with your commitment to improving your production skills!  

•  Location Recce – grab a camera, go to a couple of potential location where you want to shoot and photograph them. You post these to your blog with a couple of notes on how you might use the location, any problems you may encounter. Consider the time of day you want to use it, what the light will be like, what other people/traffic might be around… is it on a flight-path, for example, with airplanes going overhead every 5 minutes? (that will create sound-mixing havoc in the edit!)

• Props/costumes list. You may well decide to just use whatever costumes your actors turn up in, but you’ll get a better mark for demonstrating some prior thought to it… record your ideas for what characters should be wearing, what make-up you might need, what props you will need and how you will source them… (remember – no guns/knives/weapons in public places!!!)

• Soundtracks – start looking for appropriate royalty-free soundtracks. Write a post on what mood you want to create with the soundtrack, find a few and post these to the blog. You will find a couple of links in the left sidebar of this blog under ‘useful links’

•  Lastly – A-grade coursework productions will necessarily have comprehensive planning. While quality of your work is the most important thing, quantity is the very first thing I and the moderator will consider – if you want an A-grade, around 50 blog posts across the whole project including the production and evaluation would be considered a minimum for you to achieve this.     

Audience Research

Conducting Audience Research...

“Excellent” research into a potential target audience is actually quite simple - it means demonstrating that you have considered 5 things:

1.       Who you audience might be (demographics)

2.       What types of media they currently engage with (films, TV shows, music etc)

3.       Why they like those films/media (audience pleasures)

4.       What they think of your opening sequence idea.

5.       How your findings for the above 4 questions will influence your own production... how you will cater to your audience’s needs/desires?

How to do it... Option 1: Questionnaire.

Design a questionnaire with around 5-10 questions which investigates some of the following:

·         Age/gender of audience

·         How they see themselves as a film audience member (Movie buff? Casual audience? Goes to cinema but other people choose what to see?... try not to simply ask how often they go the cinema which doesn’t really tell you much about them)

·         Favourite genres/favourite films – why?

·         Favourite directors?

·         Favourite/memorable film sequence – why?

·         Favourite actors? – why?

·         Other media (favourite TV shows/music/games)

·         Write your opening sequence idea down in a couple of lines – then ask for some feedback.... this last one will be the most telling.

Once you’ve collated your responses to the questionnaire – write a short report which summarises what you have learnt about your audience. The points you make will depend on how you interpret the responses. 

How to do it... Option 2: "Talking Heads"

Do exactly as above, only instead of keeping it paper-based, pose the questions to individuals or pairs of people on camera then edit their answers together question by question... upload to Youtube, embed to your blog and post a summary of your findings.

Final note... NO PIE CHARTS!

This is what I think of pie charts...

Evaluation Questions

In the evaluation you must answer all of the following questions:

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

You can start by answering each question in an essay style. But if that's all you upload to the blog - even if your answer is brilliant - you will get a maximum of half marks.

Your evaluation must be creatively addressed and it must utilise the functionality of the blog format. Blogs allow you to upload images, video clips, audio clips, webcam footage etc They also allow you to have bloglists, link lists, surveys and hyperlinks - you must try to embrace this technology and use it in your evaluation... Here's the marking criteria for an A-grade evaluation:

• Excellent understanding of issues around audience, institution, technology, representation, forms and conventions in relation to production.

Excellent ability to refer to the choices made and outcomes.

Excellent understanding of their development from preliminary to full task.

Excellent ability to communicate.

Excellent skill in the use of digital technology or ICT in the evaluation

Here's an example of an evaluation which sits just within the Level 4 (A-grade) band: http://scasmediagwpahs.blogspot.com/p/evaluation-of-our-media-product.html

DEADLINES REMINDER

You should now have finished all planning and research. I'll be marking these slowly over the next week or so. If I spot any massive fails on your part I'll let you know and give you a new short deadline to fix it while I continue marking the rest.

PRODUCTION DEADLINE: Friday 9 March. This is a realistic guide as to when you should have finished filming and editing... its 2 weeks from now... Ultimately you have a further couple of weeks after that to hand in a DVD - but you have the evaluation to do aswell.

EVALUATION DEADLINE: Friday 30 March. This is the last day of term. Your grades will be sent off soon after this deadline - there will be NO extensions to the deadline.

Each individual needs to hand in a DVD featuring their preliminary task and opening sequence.

NO COPYRIGHTED MUSIC ALLOWED

You must think about and design your soundtrack well.

This includes:

• Looking for copyright-free soundtracks on the web (check under Resources on the left of this page).
• Recording 'wild track'
• Recording 'foley'
• Looking for sound effects (ask me for the DVD of sound effects and check Resources)
• Mixing everything together in Final Cut Pro

The rule against using copyrighted music is a strickly enforced one. If you download a soundtrack from a website such as incompetech get a screen-grab to prove it is royalty-free and post it to your blog like this:

Planning and Research Improvements Deadline: Mon 27 Feb.

Ok so none of your blogs are worth a level 4 (A/B) yet.


Most of you need to continue uploading planning documents such as storyboard, script and shotlist etc. Most of you also need to write up your audience research - write a summary of what you have learned from it or how it will influence your work.


All of you need to work on the presentation of your blogs. Add more images, embed more video and add more links to other blogs and websites... that is what blogs are meant to do.


Remember the level 4 grading criteria:


- Planning and Evidence will be complete and detailed
- There is excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience
- There is excellent organisation of actors, locations, costumes and props
- There is excellent work on shotlists, storyboards, scripts
- There is excellent care taken in presentation
- Time management is excellent.




MAKE ALL IMPROVEMENTS BY 9am MON 27 Feb.

Shot-list

A shot-list is a checklist of all the shots you need to make your opening sequence. It needs to be specific. So if you are going to shoot a conversation you need to shoot the whole conversation in Midshot, over one shoulder in Close Up, then over the other shoulder in Close Up, then maybe over each shoulder again in Big Close Up. That's a total of 5 shots.... It will be the editor's job to cut it down into a flowing conversation.

You can use a blank shot-list form such as this... (Downloadable from Blackboard under 'course materials')

Cam Shot List

Scripting

Whether your opening sequence has dialogue or not, you must create a script for it. The script MUST appear in the correct format - or a very close approximation of it.

Scripts have very specific formatting rules. Have a look at the example below. It gives you some rules and asks you to observe and work out other formatting rules.

You script should look like the example given.

Type it up on word, then use http://www.scribd.com/ to upload it your blog - every member of the group should have it on their blog.

Scripting

Storyboards

Cinematographers - it is your job to produce a storyboard. You should draw it using pencils and preferably a black fine-liner to go over the outlines. You MUST do this BEFORE filming. It is useless to produce it after filming - and you won't get any marks for it.

Here's an example of what I want:

Story Ideas - how to show brainstorming on your blog

Target Audience research

You must show evidence of research into a potential target audience.

There are a few different of ways of doing this.

1. Questionnaires. Write a series of questions (about 10) which aim to establish what kind of thing your target audience want to see in a film/opening sequence.
2. Film responses. Do the same as with the questionnaire only film the responses, edit theme together and upload them to youtube - then embed on your blog. CLICK HERE to see an example
3. Focus group. Get about 5-8 people together and lead a discussion group on films and film opening sequences. Take photos, upload to blog along with a summary of the findings.
4. Use the blog - add a survey gadget to your blog and invite people to take part.

In all cases write a summary of what the research has told you about your target audience. The summary of what you have learned is the most important thing.... It is more important to do a small amount of research which is useful and relevant than produce a large volume of data which is not useful or relevant.

DEADLINES REMINDER...

Planning and Research.
All planning and research must be complete and on your blog by...9am Monday 13 Feb 2012

Production.
You must hand in a DVD of your preliminary task and opening sequence by 1pm Friday 9 March 2012

Evaluation.
All 7 questions of the evaluation must be creatively answered on your blog by 1pm Friday 30 March 2012

Research into generic codes and conventions

For this task you must consider the 'formula' of your chosen genre. What you should do is look at a few different films within your genre and identify what they have in common.


Think about:


Narrative - what is a typical storyline for this genre?
Character - what are the stock characters for this genre? - Give examples
Setting/Location - when and where are these films usually set?
Iconography - what costumes, props and other visual stuff is associated with this genre?
Cinematography - is there a style of camerawork associated with the genre?... Or what types of shot are often featured in films of this genre?
Sound - what type of score/sound effects are usually used for this genre?

Include pictures and links to other websites.

Juno Opening Sequence

Scream Opening Sequence

Reserach and Planning tasks

• Set up blogs – include a link to each blog in your group
• Roles & Responsibilities
• Preliminary task
• Opening sequence analysis 1(conventions)
• Opening sequence analysis 2 (titles)
• Research into generic codes and conventions
• Audience Research
• Treatment
• Evidence of researching story ideas
• Script
• Storyboard
• Shot list
• Location recce
• Equipment list
• Production schedule
• Call Sheets
• Risk Assessment

Deadlines

Planning and Research: Monday 13^th Feb 9.00 am

Production: Friday 9^th March 1.00pm

Evaluation: 30^th March 1.00pm


Planning and Research and Evaluation will be marked from your blog. The production must be burned to DVD along with your preliminary task.... Until you hand in a DVD, you have not met the deadline. It takes time to burn DVDs. I advise aiming to hand it in a week early - that way if you are delayed by a a day or two (which is very likely to happen) it won't matter.

Introduction.

For your coursework you must produce the first two minutes of a film including titles. You also have to produce a 'preliminary task' of shooting a brief conversation to include the 180 degree rule, a match on action edit and a shot-reverse shot.... the preliminary task isn't marked, but it has to be included or you will lose marks.

Speaking of marks, this is how the whole project is marked:

Resaerch and Planning: 20 marks
Production: 60 marks
Evaluation 20 marks

• The opening sequence can be in any genre... but it must be a specific genre.
• You can go over two minutes but only by a few seconds.
• You cannot use copyrighted music in it - so no recognisable tracks.
• Your research must inform your production.
• Any questions - see me.