Sound: Lonely This Christmas

For this task we researched and looked into different options of royalty free music for our opening sequence:

Stage 1:




 
To fit the christmas theme of our opening sequence, we figured that using christmas music would be the best way to go. So when we narrowed it down to these three options, we decided that the one we liked the most was the third clip "Deck the Halls", but when we went to put the music over the top of the sequence, the cost was far to high as we had to buy the rights to the clip from the website. Therefore we then had to choose the top one because we thought that that would be the most fitting from the remaining two. However when we asked a group of people from the target audience they said that it made the clip too cheesy and happy when the atmosphere overall was supposed to be more subdued. Then after a discussion with our teachers, we came to the conclusion that we should start sound research again.

Stage 2:





The three clips shown under the stage 2 heading are the songs we chose that were more calm and toned down to reflect the mood of the protagonist in our sequence, and were the music choice we had to choose from for our final product. We tried all three pieces of music over the top but overall we decided from feedback from our classmates and teachers that either the top or the bottom clip would be the most successful. Between the three of us we chose the bottom royalty free clip for our sequence because it seemed to provoke more sympathy for the main character, who we want our audience to empathise with, and made the video more effective and made it look more professional than the others because the timing of the notes syncs well with the length of our shots.

Annoyingly, since choosing this royalty free piece of music, it has been deleted from YouTube, so now it is unable to be viewed, but you can listen to it as the piece of music used to frame our opening title sequence in the final product.

Typography: Lonely This Christmas

We have used different fonts for the name of the film, and for the place cards with the actors' names on, because we decided that using the same typography for both would be too similar and wouldn't make the name of the title stand out like we want it to, as it is a vitally important part of the credits. 
This slideshow beneath is to give an insight as to how we chose which typography at which point in the sequence:

Props, Location, Fashion Planning and Risk Assessment: Lonely This Christmas

PROPS

• Expensive candles, for example in a glass (Yankee Candle) or with flowers or patterns within the candle
• Christmas tree decorated in red and gold as through mise en scene these colours both represent luxury and extravagance which is the effect we were creating in the opening sequence
• Sophisticated and elegantly written Christmas cards 
• Modern style home phone 
• Elegantly written Christmas tags on neatly and beautifully wrapped presents
• Neat and sophisticated wrapping paper for example with elegant patterns instead of a cartoony print 
• Sophisticated initialed stockings  
• Baubles 
• Neatly folded and pressed napkins, beautifully embroided and neatly placed on the plates 
• Dining room table, places set for christmas dinner
• Elegant and simple Denby china plates, spotlessly clean
• Cutlery polished until shiny
• Wine glasses polished 
• Christmas version of the radio times

LOCATION

• Sitting room decorated for Christmas: with presents stacked up in the corner wrapped in festive paper, decorations hanging on the ceiling and a Christmas tree decorated with red and gold tinsel and ornaments.
• Dining room decorated for Christmas with 6 fully laid place settings with a simple, elegant blue table cloth. Six table settings with characters names and the actors who play them in front of each table setting. A candle center piece on the table. Cutlery and wine glasses will be polished.

FASHION

• Our actress will be wearing a loose elegant black top made from chiffon and some sophisticated muted plum trousers and some glamorous jewelry to represent the posh and sophisticated main character 'Victoria'.

RISK ASSESSMENT 

Character Profile: Lonely This Christmas

Name: Victoria Richards

Age: 40

Hometown: London

Class: Upper class

Relationship status: Single

Current family: Doesn't live with family, distant from them as she pushed them away as a teenager

Other close relationships: None

Job: Successful business woman

Dress style: well groomed, sophisticated, high end, up-to-date fashions 

Religion: Atheist

Past time: Shopping, fashion shows, work lunches

Favourite sports: None

Favourite food: Sophisticated tastes, high end restaurants, fad trendy diets

Personality: can convince people to do what she wants, manipulative, appears confident in order to hide her loneliness and desperation to be liked

Temper: High temper, especially when things don't work out how she planned, tries to hide it because of her past and wants to be liked by other people

Consideration for others: doesn’t think much of anyone else of a lower class than herself as she was brought up this way

How other people see her: a bit stuck up, no one is really fond of her because of the past and how she treated others, friendly to her face but not friendly about her when she turns away, afraid to make an enemy of her

Opinion of herself: thinks very highly of herself because she is well dressed and polite and has been successful throughout her life, brought up being told she is the best of the best at pretty much everything, however she knows she is lonely 

Ambitions: already achieved everything she wanted to achieve, in a job of a high position, being paid a lot of money, wanting to get married and have a family whilst being surrounded by friends

Most important thing to know about this character: she may be rich and appear as if she has the 'perfect life' but she is in fact very lonely. Due to the mistakes and the way she treated people in her past

Will the audience like or dislike this character, and why?: the audience may feel sorry for her because of what is going on in the opening sequence (people are turning her down and she's left lonely at Christmas) but that is only because they do not yet know the reason behind this which they will find out later on in the film, they audience may end up sympathising with the protagonist Victoria as they will see the pressure put on her by her family to be 'perfect' and get everything right. The young teenage audience we have targeted for this film will be able to relate to the theme of pressure to be what everyone wants

Shot List: Lonely This Christmas

Story Board: Lonely This Christmas

 

Script: Lonely This Christmas

Audience Profile: Lonely This Christmas

As we have now changed our idea for our opening sequence, I have created a new prezi in order to identify what the new target audience will be. It is pretty much the same audience as was for our previous idea, as our sequence will deal with very similar themes and issues, but there are a few key bits that have changed.





Learning Comment:

From re-doing this task I haven't learnt a lot more but I have realised what I will need to change when creating the new opening sequence in order to attract the target audience the best we can. On top of this, from the last bit of filming and planning we did in the creation of our previous opening sequence idea, I have learnt that we are going to need a much wider variety of camera angles at a much faster pace in order to engage the audience properly and then keep their attention, and also by getting a better understanding of our target audience by re-doing this task, it has given me new ideas as to techniques and conventions we can use in the sequence to help improve our end result.

Practice Shots: Lonely This Christmas

After coming up with our idea, we decided to test out what our footage would look like in real life. These are only some rough shots but it has allowed us to see what the crosscuts will look like throughout our opening sequences and how effective it will look in real life.

Thinking of a Concept/Final Idea: Lonely This Christmas

After having two attempts at filming the material we needed for our final idea, we have decided to reconsider and come up with a totally new concept. We have ruled out our last idea because the footage we could get was not of a high enough quality and therefore would not have gotten us the grade my group and I are aiming for.

So, our new idea for an opening sequence is a Christmas themed coming of age film called "Lonely This Christmas"
This plot is about a lady protagonist who is organising her Christmas party for family and friends and one by one the people she has invited call her to make excuses why they can't make it. In relation to the main narrative, the opening sequence will only show the part that I have just mentioned, and the reason for this is that she made a terrible mistake in her childhood which caused her to fall out with everyone, and has left her with no friends now. The film itself will show the audience the mistakes she has made in her childhood which leave her in this situation she is in now, and how she deals with the errors she makes and leads to her isolation from society.


Some of our inspirations for this opening title sequence are Home Alone and Almost Famous, which are both very famous and successful coming of age films. The style of the sequence is what we liked from the latter film, and the Christmas theme and typography from the Home Alone film will also influence our decisions when it comes to production.

The opening sequence will be composed of a collection of cross-cuts to lots of different things associated with Christmas such as:

~ Candles
~ Christmas tags
~ Napkins
~ Baubles
~ Stockings
~ Bucks Fizz
~ Radio Times Christmas Edition
~ Christmas tree 
~ Tables settings
~ Presents 

However in between these momentary cuts will be close ups of the protagonist writing Christmas cards quite formally, so to people she isn't very close to, and also snippets of phone conversations where you can only see the bottom half of her face and hear her half of the phone calls with the people who are cancelling.
The credits will be placed among the ambient shots of Christmas things, and we will edit royalty free Christmas music lightly over the top of the scenes, along with a narrative of dialogue for the phone conversations.

Furthermore, the opening sequence will end with a bit of footage of her writing a diary entry with notes such as " I regret it all " and " I wish I hadn't done that " and then end with a clip that starts to go into a flashback, indicating to the audience that the opening sequence will then be explained.


Learning Comment:

After a discussion with the rest of my group, classmates and teacher, we have decided to come up with a new idea for our opening sequence. The planning we have now done for this new idea appeals to me, and I hope will appeal to our audience a lot more. This piece of planning is just a guide as to how we are going to put our opening titles together, and has made me realise where we were going wrong in our last idea. For example, unrealistic shots and camera angles, and also the themes that would be highlighted in the sequence are quite bleak rather than intriguing. 

Target Audience = Demographic E
Secondary Audience = Demographic D & E

Produced by Vertigo films (UK)
Distributed by Paramount Pictures

Draft and Final Script

In this task, we came together to write the final script for our opening sequence. We have come up with the title "Frayed Ends" in this production task and it has allowed us to plan out what we will require from our actresses and how we are going to film. We have decided to not use any form of dialogue, but only to include the effective use of camera angles and editing to engage our target audience and set the scene for what would make up the rest of our film. 

It took many attempts but here is what our original script was for only the first part of the sequence - 

After creating this we realised that there was holes in it. This is because we managed to leave out small details and parts of the storyboard. After this, we made the tweaks it needed  and added the small parts that we missed out, leading us to our second copy - 


Finally, we did the last bit of editing and added the filming locations into the second half of the script - 





Learning Comment:

Props, Location and Fashion Planning - Risk Assessment

In this task, we had to plan out the props and clothes of our leading characters in order to give the audience a sense for what the character's personalities are like and to show what we need to use during filming to carry out the plot of the storyboard. We also had to think about what the locations we are going to use are because we had to consider lighting, timing and aspects of mies-en-scene that will make the opening sequence look more realistic. The planning we have done can be seen below: - 

Props for Kathryn:

- Plain black hairbrush
- Designer make up powder
- Chanel perfume
- Designer Mulberry bag
- Neat school uniform
- Shiny black brogues
- Fruit salad breakfast (fancy cutlery and bowl etc)

Props for Jodie:

- Broken and scruffy white school shoes (converse)
- Scrunchie hairband
- Mascara
- Drug store spray
- Ruined scruffy school backpack
- School uniform with holes in
- Toaster and toast

Locations:

- Thornbury Castle (Kathryn's house)
- The outside of Jodie's house
- Thornbury bus stop
- Emily's bedroom (Inside Kathryn's room)
- Emily's sister's bedroom (Inside Jodie's room)
- CastleSixth Form (Outside school gates)

Fashion:

- School uniform
Jodie: tie (tied messily, half way down chest), shirt (shirt sleeves rolled up over blazer sleeves, buttons open at top), blazer (sleeves rolled up, dirty), skirt (short), tights (with holes in), shoes (creepers/converse - scruffy, broken, torn, untied). 
Kathryn: tie (tied correctly, right up to neck), shirt (ironed, all buttons done up), blazer (spotless, decorated in badges such as prefect and mentor), skirt (knee length like the school rules, ironed), tights, shoes (brogues - polished, shiny, tied in perfect bows). 

Risk Assessment:

Learning Comment:

In this piece of research we have made clear decisions as to how we are going to dress and set up our actors in order to achieve the look that best suits the characters' personality. For Kathryn we have decided to dress her in a very tidy school uniform, using a tie and a blazer, with many upper class designer brands such as Mulberry and Chanel featuring in her parts. However

Sound

In this opening sequence that we're filming, we have a very strong contrast between our two main characters and so the music we choose has to reflect the differences between the two characters at various points during the sequence. The music that we use however, has to be non-copyright and so we can only use music from sights that have been specially set up to help with amateur film makers' productions. For example, Bensound. 

Here are some examples of music we have are considering using: 


http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/happy-rock

http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/rumble

http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/better-days

http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/acoustic-breeze


  Learning Comment:

Character Profiles

Name: Kathryn Winfield

Age: 15

Hometown: London

Class: Upper class

Relationship status: Single

Current family: Mother, father

Other close relationships: None

School: St Bonaventure's

Dress style: Well groomed, sophisticated, organized

Religion: Catholic

Attitude towards Religion: Strong, strict

Hobbies: Horse riding, hunting, ballet

Favourite sports: Lacrosse, hockey

Favourite food: Salads

Sense of humour: It’s hard to make her laugh

Temper: Quite a high temper, especially when things don’t go how the usually go

Consideration for others: Doesn’t think much of anyone else of a lower class than herself as she was brought up this way

How other people see her: A bit stuck up, teachers pet

Opinion of herself: Thinks very highly of herself because she is well dressed and polite, brought up being told she is the best of the best at pretty much everything

Ambitions: Top grades, best job there is, makes lots of money (under a lot of pressure from her parents)

Most important thing to know about this character: She may be rich etc. but she is in fact very lonely

Will the audience like or dislike this character, and why?: At first they may decide to dislike her because of her background and the fact that she’s a posh stuck up girl, which is the stereotype for the “villain” in these types of films

Name: Jodie Smith

Age: 15

Hometown: London

Class: Working class

Relationship status: Single

Current family: Mother, father, 2 brothers, 2 sisters

Other close relationships: None

School: St Bonaventure's

Dress style: Casual, scruffy, laid-back

Religion: Catholic

Attitude towards religion: Relaxed

Hobbies: Drawing, playing the piano, writing

Favourite sports: None

Favourite food: Chocolate biscuits

Sense of humour: Easily entertained 

Temper: Quite a low temper, she tends to let things go and take the blame when things go wrong

Consideration for others: Respects others because she knows everyone has their own back story (as she has been through a lot and understands people easily)

How other people see her: She comes across as the “weird girl” to the popular kids because she has no friends, lots of people know about her strange/crazy family and how she doesn’t have much money – which shows through the clothes she wears, her uniform has many holes in

Opinion of him/herself: She thinks very low of herself because she has been treated like this her entire school life by others in her year

Ambitions: Just to get through school and get a decent job to be able to provide for her family at home

Most important thing to know about this character: Like Kathryn, she is very lonely

Will the audience like or dislike this character, and why?: They are more likely to become fond of Jodie than Kathryn because many teenagers can relate to the problems that she faces and therefore sympathise for her


Learning Comment:

In order to fit our two main characters into the opening sequence effectively, they must have at least one distinct similarity - in this case it's loneliness. However the use of binary opposites constantly throughout the opening sequence will be used effectively in order to highlight the contrast between the two protagonists and how their lifestyles differ. This allows the audience to distinguish between the two personalities and therefore keeps them more actively engaged when the two of them come together at the end of the sequence, whereby foreshadowing a friendship that was before considered unlikely by the audience. We will use a lot of codes and conventions and miss en scene to engage our target audience because as Kathryn comes from an upper class family, she can afford many more branded items such as a Mulberry handbag and Chanel perfume, whereas Jodie can only afford what her family buy her, such as body sprays and handed-down bags. This will be used a lot so that the  audience can get a feel for the types of characters they are and allows them to explore all the possible opportunities that would link them together later on in the narrative. 

Audience Profile

This is an audience profile created about the people who we have targeted as the audience of our opening sequence. We have made a prezi to show who our audience will be and how we are going to film in order to engage their attention.




Learning Comment:


From what we have learnt from this piece of audience research, we have discovered that the primary target audience of this film is more aimed at females between the ages of 14-19. This will be really useful when it comes to making our opening sequences because it means we can use the codes and conventions of films aimed at this range of people in order to make our opening titles as engaging as possible. For example we can include scenes that relate to the daily lives of people of this age, such as trying to fit in and the rush to get ready for school in the morning. It also means that we can make it applicable to those people in the secondary target audience by giving them an insight into the lives of their children and the ways that people of this age are feeling nowadays. 

Thinking of a Concept / Final Idea

In this piece of planning, we had to come up with an outline for our opening title sequence and film narrative. To show our original ideas I have made a mind map which covers aspects of media studies which will be expressed in our sequence, and codes and conventions that we will use to ensure our film fits in to the coming-of-age genre.

By doing this task, my group and I have been able to discuss which ideas we believe would and would not work and have been able to collect them all and form one basic structure that we are all happy with. We have taken into account aspects like lighting and setting and so we have chosen a location that will fit the needs of our sequence. We have also planned out our costume and other aspects of mise-en-scene so that our opening sequence will engage the right audience but also attract the secondary audiences of out film.

Learning Comment:

Preliminary Task

In this task we have been asked to plan, film and edit a piece of footage recorded ourselves. The storyboard below is showing the scene in which a person walks through the door, goes and sits next to another person and exchanges a few lines of dialogue. I have tried to make good use of a few filming and continuity editing techniques that are used when filming much larger productions and these include: 

- 180 degree rule is a filming guideline that the characters in a scene should have the same left-right relationship with each other, so filming only occurs on one side of the axis. If this line is crossed, it changes the viewer's perspective in such a way that causes disorientation and confusion. For this reason, crossing the line is to be avoided.

- Match on action (or cutting on action) is an editing technique in which one shot cuts to another shot showing the action of the subject in the first shot. 

- The shot/reverse shot is often used when filming conversations. It is often a shot showing what the character is looking at, followed by a shot of the other character looking back at them, for example.

Below is my storyboard showing the outline of what shots I used in the filming of my short scene.

After this planning, I filmed and edited the recording I took of my preliminary task. I have made sure to include the match on action technique, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree line rule. Below you can see the 14 second long video I've made to show my storyboard.


Learning Comment:

In the planning of this task, I have learnt the different types of camera angles and editing techniques that are used to create a continuous scene in films. For example, the 180  degree line rule; I have learnt through using this in my preliminary task that it creates a better perspective of the shot for the audience and it means that the serrate shots become much easier to edit together.
When filming this task, there are a couple of things that I will take away and use when creating my real opening sequence. E.g when recording, I have learnt that I will need to press the record button on the camera but then wait about three seconds before actually enacting the scene. This is because I found that when editing together my footage, the first half of sentences were cut off because I pressed record and the dialogue started at the same time, so half of it didn't get recorded. I will be sure to use this to my advantage when filming my sequence.
I feel that the editing of this task would have been a lot smoother and easier if I had made sure that I had taken more time when filming, and therefore left more time to fit slightly longer transitions between shots. For example, the last few transitions in my edited sequences are cuts, so when editing my sequence for the real task, I can use a wider variation to make my sequence more interesting.

Analysing Previous Students' Work

For this task, I had to look at two other opening sequences from other media students in order to give me some ideas as to how I should make my opening sequence and which techniques I have found to be successful. This task has given me an insight into what is possible to make and what I should be aiming to recreate:

The Edge






Roses Are Red



Learning Comment:

By watching and analysing a couple of other AS students' media work, I feel like I have gained a lot of knowledge about the conventions and techniques that are popular in a couple of specific genres, and I find that now I am able to distinguish between a piece of work that is A grade and a piece of work that is B grade. From watching the second title sequence, I have developed an understanding of what features are used in a  coming of age opening sequence like I want to create, in order to engage a target audience of this genre from the start. The use of music is very important in an opening sequence so I think that I should use something that is upbeat but simple, and that if I can, the music should hit a crescendo at the most intense part of the sequence. 
Unlike these two sequences, I would like to use more non-diegetic sounds to set the scene so that it helps to link the audio and visuals together to attract an audience. On top of this, both openings used camera angles effectively, but I will aspire to use a wider range of angles and editing techniques, such as close-ups. A technique that I really liked the use of was the shot that followed the character's feet, because I felt like that gave a different perspective to the film and made the character feel more relatable to me, as a person of the target audience. 

Representation in Films

In this task, I have made a mind-map which expresses my analyses of the films, and the way in which the social group of young people are represented within them. 




Learning Comment:

The social group I have tried to identify the representation of in the films I have looked at is young people. I have found that the use of sound, mise en scene, editing and camera angles all affects how the youth are represented in these films, therefore in these two analyses, young people are represented in two totally different ways. For example in 21 Jump Street, teenagers are represented as being reckless and immature, giving way to the stereotypes that society has of them and connoting the unpredictability and chaos that goes on in their lives. Whereas in the Submarine opening title sequence, teenagers are presented as being calm, peaceful and sophisticated. This is through the use of high camera angle shots and wide establishing shots of peaceful open spaces. Young people are also shown to be quite isolated in this sequence because the protagonist is the only person we meet, and through the use of mise en scene, the positioning of this character from a low angle looking up at large mountain ranges and oceans makes the area look desolate, and connotes to the audience that he feels quite insignificant and unnoticeable compared to everything else around him. 

I have learnt from this task that the use of codes and conventions throughout the opening title sequence is vital when it comes to how you want to represent your protagonist and their social group. My title sequence will involve quite a few slower transitions and editing effects because I have found that this is one of the techniques used to show the insecurity of teenagers. These representations also help the primary audience of demographic E to identify with the characters, whereby engaging in the film from the beginning.

Narrative Structure

For this task, I have made a mind-map on Spiderscribe that showed my analysis of three opening sequences of coming of age films, and how these used different aspects of media theories to entice an audience into watching the film. 

I have used two films I have watched before, Wild Child and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and then I have analysed a further film of which I haven't seen apart from the opening sequence, Stand By Me. 

Here is the mind-map I have created to express my ideas:

Learning comment:

In this task, I have learned that I need to include:

- A clear protagonist with a villain and helper to help establish a clear equilibrium. By showing these characters already in the opening sequence, it allows the audience to see clearer narrative elements and help to set up the narrative. (Propp)

- After the establishment of the equilibrium, the disruption of the equilibrium is often shown or at least implied after the first few minutes of the film. This is because the film still needs to be fast-paced and give the audience something to look at, and put some sort of chaos in the storyline. (Todorov)

- Showing binary opposites within my plot will help to expose the narrative to the audience because it will establish a clear opposition between the hero and the villain, plus it helps to contrast between good and evil, whereby engaging the audience's attention. (Levi-Strauss)

- The use of action & enigma codes help to engage an audience in an opening sequence because they make the audience question the direction of the narrative, helps them to establish links between characters and also makes them question upcoming events through the use of enigma codes.