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

Frayed Ends Filming Part 2

This lot of filming proved very very difficult to organise because no one was available on the same days, and also different people had the camera and the props so it meant that we really needed everyone there. However, that was impossible so in the end Emily and I went to film with an actress who was different to the person we had planned to film with originally because she became really ill the day before. Even though Ella had the storyboard and most of the props, we made the most of what we could from using the script and the props which were available at the actress' house. By this point in the organisation process it was now about 4 o'clock in December, therefore it was starting to get dark outside already which proved a few problems with natural lighting when filming, as you can see in the few clips below.   



This is one of the earliest bits that we filmed in the afternoon so the lighting here isn't so much of a problem, but the smears on the mirror were extremely noticeable, which wouldn't be there if we had planned better before, and also the setting is not as we had planned. As the bedroom wasn't able to be used, we had to try and make do in a living room and make it appear similar to a bedroom, which in my opinion wasn't very convincing.



As you can see from this bit of footage, the lighting started to become a problem around this  time. The lack of natural light has made the footage really grainy and low quality, and so the it was completely unusable. However when we turned on the artificial lighting, it made the shot look really yellow and therefore it looked very wrong in the sequence with the other clips we already had. So, despite trying to fix the problem, we still ended up with a shot that had either too much high key lighting or too much low key lighting and so this would have meant that we would need to re-shoot this footage too.



These next few shots would have worked okay together but would have required a lot of editing to get the timings right, and also to get the match on action perfect would have been very difficult too. However the lighting was good and the body language and sophisticated atmosphere we were hoping to get from the clips came through too.





Had we chosen to use this clip, it would have had to have been massively cropped but this series of events would have been great for creating a contrast between our wealthier protagonist compared to Jodie, our other. The reason the lighting in these was slightly better is because we had moved to another area of the house to film this scene. Filming indoors was always going to be an issue for us, especially in winter because it means that the lighting was always going to be worse, and make our lives harder in terms of the quality of the recording. These few shots are still a little grainy, but not as much as before and so they would have been usable if we'd wanted.



In this shot below, the angling is quite good, but the camera work was pretty shaky. Although the actress hesitates and looks towards camera at the end, this would have been easily cropped at 5 seconds. This however is still too long for a shot in our storyboard, and so if we had carried on with this idea, I believe we would have had real difficulty trying to fit all of our footage into two minutes, even with leeway.  



This final clip that we got from filming was good quality except not very well planned. The boxes in the background would not be something you would see in the setting of such an upper class, luxurious house, and so again takes away from the effectiveness it would have had in the narrative. Also, it is a bit slow and so would probably have needed re-filming if we decided to use these bits of footage anyway.




All in all, I think we have made the right decision in quitting the production of this opening sequence and starting in the development of another because we would have had trouble in fitting all of our footage into two minutes, even after editing, and due to the fact that filming was rushed, the video that we got from both attempts at filming was not good enough to get the grade that we hoped to achieve as an end result. What I have learnt from the production of this project, is that much more time, consideration and planning needs to go into filming sessions. This means that we should use a shot list effectively to ensure that the right parts are filmed at the right times and to a good enough standard, which would mean that we don't have to re-film, although I think that this is almost inevitable because the footage can always be improved. It also means that we should give ourselves enough time to film, and maybe split it up into more sessions so that it gives us all an equal opportunity to do our fair share of camera work.

Frayed Ends Filming Part 1

These are some of the clips of footage we have got from our first filming shoot. This was when we tried shooting the clips to use for Jodie, the less wealthy of our two protagonists.

As you can see in the video below, this shot is very wonky and that Jaimie, our actress, makes eye contact with the camera for the first second or so of filming. You cannot tell in this piece of film but in the other shots like this, Ella's hand was visible in the corner of the mirror, which no-one noticed during filming, but it made the bits of film unusable already.




This one here was my favourite shot as i felt that the positioning within the frame worked really well, the angle was different to others and it was straight, so it was a shame that we didn't get to use this.



Although the door was left open at the end of this clip, it was the best of the shots that we had. Also as you can see the windy conditions outside meant that the camera work was wobbly, especially towards the end. If we had stuck to this idea, I would have suggested redoing it anyway, even though it would have taken even more time, because I realise now that the match on action we could have done with this shot would have been really effective, and also the fact that the door stays open at the end of the shot doesn't make the scene very realistic. 



The pan we have used here is quite effective, but as with the previous shot it is a little bit wobbly. This would have been usable but we would have had to cut off the end because she stops running before the shot ends. 



These next couple of shots were successful and we enjoyed filming them. Of the two filming sessions we did, this one was definitely the most successful and was the one that we got the most footage from. 






I liked this clip, except for some reason her face and the background are slightly blurry, so again we would have had to have re-shot this one.



This one we have of the bus has a lot of unnecessary footage at the beginning where there is a lot of talking in the background because when we could hear the bus coming we didn't want to miss the footage for it. This is really really wobbly but it would have been cut so that didn't matter, but then when it did finally go pass Jaimie, the camera had stopped recording before it got fully out of shot anyway so that would have had to be re-done too. These were the best shots that we got out of this day, and we couldn't do the ones with her and Kathryn because the other actress wasn't available on this day. These could have been much better, so we would have had to re-shoot most of them in the end anyway, therefore we would have ended up doing at least another two days of filming, probably three if we had kept with this idea.

Filming Diaries

Frayed Ends: Filming Day 1 (05/12/15)

In my opinion, filming for the first time was very productive because it gave us an idea as to what filming was going to be like, and proved more of a challenge than we had once thought. We used Emily's bedroom as the location for our filming and did it in the morning next to a large window, so that the quality of our footage wasn't affected by the poor lighting that comes which is usually an issue with filming inside.

What we filmed today were the shots of Jodie (played by Jaimie Hampton) in her house, getting ready for school. We managed to film all footage of Jodi before she gets on the bus, and so the filming was influential to the task and gave us an insight as to what the final footage would look like with those pieces of film we gathered.

To improve, I think we should have had much steadier camera work throughout as we had quite a few wobbly shots and the ones that were wobbly were probably wonky. Therefore, next time we film we will need to use a tripod from school. As a group and with feedback we had from the class and teacher, we decided that what we have filmed won't be good enough to use in our opening sequence as it is wonky and the camera work is quite poor with grainy image quality, which we kind of expected from our first proper time filming. On top of this, we didn't capture a broad enough variation of camera angles and therefore when we edit it, it would not have enough on-screen movement to engage the interests of our audience.

As a result, next time we film will be using a wider range of camera angles so that we can have a more varies set of angles to choose from when it comes to editing the sequence together.
                                                                                                     Ella, Megan & Emily at filming



Frayed Ends: Filming Day 2  (12/12/15)

Today we were able to film the footage for the other protagonist in the sequence, Kathryn (played by Chloe Kemp). I felt that the filming today was quite rushed as we were struggling to get all of our recording done in the light, as we started filming later in the day. However, we did get a good outcome from the shooting today.

We managed to shoot all of the sections of Kathryn before she leaves the house. The unavailability of Jaimie meant that we couldn't film the parts we planned in front of the school building because they both had to be in the scene. I am happy with the filming that came out of today's session, but the low key lighting in the house was an issue for me because I think some of the shots are too dark for us to use and therefore could be a much higher quality.

I would personally like to re-film some aspects of today's footage if we have the time to do so before deadline. If not, and we can't fix it in editing, i'm not sure if a third time trying to film the same shots will be worth it, and we may have to consider a new idea as there are too many flaws in what we have, and I think it may be of too low a quality and too complicated to ever achieve to the standard we are aiming for. 

                                                                                                                Megan & Emily at filming 

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.

Title Research

For this piece of research I have taken three opening sequences to coming of age films, and have individually analysed each section of typography. I have taken screenshots each time text appears and written about how they help to engage a target audience throughout the credits. The films I have chosen to look at are 10 Things I Hate About You, Austin Powers and Home Alone, and the videos I have created to show my analyses can be seen below: -











On top of this title research, I have chosen to look into an opening title sequence for a film I've seen that has credits different to any other sequence I have looked at. The opening title sequence for Trainspotting that was distributed by Channel 4 Films in 1996 has a different take on opening titles, so by clicking on the video below you can see my analysis of why they have done titles so differently:




Learning comment:

Through looking at a wide range of opening film sequences, I have learned how crucial the typography is to the overall presentation of the film. It can help in constructing the narrative and establishing the genre to the audience, and this influences their thoughts of the entire film, right from the opening two minutes. I feel like now I have analysed the use of colours,  fonts and text placement in four very well regarded opening sequences, I now have a much more in depth understanding of what key aspects of typography I should use to make my opening sequence. 
The titles that are the most common in opening sequences are the ones that I think are vital to include when making my own, and these are:

Institutional information
Film title 
Protagonist
Other major cast
Other minor cast
Casting director
Costume designer
Music producer 
Editor(s)
Producer & co-producers
Director's name - presented last

Audience Research

As part of this assignment, we did a few different types of research in order to get a really good sense of what our target audience are looking for in terms of creating a coming of age opening sequence. 
The first thing we did was create a survey, which I then went to put online, so that we could have as many people as possible answering it. 

If you click on where my video below, you should be able to see what results we were able to collect from our survey:



From this qualitative data collected by Freya Vincent and I from the target audience of our coming of age film, we have found that roughly 70% of teenagers are familiar with what the coming of age film genre is and that generally these people are female. This is helping to establish who the audience of our film is going to be, along with what we have found out about teens' favourite film genres. The clear favourite film genre of people in audience demographic E is the comedy genre, with others such as romance, drama and action proving to be popular. As this is our set task, whichever opening sequence type we make will be based around the coming of age genre, but for our opening sequence we will include other aspects of the  aforementioned genres in our construction of the narrative in order to engage not only the primary, but also the secondary audience, as much as possible. This survey, along with the findings from our focus group interviews, will be a major influence to our opening sequence, and has already given us a few ideas as to what we would eventually like to create as a group. 

Me and Freya then went on to do an audience research focus group with a group of AS Media students and gathered some responses as to what our target audience thought about film opening sequences and coming of age films: 



As a group we also did some quantitative data analysis to find out which famous coming of age films have been the most successful upon their release. We used websites such as IMDB and other online sources to look at numbers such as DVD sales and cinema numbers, and you can see that beneath, Ella Henley has made a presentation to show the figures and research that she came across: -



And here are the finding's of Becky Moffat's audience research: - 


Learning Comment:

Our audience research has brought me to many conclusions as to how my group and I should construct the narrative of our opening sequence, and the key conventions and techniques we should use to help in actively engaging the audience. For example from carrying out the focus group, I have discovered that the primary target audience of our film prefer having the protagonist and or/main characters established within the first few minutes of the film and so having them in the opening sequence is a good way to help to introduce characters to the audience and help them to understand where they stand with the characters. 
A style that I found to be successful when creating opening sequences is where you create the film sequence with a flow of music over the top, because this idea seemed to be very popular with our target audience and makes sure that the audience can link the audio to the visuals on screen. However, from my own research I think that there isn't enough use of other non-diegetic sound and that in order to create an opening that stands out from the others of this genre, I should use more of these to help engage my audience. This is also a convention used in a lot of Jason Reitman's well-known films, who has been very successful in creating films of the coming of age genre.

Director Case Study: Jason Reitman

                                   
                                     

37 year old Jason Reitman is a film director, born in Quebec, Canada, in 1977. He is the son of director Ivan Reitman and so he has always grown up surrounded by film sets and comedic actors like Bill Murray - even working as an extra in his films on occasion. After a failed attempt at a pre-med degree at the university of New York and an escape from living in his father's shadow, he then returned to Los Angeles and enrolled at Southern California's School of Cinema-television. 

After years of turning down opportunities to direct big-budget films like Ghost Buster's 3, he finally released his first full-length feature film in 2006, called "Thank You for Smoking", which received amazing reviews and Reitman was being recognised as an original director. It was his second film however, Juno, which got him an Academy Award nomination for best director, and is regarded as one of the best coming of age films ever made. 

He has a particular style when it comes to opening credits which is smooth and sharply edited. The camera movement on all of his titles is a slow pan across the screen, allowing you to take in the information given and have a look at the location shown in the background. A typical convention of Reitman's opening credits is his use of high key lighting and bright colours. This is used in many of his sequences to reflect the light-hearted nature of his films and to give the connotations of a movie that will be fun and entertaining to watch. The genre of his films are usually romantic comedy-dramas, which is a sub-genre that often captures the attention of those in audience demographic E. 

A camera angle Reitman uses a lot in his opening sequences is the high-angle shot. This is clever because in a way, it tells us quite a lot about the narrative of the movie. A high angle shot connotes to the audience that something is going to happen to the protagonist in the film that they will have no control over. This, consequently, draws in the audience even more because they want to watch it to see what will be the disruption of the equilibrium.
More than the use of camera angles however, Reitman does a lot of tracking with the camera. This steady camera movement is used to connect shots together and helps the sequence to flow better.

Jason Reitman often doesn't show you the characters in the film during his opening two minutes. However, in Juno he used the protagonist walking across the screen to show the audience who the main character was, but also the camera tracking was cleverly used as a way to document time passing. In this sequence, he makes particular use of close-up angles, which is a good technique because it shows you a good view of the character's facial expressions. Through this use of mise en scene, you can tell a lot about the narrative and genre of the film; seeing Juno smiling in the opening sequence showed us that this film is going to be happy, maybe even funny. Moreover, even just by seeing her face you can tell she is young, which is a typical convention of coming of age films. 

The music used in his opening sequences is often very upbeat and memorable. For example, in Juno he used the song "All I want is you" by Barry Louis Polisar. This song makes you pay attention to the screen, and Reitman ensures that each of his shots fits in perfectly with the beats of the song, which means that the whole sequence flows a lot smoother.   
It is rare that he actually uses any added sounds in his opening sequences, however when he does they are non-diegetic sounds like the sound of an airplane taking off, which he uses when deemed necessary.   

The narratives of his films are often quite similar. This is because most of his films start out with the protagonist landing themselves with a problem. The plot tells the story of the character trying to work their way out of the problem and often coming to a solution that doesn't solve the issue but gives the film a just and unexpected ending. This style of narrative is what keeps his films interesting and makes them original, because the equilibrium is always restored, but not in the way you would expect it to be. 


Learning comment:

From this piece of research I have gathered a lot of information about the techniques directors use in their opening sequences, and how I can now go on to use these in my own work. For example, I now know that tracking the camera is a good way to link my shots together in order to create a well-flowing title sequence. A technique that I liked of which Reitman used is the use of music that is reflective of the narrative of the film. e.g he used Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that cigarette! by Tex Williams in his film Thank You for Smoking. 
This is because it is a clever way to link the sound to the visuals and therefore made the titles relevant, and intriguing. 
When constructing the narrative of my film, I am going to create a plot that is unpredictable, but still gives a sense of fulfillment at the end. This is because it is what's going to make my opening sequence individual and stand out from others in the same genre. However, when doing this I will still use conventions of coming-of-age films such as non-diegetic sound and high key lighting to appeal to the audience of demographic E and make the film recognisable.