Edit 1

The first cut we have done is showing the first draft we have made for our film and how it is going.




This version of our editing is good but we know that it is still missing a few key elements. For example it is missing music, the titles and a few key techniques like match on action and shot reverse shot that makes the flow of the opening sequence a more continuous effect.

Learning Comment:

The music that we would be using is the music that we had chosen on the music section of my blog. However when getting feedback from our peers and teachers, we have concluded that the music choice is a bit too christmassy for our opening sequence, so we are going to use a more mllow, but still christmassy themed song. Despite the rhythm of the song fitting with the cuts between shots, it doesn't sum up the mood and atmosphere quite right for the sequence. 

On top of this we have noticed that the match on action part of our sequence isn't smooth enough and so doesn't help towards creating a sense of continuity throughout the sequence. Therefore we are going to meet up again and just film a couple more parts of the sequence that need making smoother on top of some extra shots for the most important titles - the director, writer and producer, editor and the name of the film, but in a creative way like we have filmed the others.

The original idea for our titles was to have a mixture of those that were creatively filmed and handwritten, and then others that were elegantly typed and edited into the footage. However, on reflection, we have concluded that this would make the sequence disjointed and that the edited titles wouldn't be as effective as those that were done during filming. Consequently, when we re-film the other small parts of the sequence, we are going to also come up with some more ideas as to how we are going to work the other titles in and amongst the footage. 

Finally we are going to lengthen the time of which the titles are up on screen for because, when given feedback, we realized that the shots with the titles weren't on screen long enough for the audience to take in the information, so in our next editing session we will increase the length of time that these shots show for. On top of this the speech part where Victoria is on the phone to Chris has a two second part on the end in which there is no speech, so we will need to cut this out in order to make room for the addition of new shots.

Filming Diaries: Lonely This Christmas

Day of filming 1: Tues 22nd Dec

Today was the first session we have had filming for our new coming of age film idea. We used Ella's living room as the location for all of the filming today. We did it in the morning to overcome the bad quality picture and lighting issues that usually come with filming inside, and it wasn't lessened. 

The filming went really well today as we managed to film all of the cross-cuts we need for the titles and to break up the bits of speech. We also filmed the still images, establishing shot and all of the other scenes without the actress as she was unavailable until the evening, which wouldn't have worked.
Some of our shots however, did not look the way we had hoped for so we made the necessary tweaks where necessary throughout the filming, for example the diagonal pan across the tree was very rough and jumpy, and it took so long, so we've had to change it to a tilt shortly across in order to make it fit. 

The changes we made were only small e.g shot type and we did a couple more shots that we had originally planned to do in the original recording session. Overall, the filming went well and the next time we have scheduled to film is on Saturday morning. 

                                                                                                                        Ella & Megan at filming

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.