Title Sequence idea

Our title sequence idea is to create a yearbook which is opened by all the conventional characters that are seen in teen comedy dramas, for example 'the jock', 'the elite', 'the freak' and 'the nerds'. The title sequence will show all of these characters opening the yearbook and showing the audience their school photos whilst also showing pages such as prom day and graduation day. When creating the title sequence we need to make sure that it is very conventional, this is so it looks as realistic as possible, without the right costume and props the title sequence will not be as effective. When creating the sequence it is crucial for us to add in bright bold colours throughout the yearbook so the audience are aware that it is a high school film.

Thursday 31 March 2016

Final editing

During the last couple of days of being able to edit and film for our title sequence I was unfortunately  unable to make it into school therefore the role of editing was passed on to both Jazmine and Bronte. Throughout the past couple of days they had given the class a second viewing of our title sequence, during the feedback we was again given some more constructive criticism to help make the sequence as best as it could be. One of the tips the class had exchanged with us was changing some of the typography as the believed it did not suit our consistent style of a high school comedy that is shown throughout. Fellow pupils had also brought to our attention about the yearbook pictures which would slightly move on the page, this was something that we all knew was a problem however we was finding it hard to think of a way that would allow this not to happen. Thankfully within the last week Bronte and Jazmine took over the role of editing and during this they was able to overcome the moving image problem, they had also applied some other affects which allowed the sequence to look a lot more efficient, one of the effects included was a flash, this was used to make the yearbook photos look like they was being taken by a camera. Once this flash was added it made the photos look like they came to life and had allowed the sequence to become more superior.Another effect they had to add in was using the sticker tool on the font, as the same problem of the font moving across the screen had occurred, however once adding these effects the problem was solved and once they had sent through the final cut to me for approval we was finally finished with our Welling High title sequence.

Wednesday 30 March 2016

Final cut

After all the feedback given from both of the shootings, Me, Jazmine and Bronte have all finally finished our title sequence -

Friday 25 March 2016

Editing

Due to my role being the editor i had came across many shots that may look fine when checking it on the camera, however once Jazmine filmed some shots and gave it to me to edit many of the shots had came back unsteady, therefore she would have to re-shoot these scenes, however when editing i had came across a 'stabilisation' button, this button had allowed the unsteady clips to be slightly unsteady,this meant that when overlapping the yearbook photos it had become a lot easier.

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Order of Credits

Yearbook Photos

Inside the Yearbook we are using the yearbook photos to introduce the characters within our film, therefore when the yearbook photos are taken we wanted the characters to over exaggerate their roles just so it was clear what their roles were within the film.

For the Jocks their yearbook photos were very confident, just like the elites yearbook photos, we made sure that both Oliver and Tommy made themselves look confident within the yearbook however we still wanted Jacob to be the centre of attention due to him being one of the main characters within the film, therefore we allowed both Oliver and Tommy to just wear white t-shirts and tracksuit bottoms whilst Jacob stood in his Jersey with a basketball, to make it more obvious that we wanted Jacob to be the centre of attention we gave him his own page for the yearbook picture whilst Oliver and Tommy shared a page. Within the title sequence Tommy's pose was to make him self look very confident and vain, whilst he stood looking into the camera pushing his hair back, where as for Oliver we wanted his character to be shown as more "cocky' with him looking into the screen whilst clicking his fingers towards it. For Jacob we wanted to convey the cocky/confident look also, we did this by him walking in spinning a basketball on his finger whilst looking directly at the camera.

As mentioned above for the Elites yearbook photos we wanted them to look very confident, we did this by making sure they walked in with a attitude and taking the picture in a self-assured manner, for both Ellie and Ella they had very different roles, we had shown Ellie is a very girly way however also being shown as very smug, she did this by looking at the camera whilst kissing her hand then blowing the kiss towards the screen, whereas with Ella, although we wanted her to be shown as confident we also didn't want her to be portrayed in the same way as Ellie, therefore we used her yearbook photo to show her as very cute and innocent as she walks in and just happily smiles at the camera. Like the Jock page although we still want Ellie and Ella to be at the attention of the audience we wanted the main girl within their group to be shown as the most prestige. I had decided to play the character of the main girl, we represented her in a way of which she was shown as 'catty', this was done by her walking in grinning however she soon turns into having a resting face, ensuring to the audience that she is the main character who rules her group.

Finally the last two characters within the book are The Geek and the freak. For the geek we wanted him to be shown as a very happy character who although may be isolated by people for being clever was still happy within himself, therefore for his yearbook photo the director (Bronte) had decided he should walk in, play with his glasses to make sure they're central whilst then smiling at the character, this had gave a very charming effect for the geek character who was played by Frankie. Moreover the last character is the Freak, the freak page is shown as the beginning of the Title sequence and although within the film she may not be shown as the most important character her role within the film is still very important. For the freaks yearbook photo we had decided she should walk in, very grumpy acting as if she didn't want to be therefore, when taking the picture the freak then sticks her hand up whilst showing a rock pose, this helps the audience understand she is different from everyone else within the sequence, her unusual look with her dark make up and dark clothing also allows her to be shown as the freak.

Settings

For our title sequence all of my group had spent a long time trying to decide where we should set each character when opening the book, we had to make sure when deciding the setting that it will fit with each character perfectly.

Deciding where both the Jock and Geek would open the book, was decided fairly quick, due to them both being quite simplistic characters. For the Jocks there would be no other place but the sports hall for them to open the yearbook however with the Geek we was stuck between both the Library and the science department, our final decision had been set due to the lighting. Within the library the lighting is a little bit more dull, this is something that may effect the grittiness of the shot therefore we had all came to the decision that the science department and its naturally bright lighting would be the perfect place.

We had to also figure out where both the elites and the freak would open the book, these two decisions had become a lot harder to decide. Before we had decided where the elites should sit when decided that the perfect place for the freak would be the toilet, this way her isolation would be shown through her settings, although we believe that the setting is perfect for the freak we are still when filming the clips finding it hard to shoot the clips with the perfect lighting due to it being in a small compact area with no natural lighting. Finally we had decided where we wanted to shoot the elites opening the yearbook, this was under the shelter. We had all came to the conclusion of the elites opening the yearbook under the shelter due to us getting the idea from 'Gossip girl' which is a TV series about manhattans elite. The program had allowed us to think of our idea due to the prestige characters within the show sitting on the stares, therefore when setting the scene for the elite we knew we had to decide on a setting which would not be surrounded by everyone else.

When deciding all of the settings one of the main aspects we had to look for was if the setting looked like it could be in America. Due to us filming in a british school this did become tricky, however each setting we had chose both me and my group believed it had an American 'feel' to it.

Editing the sequence

Me, Jazmine and Bronte have began to edit our title sequence, after school all three of us have been staying after school to try and get all the work done and edit the clips that we have filmed, the app we will be using on the mac to edit the sequence is Final cut pro. When we had began to edit we had came to the conclusion of not all the clips fitting the vision of our title sequence, therefore after re-watching all of the shots we had decided that some re-shooting will have to be done, whether this is because of the camera being unfocused or the shot being steady enough.


Inside the yearbook

During the past few weeks Me, Jazmine and Bronte have been working on our yearbook, the yearbook is the main prop within the sequence, As a group we focused a lot of our time on the yearbook this is due to it being at the base our sequence.

Monday 21 March 2016

re-shooting

From watching our title sequence over me, Bronte and Jazmine came to the conclusion we had to re-shoot both the Jock and Geek opening the yearbook. The Jock was set in the sports hall and the Geek scene was set in the Science hall, during the first shoot for our first screening the clips were a little shaky, therefore when re-shooting the scenes, making sure the clips were steady was one of our main focus points. To help us steady the shot we had used a steady cam, this was so we could get the clip as steady as possible. When editing the clip i had also used a 'Stabilisation' effect, this effects allows any bit of the unsteadiness within the video to be taken away, this was an effect that we didn't know about when i first edited the sequence. Making sure the video was steady was one of our main points of why we reshot the clips, however a re-shoot was taken place due to us also needing to add into the sequence the new aspects of which we added into the yearbook, for example the picture of all of our characters were now within the book as both the class, leanne and Sinead thought this would be better for the sequence.

Sunday 20 March 2016

The elite scene re-shoot

When i last spoke about the Elite scene me and my group were struggling on how we are going to keep the yearbook photos central when the yearbook is being open, due to a slight shake it will then make the yearbook photos shake which are edited on when using final cut pro therefore we had to go out and re-shoot one of the popular girls re-opening the yearbook, whilst Jazmine being the cinematographer had to make sure there wasn't a slight shake when she filmed over the top of the yearbook opening, after many attempts we all went back to the mac room and added the best footage onto final cut pro and with luck the clips were a lot less unsteady which in hindsight should make the yearbook photos less shaky when being overlapped.

Wednesday 16 March 2016

Adaptation of the title sequence

Due to the feedback given me,Jazmine and Bronte decided to add in photos of the main characters, this was due to when opening the yearbook for a split second the borders were shown as blank, therefore by adding the images this allows the audience to focus on the star power for longer within the sequence.When opening the book the audience will see the images within the yearbook for around a second, after this these images appear they will come a life, this is when we add In the videos of the characters walking in and taking their yearbook photos.





Geek scene:Re-Shooting

Most of the stuff we previously filmed for the geek scene all went perfectly, however when the geek opening book clip was put onto final cut pro, it had came to my attention that the camera was unsteady and slightly unfocused therefore today we had to set out and went back to the science room to re-shoot the Geek opening the yearbook. Thankfully when we put this footage on to the mac and final cut pro with the help of the steady cam all of the footage that we had re-filmed was all useful and steady.

Saturday 12 March 2016

Music

When choosing our music for our sequence, Me, Jazmine  and Bronte were all certain on wanting a sound track with no vocals as this may take away the audiences attention to the visuals however finding a track that helps applause the visuals within the sequence. With the help of the questionnaire which was on my blog i had came to the conclusion with the rest of my group that the best song that fits with the sequence and its pace is 'happy-rock'. We decided on happy-rock not only because it got the most views but because we believed it fitted in the most with the sequence and its pace.

The freak scene editing update -

After carefully thinking about how we can adapt on the freak scene and help it flow more within the sequence we decided to have the freak opening the book within the toilet, although with this setting there was some lighting issues due to it being in a tight area the setting did look better than the previous. 



Once editing the clip into final cut pro I had to add the previous footage of the freaks yearbook photos and overlap them onto the yearbook, dragging the footage and placing it on top. 
















Once the previous footage was added, text became our main priority and like the yearbook photo clips adding the text on was done the same. When wanting to edit the style our typography used for the freak page i had to double click the custom text added, this then allowed a box on the right hand side to appear, within this box it allowed me to change the size of the text, the style text and the alignment an example of this box is shown below:





Thursday 10 March 2016

'The Jock' scene

Today, I recruited two year 11 boys to be our jocks within the sequence, for the sequence we made them wear white t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms to help convey the jocks 'cool'
style. For the title sequence Tommy had to pose with brushing his hair back whilst Oliver posed by touching his facial hair. Once filming the boys i put the clips onto final cut pro to add it into the sequence. To add both the boys into the sequence me being the editor had to overlap the videos onto what we videoed of the book opening.Following on from this we filmed our main jock finding the book and carrying it to the sports hall, we had used Jacob in our title sequence when it shows the characters within the yearbook,  due to Jacob not being able to film today we had to use James instead, however within the title sequence this is not noticeable. Whilst i filmed two of the jocks Jazmine and Bronte went out and filmed James walking with the book into the Basketball court, this is where he opened the yearbook and looked at the photos of himself, Tommy and Oliver.

This is the Jersey we got the main jock within our sequence to wear, like The freaks outfit the Jersey is very conventional to the genre of the sequence.

Feedback


From our feedback given me from our peer group me, Bronte and Jazmine gained some constructive criticism and came to the conclusion of what we need to do to help improve the sequence, these include; Re-shooting some scenes, making sure the camera is not shaky, Making sure the pictures are already on the page rather than them just popping up whilst making sure they are shown quicker, cut some shots and re shoot using cut shots to help get a fast paste to the title sequence. 

Music choice

To help decide what non copyrighted music we would use, i went onto bensound.com and tried to find the music i believed would best fit our light hearted title sequence, the music i was looking for needed to be fun and fast paced, just like our title sequence. On the website i had found three songs that i believed will fit the title sequence, however from this i did not just choose the song i liked most but decided to put them into a questionnaire on my blog, this questionnaire last until the end of march, whatever one is the most popular will be put onto the blog, as it stands the music with the most votes is 'happy-rock' with three votes.

This is a screen shot of the questionnaire;                                                                                      


I used a questionnaire to help decide what song to use due to wanting to know what others believe will fit the title sequence the best, this way not only do we have the use of mine, Jasmines and Brontes feedback but also the rest of the class.

Wednesday 9 March 2016

'The freak' scene

Today me, Bronte and Jazmine filmed Jazmine being 'the freak' clip in the title sequence, the settings we had used were the school toilets, we used the down stairs unisex toilets as we believe they represented a US style. Within the toilet we filmed the birds eye view shot of the freak opening up the yearbook to see her image within the book, within these pages it also showed 'Universal presents a JBB production' and Bronte Humphrey's being the director. On this shoot due to Jazmine having to film i took over and was the cinematographer whilst Bronte took care of the lights. Once this was shot we filmed Jazmine throwing the yearbook into the bin, which had soon fell on the floor, after this the next part that will be needed to film is James being the jock and finding the book on the floor, which he takes to the basketball court and this is where he opens the book. The picture below shows the settings we used to film the freak opening the book.





















When filming the 'Freak Scene' this is the costume we used, we decided for the goth to wear all black costume, this is due to believing that it helps illustrate the freaky, gothic feel we wanted Jazmine to look like, with the costume we also made sure that Jazmine had very dull make up on with black nails. For our title sequence we had to make sure our mine-en-scene is appropriate for the diegesis within the film so that is allows us to convey the American high drama conventions throughout our sequence.

Friday 4 March 2016

The Jock page

The Jock page -
Throughout the Jock page we stuck with the American Blue, White and Red colour scheme, this was to allow us to identify the audience with not only them being sporty but also patriarchal. Although it is obvious to acknowledge that they are athletes we used sport trainers and a basketball to help convey it that little bit more.

Thursday 3 March 2016

The Elite page -

The Elite page-
The Elite girls had the shading of pink throughout their yearbook page, the typography was pink, their characters boarders were in the shading of pink and the stickers on the page were pink also. The shade pink was used to show their girly, outgoing personalities. We had a pink heart set in the middle of Ellie and Ella's images and underneath them they had a sticker say "perfect" I cherish the "perfect" sticker as it states they are the prominent young ladies and are superior to anything whilst also representing their sassy personalities, which is additionally how they are appeared in American secondary school movies. At that point underneath Emma Roberts picture it say "Queen B" with a crown above it, this shows she the primary 'bitch' whilst being above her side kicks. Although we did represent the Elite girls as pretty and perfect we also wanted to add the Queen B typography to allow the audience to become identified with their bitchy characteristics and although they may look pretty and innocent their personalities are far from this.

Wednesday 2 March 2016

The Geek page

The Geek page -
Although i have recently mentioned the freak page and how she is the only character upon her page which conveys the audience her loneliness, the Geek is also in the same position of having no one else but himself upon his page however the geeks page is full of stickers which included the yearbook badge, books, a flag with 'success' wrote across the top and a badge that states head-boy, therefore although he is on his own unlike the freaks page his yearbook page is a lot more interesting, which again fits with his quirky personality. Although the Geek is on his own this does not convey that he is lonely, this is due to him having a Head boy badge, if you want to be head boy you have to be elected therefore the audience are identified with the geeks slight popularity.

The 'Geek' scene

Today me, Jazmine and Bronte went out to film the geeks scene, the geeks costume required a checkered shirt, grey trousers that would show of his ankles and some glasses with tape wrapped around the middle. We wanted to make it clear that from the beginning of which you see the geek, you will be notified straight away with his character role from the way he walks and the way he dresses. Like all of the other characters we had to make sure that the setting would fit perfectly with the character, therefore for the geek we had chosen the science corridor, this ended up being a really great corridor to film in due to the excellent lighting.

We began filming the geek walking with the book with the corridor i'm the background, we wanted to film the geek from different angles, this is so when we go to edit then watch the sequence its not in the same position as this could become a little boring to watch. With the editing of the different angles we was very lucky that the continuity of the different angles had flowed together really well.



Once we had filmed the geek from different angles we had then went on to filming him within a classroom and opening up the yearbook. The Geek was the last character to open up the yearbook, therefore when we created the yearbook we added in pages that would fit in well with its characteristics, for example a graduation page was added had 'success' wrote over the top of the page, this went well with Geek due to him being successful throughout his school years which the audience are given a hint at when they see the geek page and are notified with the 'Headboy' page.

Tuesday 1 March 2016

The Freak page

The Freak page-
Each yearbook page represents a character and their characteristics,unlike the other social groups within the yearbook the freak was not given a border for her yearbook image, this was due to us wanting to get the message across to the audience of her dull and bland personality. The freaks page had only two images added, these included of some black nails and a skull, again this was done to help convey to the audience her tedious, and boring personality. The colour scheme of the freaks yearbook page was very drab with us only using a colour scheme of shades, for example lots of black,white and greys. Dissimilar from both the Jock and Elite page we see the freak with only herself on her page, she is not surrounded by friends like the social groups mentioned are, we did this to heighten the audiences understanding on the freaks loneliness within the film.

Typography

The typography for our film became a huge aspect that we had to get right, for the title of our film 'Welling high' we had decided not to use dafont but to visit hobby graft and find letters that we believed would perfectly fit the genre, which luckily we had found. The typography we had used for the names of the characters within the film and the title of the film were very old school american, with a bold outline, they had looked like this - 
When creating the sequence we did come to conclusion after using 6 packets of the writing that there would not be enough for us to use them for the characters names as well, therefore we went to dafont and had used the font name 'BeTrueToYourSchool' - which had yet again fit in perfectly with our american high school genre.