Evaluation:Part 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

A cannon DSLR was used to shoot the whole of my title sequence due to it specifying in filming compared to a regular SLR or digital camera. Most of the footage was filmed over the top of the characters therefore a steady cam was in use, however when the camera tracked with the characters walking we were using both a tripod and dolly. Dafont had played a huge part within my title sequence because it enabled me to be introduced to a unique set of over a thousand fonts. Moreover, Youtube was used throughout the creation of my sequence production, whether this be having to place my first cut onto youtube to be able to show the class this cut or when i needed to watch tutorials to help me out with Final cut pro, which was one of the most important technologies used to construct my product due to it being the editing program i had used.  

Evaluation:Part 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

During my title sequence production i was familiar with final cut pro due to watching tutorials on the editing program before we began using it, therefore this made it a lot easier when editing my title sequence. Due to having the role of the editor i believe researching into the program was a top priority otherwise if the title sequence hadn't of turned out how we wanted it i may of got most of the blame. I also think that the shots went well in our sequence because we had used a variety of them, if this was something we hadn't of done i believe the sequence could of been very boring to watch, therefore the audience would loose interest in it.I also believe that my groups research and planning was successful, from the beginning of the post-production of the sequence we all had a clear view of how we wanted our sequence to look, therefore we came up with the plan of the sequence quite early and used the rest of the time to plan and research therefore i believe because we had a clear view of our sequence our research and planning came easily to us and in addition to this it work out very successfully. However something i believe did not to plan exactly how i wanted it was thinking how could we adapt the sequence that little bit more, although i do believe my research on final cut pro had helped me out a lot when editing i do believe i could of tried more of a range of effects to help make the sequence that little more interesting. 

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.

Final cut

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

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.

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.