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.

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.

'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.

'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.

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.

'The Elite' scene

'The Elite' yearbook photographs and recordings are expected to mirror their identities as being somewhat shallow, sure and self fixated. Bronte guided me to play with my hair then look into the camera with an impartial outward appearance, both myself and Jacob complete our recordings with a clear outward appearance this was purposeful as we are both the primary characters inside of our social gathering. Bronte had then coordinated Ella to play with her pig tail and grin at the camera this mirrors her ditsy identity and depicts her as the bimbo of the gathering which is significant as she is blonde and this is a generalisation that blondes convey. Ellie makes a gesture of blowing a kiss into the camera and grins this recommends her character is flirty and wanton which is the thing that Bronte being the director wanted to get crosswise over while guiding her. None of the activities of each of the Elite group are suggestive that they are knowledgeable or great individuals rather they have been spoken to as shallow, boys orientated(due to them taking pride in their appearances with a full face of cosmetics and Ellie's activities inside of the video) and unapproachable. This is an extremely commonplace representation of Popular young ladies inside of secondary school dramatisations. Besides I think it is clear from the yearbook recordings and photos that these are your cliché mainstream faction of teenage girls that you would hope to discover in a secondary school dramatisation film, all of our ideas from this specific gathering was taken by films clueless and mean girls.

Freak scene update

We first shot our freak opening the book on a table with lined paper in the background, we did this to help keep the conventional aspects of a High school drama/comedy however once i started editing i was notified that it had looked very odd, this was due to her going from walking with the book to ending up on a table, therefore we had to think of a setting that would fit more with the sequence whilst helping it flow.

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