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.

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 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.

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.

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: