Captive title sequence 002

This is my second draft of the title sequence we used the criticisms from the feedback and made changes to the sequence to improve it.I believe that with a few small touches to our title sequence that it will be ready for our deadline, such as we had ended up deleting a crew title in the editing process so we have got to put this back on.

Final Editing Changes to Title Sequence

In Monday's lesson we decided to make final changes and see how we make our title sequence the best it can be before the deadline on Friday. 

When looking through our title sequence with the new scenes we had added of Christian's character 'The Doctor' at the very beginning with the scientific equipment highlighting tot he audience who his character is. We wanted to increases his medical title and we decided to add a filter on to the footage we chose, Bad Film. This was to identify the doctor to the audience clearly as this to be in the past and a flashback of his career to the other footage which has no filter.

As we began to get to the ending of the title sequence we decided to change the editing of when the Doctor is following Maria down the road. Prior to the change of this section of the title sequence the footage of him walking forward was repeated using a dissolve to carry on the repeat. When we had decided we wanted to remove this, are reasons for doing this was that it had a ghostly feel to it which is not really seen in the Thriller genre.Then we made the decision to change it by having fast jump cuts to the footage to show his eagerness and desire of Maria to create a more sinister and creepy atmosphere.

By making these small changes to are title sequence has made me feel more comfortable and confident with the title sequence and totally befits the codes and conventions of a Thriller.

Shooting New Scenes

In Friday's lesson we decided to take the the feedback seriously to improve our title sequence. We had time restraints on how long we were able to film/reshoot Christian's doctor characters new scenes. The decision was made to go a science lab class room in the school and use that to film in, luckily the equipment and environment was pleasing considering the lack of time we faced. 

Before we reshot we decided that this footage would be the new opening for the title sequence, this was because we wanted the audience to have thoughts and create their own ideas about this doctor before the story was shown. It is also before the cast and crew credits appear on screen. This increases our title sequence running time which was a benefit because of it only being 1:36 and the limit was 2 minutes so this has out me and my group in a more comfortable position. 

I strongly think that with this new footage we have improved the understanding of the what the film could be about to the audience and them being able to clearly identify the character of the doctor. This is because the use of scientific equipment such as: the syringe, test tubes and plastic rubber gloves.

First Draft of Title Sequence

 
 The video above is the first draft of our title sequence, 'Captive'.

In Monday's lesson we used this time as group to create our first draft of our title sequence, 'Captive' to present and show to fellow classmates which were in separate groups and to our teacher. We made sure that the editing was working properly,all the text was in the right positions and the music and voice over were playing correctly. After these final checks we must of watched our title sequence a few times to make sure we was happy with it even though we knew generally there were things we wanted to improve.One problem we picked up just before playing the title sequence was the mispelling on the 'photography' for our typography and we told this to the class as we did not have time to change it. I believe when we have this  feedback discussion we would be able to have a more clear pathway on how to carry on making the title sequence better.

Main Sound and Voice Over - Title Sequence

Before we filmed the title sequence I was quickly looked on different type of websites that had copyright free music on them.However I again looked on one website that i thought had the best range of music, 'Audio Network'. I found a piece of music called 'Dangerous Knowledge' and even the name stood out to me because it is two themes that run through out our film. I played the music I loved the start of it which sounded like maracas shaking to a slow pace given that sense of mystery, also the high pitch squeek noise inbetween increased the intensity I believe.

I showed the group this piece of music and they all agreed this was the perfect sound track for our title sequence.After we had discussed it we uploaded it to our title sequence and it worked perfectly. At the same time we uploaded the final voice over recording to the title sequence to work out the timing and where it should be placed, we did not think the voice over and music should be played at the same time would work and we would play the music after the voice over had finished. On the other hand we decided to play them together just to prove our theory was wrong, however me,Sophie and Lucy were happily surprised that the combination of the two worked great and we decided to keep them playing at the same time.

With all the final touches and additions being made to our title sequence I am really happy with the outcome so far which really pleases me that our group has worked so well together to produce this. Next lesson we are going to do final touch ups of everything,double check it all works and check for little mistakes. 

Editing for Captive - Title Sequence

Once we had got all the footage from filming in the half term finished and uploaded up on to final cut pro we decided as a group to put Lucy mainly in charge of editing the title sequence, for example: deleting scenes, cutting scenes down and putting them into the order the group wanted. From the feedback we had from our teachers and our personal opinions on the title sequence, we decided to re shoot my scenes of 'Maria' that were filmed indoors in my bedroom because the lighting of only a torch app on a iPhone being used didn't give the right feel.It gave it a dark feel and this was not meant to be felt by the audience till later on.

Before we went off to re shoot, we got Lucy to delete all the bedroom scenes that had dark lighting so it would be easier to upload and carry on with the title sequence once we had the new footage. Whilst this was taking place I put forward the idea of having the whole title sequence in black and white, to give it a more darker effect overall and to make it more mysterious which is what is included typically a code and convention of a Thriller film. In addition the use of the black and white filter on the film helps darking the outdoor scenes lighting because to get a clear picture we had to film it in the day and that day was particularly sunny,so by using the black and white filter it has helped us overall.

Me and Sophie was supporting Lucy with our opinions on the filters to create the black and white effect these were 'saturation' and 'levels'. Lucy set the saturation to -1 so there was no colour left and enhance the brightness of black and white in the footage. In addition Lucy also put changed the levels filter to:

• Input:50
• Input Tolerance:100
• Gamma:1.41
• Output:43
• Output Tolerance:68 

Moreover transitions were added by Lucy to a few of the clips so the whole sequence has a nice flow to it. The transition which was used was a 'cross dissolve', I believe this creates a slow peaceful atmosphere when at start when the contrasting shots are shown of Maria and the Doctor, compared to stalking, following second half of the title sequence. 

At first I was apprehensive about the time restrictions we had about re shooting a few of Maria scenes but after uploading them to the rest of the title sequence I was glad we did re shoot because it looks much better and more the effect we wanted to have. Lastly I think the continuity editing at the very start of the coursework project really helped us as a group to know what to do and what techniques worked best for our overall coursework title sequence, Captive.

Full Cast and Crew List

I was put in charge of another role in the title sequences production to a produce a full cast and crew list for Captive. I wanted to create a cast and crew list that would relate to other films within the same genre which is the 'thriller' genre.Also I then decided to look back at films we had looked at and that have helped with some ideas we have developed individually for the title sequence. After looking at films such as: Shutter Island, Saw and Hide and Seek, I came to the conclusion to base the running of the cast and crew on the thriller film, 'Se7en'. 

I then copied down the order in which the full cast and crew appeared in the title sequence of 'Se7en', the order was this:

• Star Cast
• Title of the film
• Casting by
• Music by
• Costumes designed by
• Edited by
• Production designed by
• Title sequence designers
• Director of photography
• Co-producers
• Co executive producer
• Executive producers
• Written by
• Produced by
• Directed by

After i went through the title sequence a few times to make sure I got the right order I decided to yet again look at similar films in our genre, Thriller. I decided to include the full cast and crew from a range of thriller films that were all included in the survey we created, these are: Black Swan,The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,Inception, Shutter Island, Alien,Se7en and lastly Hide and Seek.
However who the film would be directed by we already had decided on who is, John Polson who directs 'Hide and Seek' which has a similar storyline to our film 'Captive'. 

Once i had finished my order for the cast and crew, I then posted it into our online group chat so everyone could see and it and be more than prepared for Sophie to start actually creating the text with the name I had chosen.

Text for Title Sequence

Previously we had decided our own favourite personal fonts we wanted the cast and crews names to be in, however after filming we decided that the 'Old Newspaper types' would be the best choice so we conclude on the decision with these one. 

In Wednesday's lesson I began to create a cast and crew order list for the title sequence based on title sequence for 'Se7en' because this has ben a supporting influence on our ideas and title sequence. As i was doing this the whole Mac system shut down and I lost my list, however we knew how are two star cast are going to be before this: Emma Watson and Leonardo DiCaprio.  
As a group Sophie was chosen to type and produce all the cast and crew names in the 'Old Newspaper types' font for the title sequence. She began to start the Emma Watson/Maria font and because of the whole system crashing this was the only one she was able to finish in different styles on photoshop. 

These are two of the many designs Sophie created:

I am going to reproduce the cast and crew list, so Sophie can do her role in the final stages of our title sequence of doing the font. 

Filiming for Captive

The week before we broke for half term we got a chance to to do some of the filming in the school, in a conference room. We used this setting for the Doctors study beacuse all the props we needed we easy access to such as : books, stationary etc, also the shots we took varied and we had a lot of them ,so we had a lot to choose.

Once we broke up for half term we had planned two days which we would all meet up to start and finish the filming, which was a Wednesday and Thursday. 

DAY 1 : We decided to film Maria's bedroom scene (her getting ready and writing in her diary) and her walking out the door (to go out with her friends) all in my house for the title sequence. In addition we filmed the Doctors shots for him leaving the house also. 

DAY 2 : On this day we went to Lucy's house to the outdoor shots for the title sequence of Maria being followed by the Doctor and their different points of view. We decided to film here because there was a quite road near her house were not many people passed and minimal cars passing by. In addition we was lucky with the weather for this day as it was bright and sunny where as the rest of the week had being grey and rainy. This benefited us when filming because we had crystal clear shots and did not have to worry about the lighting. 

Voice Recording

In Wednesday's lesson we decided to start are voiceover for are title sequence, we created a script for Maria(female character) that Sophie was going to be doing and the Doctor(male character) which Christian was going to be the voice for. We went to the music department within the school and got access to a recording studio room, this was because the recording of the voices would be clearer and more professional. In addition the application we needed to use, LogicPro was on the Mac in the studio as well. 

By using LogicPro we had more control over the voice recordings, for example: we could distort the voice of the girl to make it sound like she is talking to herself and create an echo to create mystery. In addition for the male character we also distorted the voice but not as much as the girl to give her the more mental thought and power in the title sequence at the beginning. 

I believe the voice recording were very successful and we made sure they were the best all our abilities, however we need to touch up and create a final edit of them so they can be copied over on to our title sequence once we record and upload it.

Final Storyboard for Captive

In Friday's lesson we finalised are storyboard, as a group we finished the sketches and the brief hints of camera angles/movements and how long the shot would last. We have 31 sots to produce for our title sequence but we said that some might get changed and some mmore might be added when we come to filming it. 

First Page

This is the start to the title sequence this is actually going to be 9 separate shots but 8 of them have been put into the same box this is because, they are contrasting shots of the girl Maria and the Doctor doing the same tasks but in their own personal environment. We also estimated how long each shot would be for example the first box says '8 seconds' this would be 4 seconds for each shot because they are to contrasting ones. 

Second Page

The second page of our storyboard follows on from the first and includes pans of the two characters rooms,them getting ready to go out and them both leaving. I believe these section will be simple and quite easy to film because we want to practice some pan shots before we do the final filming. 

Third Page

On the third page of the storyboard we half way through the shots for the title sequence, we have decided to include a lot of close up shots because we want the audience at this point to be slightly confused and not fully sure what is going on or who these characters are.

Fourth Page

This is the climax to the title sequence this 5 shots this really tells the audience about the whole plot of the story but still does not tell them the twist, this is so it gives them false hope and making them believe they know what happens. I think the camera work/movements is crucial to creating a mysterious and tense scene. 

Fifth Page

The fifth page is the towards the ending of the sequence where the girl gets kidnapped and is what the audience believe to be how it actually happened.

Last Page

This is the going to be the last 10 seconds of the title sequence where we are going to take stills when filming of the scenes and then distort them,quickly edit them. It is supposed to foreshadow Maria's state of mind and giving her a clue that something is not right in her mind. 

Teacher Feedback/Discussion

In monday's lesson we had a group feedback session with one of our teachers on how we are getting on with the title sequence and what else needs to be done for the preparation of the filming the sequence. She really gave us support and new ideas to look at such as looking at a film called:Hide and Seek, which has similar plot to our film and could support us with new ideas. A new idea came around about in the title sequence to do contrasting shots of the male and female character to show there personalities and there environment to give clues and hints to the audience. I believe after this discussion as group we feel more settled in our ideas and we are now sharing the same outlook for our sequence, also this will benefit the final storyboard. 

Typography Options - Captive

In Wednesday's lesson we looked at typography that we could use for our title sequence using, 'Da Font',we wanted to have a similar looking font to the font we had used previously for our company logo, Silent Studios. We decided to experiment with the two hollywood start characters that would be said to play the two main characters in the film which are, Emma Watson and Leonardo DiCaprio. 

For Leonardo DiCaprio we looked at these font types:

For Emma Watson we looked at these font types:

From these 7 texts types we decided as group we really liked two types, Angel and Old Newspaper. Firstly we decided on the Angel font, this was because we believed that these would nicely fit in with the thriller genre and suit the ideas we have for the title sequence. The only downfall using the Angle font is that it is slightly unclear and might be difficult for an audience member to read or identify the cast or crew names, but we can make these final decisions once we have our title sequence material. The Old Newspaper font I think would fit in the best personally out of the two because I was the one who picked out that font primarily, this is because it can be clearly read and gives a mysterious look. 

Storyboard - Captive

In Friday lesson's we began to storyboard are title sequence, we had our first ideas individual but to mix with these ideas together became difficult. One person we would want to do one thing then another something else this is because we are all strong characters with strong opinions. However after knuckling down with our ideas and blending them together we began to create a good start to our title sequence. 

We chose our strongest member of the group to start to sketch and include some brief text that would be within certain clips. In the title sequence we don't want to give away the twist at the end of the film we want the audience to believe one storyline would play out, but we wanted to give hints towards the end of the sequence to confuse the audience slightly to something is not all the way it seems.
The only other struggle we had was,how complicated the features we wanted to include would be to add in our title sequence and we all found it hard to have a clear view on how to change this. 

FIRST STORYBOARD

However in Monday's lesson we had a group discussion with Sinead(one of our teachers) on  how we was getting on with our blogs and how the storyboard process was coming along,there is voice recording to be posted of what was spoke about. While this was happening I was taking notes on ideas we was coming up with to how to change and simplify our storyboard, on the main features we wanted to be included. We want there to be comparison shots of the female(mental ill patient) and the male character (teacher who is really a doctor). 

NOTES

WRITEN STORYBOARD

This is our new written out storyboard which is all our new ideas for our title sequence, with the comparison of the female and male character doing similar things but implying what there character is about. 

In our next lesson together we are going to redraw out the storyboard in pictures and finalize our title sequence ideas so we can plan when to start filming and the props etc,we need to have.

Captive - Brainstorm

In Friday's lesson we produced a brainstorm on the content for our title sequence of 'Captive'. The sections we brainstormed were:

• Cast
• Sounds
• Distributor
• Production Company
• Style
• Camerawork
• Genre
• Editing 
• Text on screen
• Narrative
• Setting
• Make up and props

The brainstorm itself was based on 'STINCS', these include: Setting,Theme, Iconography, Narrative, Characters and Style. We then as group developed from these starting points based on what we thought should be included in our title sequence which brought us more together into blending our individual ideas into one which I believe has gave us a clearer outlook on how to carry on.

After we finished with the brainstorm, we focused into doing a 'Medical treatment Vs Kidnapping', so objects that were used in both could be shown in the title sequence to not give the ending of the film away but create a uncomfortable feel for the audience. The first we looked at needles/injections that link to the medical area by treating a patient or can be used for self harm/drug taking. Also we looked at the use of handcuffs, as these can be used to arrest people or can be used for chaining someone to a chair etc. In addition we looked at rope,bottles and knives.

Once we decided to investigate medical and kidnapping objects they can be used for the same situation, as a group we wanted to look into how patients with mental health issues such as schizophrenia, used to be treated in the 1960's as this was when the most disturbing treatments were taken place and not much was understood about the illnesses in the asylum's. We researched what treatments and experiments were taken place on patients we found out one experiment was called lobotomy.
  
Lobotomy is a thin hammer entered through the back of each eye socket into the brain then wiggled in a stirring motion, often taking just a few minutes under local anesthesia.It was  on patients with obsessive behavior, which they repeated time and again and it was used to treat certain mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia or clinical depression. 

Production company logo

In Wednesday's lesson we had to create and design a company logo for our production company, because our chosen genre for our film is Thriller, we decided on the name as a group which is , 'Silent Studios'. We decided on this name because our film is about a girl who is alone and is silent and only communicates through the use of her diary. Furthermore from the research into different Thriller films we noticed that the plot of the film is never revealed which keeps the audience in the dark and makes them more interested in what is to follow.

These are the two logos that we designed one of our group members, Lucy constructed the image as she is more advance than us on photoshop. We decided to create a dark and simple so we could mix the text more in the with image itself. I believe this logo fits in with our film 'Captive' which is in the genre of Thriller, this is because the colour of black is usually associated with death and darkness which is usually included in Thriller films. We decided to use a finger place over the lips because this is associated with silence and mystery which links to the films the production would produce and create. The main focus in the image is the title 'Silent Studios', this is because we want the audience to link the production company to the theme throughout the film that is why the text is black and makes it stand out.

These are two final logo designs but as a group we need to make a final decision what one we prefer, the only difference between them is the second image is the levels and brightness of the finger over the lips has been made darker. 

Codes And Conventions

In today's lesson we was set the task to research into our film's genres, codes and conventions, which is thriller.

 THRILLER: CODES AND CONVENTIONS

FEELINGS:

• excitement
• suspense
• anticipation
• anxiety
• uncertainty

CHARACTERS:

• convicts
• law enforcement officers
• stalkers
• men associated with danger
• criminals

THEMES:

• terrorism
• psychological mind games
• supernatural events
• crime
• suspense 
• assignation 

OTHER:

• cars
• weapons
• urban settings
• tense music
• fast paced editing
• low lighting

I found two popular films that are in the thriller genre, these are: Black Swan and The Silence of the Lambs.

First Lesson

Our group for our AS coursework – Title sequence, group consists of myself, Lucy, Christian and Sophie. As soon as we was put into our group we began to think of a genre for our film to be about we first started with the idea of a teen drama and gangster film but as the conversation continued both these genres were pushed to one side. We then started to think of a film we would actually want to go and see most of us are into horror and thriller films after this the idea came up for a suspense/mystery genre film, then the idea of kidnap came up from my input of recent stories in the news that were in real life. After further discussion we had some more basic film ideas such as: dark, the film ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and Warner Bros, which would have an influence in our film.

After choosing that the film was going to be about a kidnapping we stereotypically made the character to be kidnapped a young female, linking to the news stories I had heard about. Then the plan of whole film was talked about, we came to the rough conclusion at this point that the film should be realistic so it would have more have a more shocking and dark affect. The film title was decided as, ‘The Diary of a Captive’ so we could get ideas and work from the title straight away knowing the basic storyline of the film.

As we didn’t have enough time in our lesson time to come to a final first draft for our film we created an online group chat out of school hours so we could still share and finalise ideas. 
This is the very first draft for our film:

• A school girl is reading from her diary retelling the story of her kidnap (which is the end of the film
• Goes back to the start- The girl is talking to her friends about going to a over 21 club with her friends
• Her teacher overhears her but pretends not too, the girl gets ready at her house then meets her friends at the bus stop to catch a cab
• A man with a drink is staring at her while she dances (the teacher)
• The man offers to take her home but she is not interested
•  She gets dragged out of the club into the back of a car where she blacks out
•  She wakes up in an unfamiliar place, a room with one bed, one window and a book shelf
• She has been there for about 5 years  
• She finds a book and is given a pen and starts to write her diary 
• People come and give her food and water
• She tries to escape but they put her back in the room
• (She starts to read her diary from her present point of view explaining that her teacher was the only one who knew she had...)(not sure about that)she had been in a psychiatric unit for the past 5 years and she is slowly getting better
• She is released and has monthly checkups
• She writes a book telling her story of how she thought she was being kidnapped

Considering we had only one to begin with we had one hour to produce our first ever draft, I believe we worked well as team and that our ideas will form a successful title sequence.