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.

Feedback on First Draft of Title Sequence

In Wednesday's lesson feedback sheets were hand out to all class mates to fill out on each groups title sequence which was everyone's first draft. Once our title sequence had finished playing the others had time to fill out their sheets then we discussed the feedback together,there were 4 sections to the feedback sheet : The rating of the sequence (out of 3 stars), The elements that work , Things that need developing and Things that don't work.
The overall feedback from the class was positive none believed it needed serious work which was happily appreciated by the group.

The main things that worked that people commented on was :the music, the shots and the black and white filter, I believe these are all things we have worked very hard on doing well and developing the most at and this has been noticed which makes me feel positive about our piece. 
In addition the things that people thought needed developing where: the voice over and the storyline. From receiving this constructive criticism we had a group discussion on these two areas that had been identified and we chose to delete the voice over from the title sequence as we were unsure once editing the sequence if it really helped or actually confused the story. The storyline was not said to be clearly shown in the title sequence but when we explained it to the other members of the different groups they understood. One comment was to add my evidence of the male character being a doctor. Yet again we discussed this idea and we plan to do some shooting of this in school in the science labs in Friday's lesson.
Finally the last section of the feedback sheet was the things that did not work only one main things were pointed out on this subject. Firstly one person thought that the typography which included all our group names for the title sequence designers and casting by was too. We as a group agreed with this and Sophie straight away went away and recreated these two crew names and she made up her own. 

I have chosen three of the six feedback sheets to add to this blog:

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.

Black and White Style & White Typography

After nearly finishing our first draft of our title sequence to show our class and teacher for Wednesday's lesson I brought the up the idea of maybe changing the sequence from colour to black and white. I originally came up with this idea because I believe it will abide more to the thriller genre giving it a darker and more mysterious feel. In addition it gives it a more professional look to the title sequence which is what what and my group because it is a high budget film. After this discussion and with many ideas taken into thought we decided to change the whole title sequence into black and white as a group I believe this has enhanced the appearance and effect of the title sequence.

Once we had decided to change the title sequence into black and white we began to upload the text i had planned and Sophie had created with the groups choice of, 'Old Newspaper Types'. The original plan was to have black text on the colour title sequence but as we changed it to black and white we released that we wouldn't be able to have black. To overcome this we decided to change the text to white so it would stand out against the black and white scenes. Moreover this an authentic use of typography of white text on a black background that will now use.

Captive title text

As a group we want our title sequence to stand out and have individuality, so with this in mind when creating and designing the text for the title of our film. We decided to use the same style of text we used for our cast and crew names,'Old Newspaper Types'. In a lesson Sophie and Lucy began to design it, the design was jail bars with the text 'CAPTIVE' blended within the bars. all of the group members had an opinion on what bars and font to use.

Early Production of Text Design

Then Lucy and Sophie found out the format for designing the text/bar effect was wrong, they were using JPEG and PNG was the one they needed to use. Thankfully this did not take much to re correct and the design of the title was carried on with.

The use of colour of the text on screen we could not agree on and what would work best on top of the film footage, so Sophie decided to make the jail bars to light grey and the text of 'CAPTIVE' would be in white.After it was finally finished we uploaded it on Friday to the title sequence and we decided to place on Maria's eyes which foreshadows her mental illness ( but the audience does not know this). Me, Lucy and Sophie decided on this because we thought it would be hinting to the audience that the girl was a Captive and the jail bars represented her own mental cage but then her being held hostage by someone.I believe the use of the this personal designed title for our title sequence definitely makes us stand out and adds to the story itself. In addition it is good for us as a group to have different techniques included in our title sequence and techniques that we have picked up that has developed our understanding and hopefully future work.

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. 

Sound Effects

In one lesson last week me and Sophie were both off school site on a trip and we had decided for Lucy and Christian to focus on finalising the sound effects for the title sequence.The voice over is now completely finished and them two decided to look at some sound effects for certain parts of the sequence.

Chris found the 'Jump' sound (which you can play above) from a music copyright free website and they both agreed it would have a great effect and fit in well when the doctor covers the screen with his hand. I agree with their decision with this choice of sound for end of the title sequence. Then the sound was added to the end of the sequence and it was perfect for it. I believe it adds a jump to the audience when watching and enhances the shocking ending we wanted to have, by using the professional sound effect i also think it pushes it to a higher standard.