Final Draft of opening sequence

https://youtu.be/OK7o0CEymxk

Evaluation 07- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back on my preliminary task I have learnt a variety of things, that I was able to incorporate into our teen angst opening sequence. With the preliminary task we very carefully focused on the the three rules when filming, that being the 180 degree rule, the shot-reverse-shot rule and the match on action rule. That was the reason behind creating this task. However, with the teen angst opening sequence we had more freedom with what we wanted and were allowed to do. We experimented with titles, and special effects, such as the non-diegetic sound effect of the type writer and the '24 hours before' individually being typed onto the screen. Or when we made the credits slide onto the screen for example when we shoot a close up of Ash's legs walking past the camera up her drive to school, and following her legs comes the credit 'Alice Nutter'. We really had to think about what we wanted to show our audience with the teen angst opening sequence, what we wanted them to get from our film and the message we wanted to put across, keeping in mind the stereotypical conventions of the teen angst genre and incorporating this into our own opening sequence. This is something we never really had to think about or really have in mind with the preliminary task, as it was just a short film practising and putting to action the three rules we had been recently taught. 

Evaluation 06- what have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing this product?

In the process of developing this product, I have learnt how to work the Camera, making sure that the framing was correct and that we hadn't caused the camera to shake. I learnt how to use the digital programmes such as Premier Pro and Photo shop to edit our opening sequence, we also learnt how to use the voice recorder when it came to recording Ash's voice over.

The camera and the rules that came with filming was something before preparing for this task I hadn't been aware of. The rules such as the shot reverse shot rules, that we incorporated into our own opening sequence was something I want to focus on specifically. We knew when we decided as a group to incorporate that rule in our opening sequence it was going to be important. It showed the emotions and the friendship between the two characters of Ash and Darcy and allowed us to see the fun they were having from both perspectives.

I learnt how to use premiere pro to edit our teen angst film, these are a small amount of the tools I used when it came to cutting down sections of the film and making it flow into each other nicely. The bins are used to store footage, audio, titles in so that it keeps it all neat and not hard to find at a later date. We often found within editing our teen angst film that we would reuse our title again, or need to reuse our footage again as we had cut it too short and it wasn't a smooth clean cut and we wouldn't have been able to find it especially later on in the editing process when a lot of titles and audio files were imported.



















This is my blogger page, where I update all my changes, choices and decisions of our teen angst opening sequence on. Here you can press the new post button on the top left corner of the page and it takes you to a new page to be potentially be published onto your blog.

These three tools, came essential to use within the process of writing my blog. These enabled me to be able to link YouTube videos, for example when I had to add my first draft onto my blog, using the Link tool enabled me to be able to. The icon with the picture made me able to upload pictures onto my blog posts, so that the posts were more creative and interesting to read and look at. Finally the movie clip icon, meant that I could upload videos onto my blog, this helped when I had to upload my preliminary task as I hadn't uploaded it onto YouTube but already had it as a video on the computer so this allowed me to upload it without the added hassle of having to upload it onto YouTube first.

Here you can see our editing workspace, As you can see I have circled one of the bins we had created called 'Audio' as I had mentioned it before, but without any present. This allowed us to put all the non-diegetic voice overs in, making our workspace tidy and neat. Then you can the tracks I have highlighted too, these allowed us to layer tracks of video and audio together, so that we could create titles and special effects within our opening sequence. the audio on track 10 I have highlighted so you what audio looks like on the time line. Finally in the middle right you can see a group of numbers, the soul purpose of this is to tell us how long our whole opening sequence was, as we were told to stick to a time limit of 2 minutes, so this allowed us to keep tabs on how long our opening sequence was so we didn't go over it

This is YouTube, this web page allowed us to upload our opening sequence, the fist draft and the final one, so then we could upload it onto our blogger page. It took a little while for it to upload but once done, it meant we could link it to our blogger pages, by using the 'Link' tool that I talked about previously, therefore it's now easy to to find and view.

Evaluation 05- How did you attract/address your audience?

https://mail.cambsed.net/OWA/redir.aspx?C=H__I1BdNRjC4nb-kfvwyRLu4koy--HCU1Z2ZHPFVmNr4OU_aKWrUCA..&URL=https%3a%2f%2fyoutu.be%2fMgoqNRWa4TI

Evaluation 04- Who would be the audience for your media product?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Where would she shop?

I think that from her clothing style, that she has a very causal attitude to how she is perceived by her peers.  This meaning that I don't believe that she would be shopping from high end stores, which keep up with the latest fashion trends, as it seems that she doesn't take too much pride in her appearance.

This being the case, I believe that she would shop from places such as New Look, River Island, Boohoo.com and ASOS.

What music would they listen to?

As they're wearing rather black clothing, with the black boots a grey hoodie and she has dark hair, you can connote that she would like rather alternative punk music, possible with a little indie and rock. Possible straying away from the mainstream pop music.

What their favourite TV programme would be?

She seems as if she would like mystery and crime, such as Sherlock, but also SCI FI such as Doctor Who, as stereotypically these shows are seen to be rather "geeky", and geeky people are stereotypically associated with not really caring about their appearance, not being too popular and this is the vibe that she is putting across with her baggy over sized jumper.

What age do the look like?

She looks around 16-18 years of age, from the perfect skin without wrinkles. Also her body posture, as much as it is slightly slouched, it is however rather upright and straight, she holds herself well, which is stereotypically what you would see from a younger age group.

Why would she watch my film?

I think she would watch my film as she is a teenager, so she fits the stereotypical target audience for a Teen Angst films. I also think that as she is a rather counter type of her age group, she may relate to our teen angst film as we do have an unpopular main protagonists. Who also sufferer from depression, so i think she would appreciate this type of dark subject matter being highlighted, as with the music and clothing taste she could be associated with a mental health disorder, also depression effects a large amount of young people each year, so it may make her feel less alone, and help her see beyond her possible mental illness.



                                                                                

Evaluation 03 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?- By Alice Nutter, Erin Surkitt and Rebecca Moorbey

Our script
recorded version:https://youtu.be/BaU2L_dFNTI

Our production company is called ‘snowball productions’. We settled on this because we liked the idea of combining the snowball effect – where things start off small then gradually get bigger with our film. We did this by linking the snowball effect to depression - the fact that if our main character Ash kept everything to herself and did not seek help then things will gradually get worse and worse. In our logo we used the idea of a snowball rolling downhill which would cause it to get bigger as it gathered up more snow. We then needed a clear and particularly large title so that our audience knew which production this film was. The way that we incorporated the title would be that we used capitalized sans serif font at the same angle of the ‘hill’ behind the snowball, with a thick black line above it, which almost creates the illusion of the snowball moving at a significant speed. We kept the logo in black and white as we thought that this would be most effective, as the white connotes the innocence and sweetness of our character Darcy and the black connotes sadness and depression that could be linked to her best friend Ash. The contrast of these two colours could show how they are total opposites. This logo would appeal to our audience for various reasons – the first being that the snowball effect can be applied to various situations that vary in significance, from problems or fallout with friends to illnesses or worries about yourself etc. The effect that this has on our audience would be that it gives them assurance that there are other people dealing with similar issues and that the films that we produced will help them and teach them different ways to deal with their issues. 

For our film we would use universal studios as our film distribution company because they have produced similar films to ours. For example the pitch perfect series, this also deals with the awkwardness and the difficulty of teenage life. This will relate to our film as our main character Ash and her best friend; Darcy are both awkward teens who are struggling with their lives, trying to fit in and finding their purpose.

We shall try and get funding from the government, The UK government invests tens of thousands into the British film industry each year, and all we would have to do is apply for funding via application form to the appropriate BFI-Funded program and wait for a positive response.

We presented our titles in various ways throughout the opening of our film in order to appeal to our target audience and relate to our film. The main title of our film is in a cloud font, which we produced on Photoshop. We decided to use this because clouds connote freedom and the idea of dreaming and aiming high. This is important to our film as the main character has obstacles to overcome which makes her feel emotionally tied down and unable to be free, which is a direct contrast to the style of our title. This will appeal to the target audience as it makes them think that the film is going to potentially be a stereotypical teen angst film, however the more they watch of it, the more they that realize we actually challenge some of these conventions. The credits that we used are in a sans serif font of various different colours, such as purple, green and pink. This is a stereotypical aspect of teen angst as these types of colours connote fun and happiness, which eventually our character finds by the end of the film. The first few credits that appear are quite dark but by the end of the credits appearing they are bright and colourful. This reflects the theme through our film, that things start out quite hard for the main character but as the film progresses things get easier and she is able to overcome some of the obstacles she had before. The way that the titles appear is also significant, as they follow the movement of objects or characters. This attracts the target audience as it enables them to understand the actors in the film and who is directing it without them being distracted from the events in the film entirely.

It highlights mental illness in order to create awareness as we feel that teenagers need to fully understand about what they can feel or others can feel, as it can effect up 10% of teenagers at one time. Teenagers are widely effected by depression and many are unaware of the consequences that can arise from not speaking to someone. it give them an insight into how others may be feeling and how then can help them. Also it allows them to see themselves in another perspective if they're feeling this way, and then they can seek help.

On our poster we would include the title of the film "one night, one life" in large, white and sans serif font, making is visible for the target audience. The main image is 3 shots of the main characters Ash, Darcy and Hellen. Next to each character has a label saying who they are. This will be the main focus for the poster. For example next to Hellen it says 'Queen Bitch', next to Darcy it says 'innocent best friend', and next to Ash it says 'depressed individual'. We included these small labels to the characters because we wanted to relate it to the poster for 'The D.U.F.F' which also used small labels.  In the bottom left corner we will have the 'snowball productions' production company logo, which is our own logo and in the bottom right we will have the universal studios logo as that would be our chosen distributor.

Our trailer will have the some of the best parts of the film to give people an insight to the film as well as hooking in the audience. It will include the release date of the film, so our target audience can know when to book their tickets and the actors names so then they will know who stars in the film. It will also include some of Ash's voice overs as its her telly her story. At the end of the trailer it will say the age rating (15) as our film covers some sensitive topics that may not be suitable to expose to younger audiences.

We will it make below the line advertising as it’s cheaper and more personal to our target audience examples of below the line advertising that we would think of using would approaches such as banners of stickers, possibly even brochures. Although our main approach to marketing our film would be using social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc. As we’re targeting a teenage audience, in our society social media plays a large part in teenagers lives, therefore I think we would reach a much broader audience this way.

We would release our film in the late summer holidays as this would enable us to have more effect in attracting our target audience. The reason for this is that during these holidays teenagers would be off school and potentially looking for a fun activity to do with their friends or loved ones such as going to the cinema. We did not want to release the film earlier summer as we felt that during this period more fun and positive films such as high school musical, whereas the film that we have created is fun but does also have a serious message hidden behind it that would be more appropriate for the darker summer months

As we would be applying for funding through the appropriate BFI program, we believed it only to be appropriate for our film to be shown in the BFI London film festival where we would enter the short film contests, we would choose the short film award program 1 as it recognizes works with a unique cinematic voice and I believe our film is unique for a teen angst film with the subject matters covering that of mental health.  Which we believe doesn’t get covered very often with teen angst films, even though it can affect a lot of teenagers.

On our poster we would include the title of the film "one night, one life" in large, white and sans serif font, making is visible for the target audience. The main image is 3 shots of the main characters Ash, Darcy and Helen. Next to each character has a label saying who they are. This will be the main focus for the poster. For example next to Helen it says 'Queen Bitch', next to Darcy it says 'innocent best friend', and next to Ash it says 'depressed individual'. We included these small labels to the characters because we wanted to relate it to the poster for 'The D.U.F.F' which also used small labels.  In the bottom left corner we will have the 'snowball productions' production company logo, which is our own logo and in the bottom right we will have the universal studios logo as that would be our chosen distributor.

Our trailer will have the some of the best parts of the film to give people an insight to the film as well as hooking in the audience. It will include the release date of the film, so our target audience can know when to book their tickets and the actors names so then they will know who stars in the film. It will also include some of Ash's voice overs as its her telly her story. At the end of the trailer it will say the age rating (15) as our film covers some sensitive topics that may not be suitable to expose to younger audiences.

Evaluation 02- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Ash Allen: Portrayed by Erin Surkitt 
Here we wanted to turn the stereotype of teenage girls having long blonde hair caked in makeup on it's head, virtually making Ash's character a counter type of the Teen Angst genre, specifically for the female main protagonist of the film. Although the fact that the main protagonist is female is rather stereotypical of the genre in a whole, its comes from what she wears, the dark clothing that makes her in a way a counter type. However, Ash is portrayed as the "misunderstood misfit" of the school that your typically see in a teen angst genre. With the close small amount of friends, and very much too her own. She represents the social group in school as the "unpopular weirdo", which I think quite a lot of teenagers will be able to relate to, as even if in reality they're the "popular" type of girl watching the film, it all comes down to the fact that everyone feels like they don't fit in at school at least once in their lives, its what comes with the experience.

 Darcy White: Portrayed by Alice Nutter
With Darcy's character we really wanted the represent the opposite side of Ash, in other words Darcy is the light to Ash's darkness. Which I think is really important representation to have, particularly as within our film we're covering a rather dark subject matter that is mental health, so to have a light hearted character that is Darcy in the film, it would lift the spirits of the audience, and essentially make the opening sequence more light hearted, which is a rather stereotypical mood and vibe to be given off when watching a film of a teen angst genre. Also its highlighted within the opening sequence that Ash and Darcy are best friends and they have been that way for years, which I think is important to mention because in a teen angst movie such as 'Angus, Thongs and perfect snogging' or 'Wild Child' they all have a close female friend within them, which support them, for Georgia in 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging' It was the boy struggles that she was trying to overcome, and her friends where there to help her through it, and in 'Wild Child' Poppy was struggling to overcome homesickness and getting over her mums death, and then she made friends with 4 other girls to try and get out of the school, but realises that in actual fact she never wanted to leave because she has made amazing friends. Therefore, recognising this as a regular convention of the teen angst genre we wanted to incorporate that into our own opening sequence and that's where Ash and Darcy came into the picture.

Helen Smith: Portrayed by Darcey Page
Helen is your stereotypical "mean girl" convention in our opening sequence. However, she is a counter type of the genre as you would find out later on in the film that in actual fact Helen was never a "mean girl" after all  but as we are being told this story from Ash's perspective she takes everything Darcy says, or does to her in a negative light. As an audience you're introduced to her as the "Queen Bitch" when in actual fact it was Ash's depression that was clouding her judgement of Helen's character and Helen was only really trying to help her and be nice. I think with our Teen angst film we really challenge the stereotype of the plot line, from my research I found that in films such as 'Mean Girls' the "mean girls" learn their lesson in the end, and the one "unpopular girl" is liked and known by most people. Although, in our film its completely flipped. The introduced "Unpopular girl" Ash in actual fact in some sense was the "Mean girl" because her depression caused her to judge and treat people like Helen who was trying to help her badly and then you have the introduced "mean girl" Helen turns out to be good and not mean at all, as we find out all along what Helen was really trying to do for Ash.

Evaluation 01- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

1. The title, font and style of the film
Here we chose to create our title in a serif font, in the texture of clouds. We wanted our film opening to put across there a variety of options, decisions in life that one can take, you're never stuck with only one option. Along with this comes opportunities, doors open up to you through the decisions that you make, and for a teenager this is a prime time when this happens. With school, college and even university teenagers are constantly making decisions about there future, that being what GCSES they take to even going to university in the first place and just jumping straight into work. Within Teen angst movies stereotypically you will have the convention of teenage drama, this being between friendship groups, boyfriends/girlfriends, etc. This comes with the decisions on who to exclude, ignore and unfriend, which then stereotypically leads to a fight or disagreement between two parties. This is the convention we were trying to portray with this title, font and style.

2. Setting/Location
I chose this screen shot simply because it displays our stereotypical setting for our teen angst opening sequence, this being a high school. From previous research majority if not all teen angst films that I had looked at took place in the setting of a high school. As our goal was to include as many stereotypical teen angst conventions as possible into our opening sequence, this felt like an essential to include in our own.

3.Costume and props
Here you can see the character of Darcy holding an IPod in her hands, with earphones plugged in to her ears, and casually gazing up around her to check her surroundings. This is very stereotypical of a convention of the teen angst genre. Teenagers are very up to date with their technology knowledge, and will use it and have it on them either in their hands or pockets in most situations. Social media plays a large role in what happens in teenagers everyday social lives. Take 'The Duff' for instance, videos were posted up on social media of Bianca messing around with mannequins in clothes shops. Also, Bianca as a 'dig' at her friends un-follow them on most social media sites, which they responded to really hurt and disbelieving that Bianca would ever do such a thing to them. After we had recognised that social media plays a huge part in teenagers lives, we quickly made the decision to include this convention into our own.

4 + 7.Camera work, editing and how characters are introduced
I chose this screen shot because it really explores our use of editing. Here is where we would have frozen the footage, and using a transition made the title ' Darcy White Ash's best friend' slide onto the screen. We recognised that from previous research into teen angst films such as 'Easy A' that each main character had a separate introduction, to really distinguish their social status in the school, and their relationship with the main protagonist. This seemed to be a repeating convention for instance in 'Angus, thongs and perfect snogging' with  Georgia's introduction to the 'Ace Gang'.

5. Story and how the opening sets this up
I chose this screen shot because, our story centres around a very depressed teen called Ash, it follows how she hates her life, her school and everyone in it apart from Darcy. However, how one competition and how she wins it changes her life forever, she overcomes her battle with depression after years of fighting it, she realises that actually the 'Mean Girl' that she always hated and thought badly of was actually a nice person and was only trying to help Ash. This I think completely turns the stereotypical convention of the 'Mean Girl' on its head as she was never mean to Ash, she was never a horrible person inside like stereotypically the 'Mean Girls' are like the 'Plastics' or 'Slaggy Lindsey' she genuinely wanted Ash to feel better its just Ash's depression clouded her judgement of her. I think this screen shot just starts off the story nicely because it shows we get a slight insight into Ash's depression and her hate for school, also stereotypically teen angst follow the main protagonists walk to school for instance in 'Juno'.

6. Genre and how the opening suggests it
Here we have a extreme close up of Ash plugging her earphones into her ears. Stereotypically teenagers will much rather listen to music then listen to people they don't want to socialise with. They will also do this to help entertain themselves during a boring journey, such as in Ash's case her journey to Sixth Form. I think that this really helps to suggest the genre of teen angst as the extreme close up displays Ash's  annoyance with going to school, due to the fact that her eyes are focused of an area of the ground, and her head is titled towards it. She also looks as if she is in her own little world, which stereotypically teenagers are known for being in.

8+9. Special effects
I chose these two screen shots to explore the special effects because screen shot 8 is when we decided to overlay the image of the PowerPoint presentation over Ash walking up to the white board to read the message. We thought this was a very interesting shot to create because it's means we get to see Ash's facial expression straight on right before her life is about to change. Screen shot  9 I chose because we decided to get a non-diegetic sound effect of a type writer and made the letters appear on screen one by one. These two shots I don't believe are stereotypical of the teen angst genre, however, non-continuety editing is something that is stereotypical in the teen angst genre, with the flashbacks of what happened previously, little nights out that went wrong, or why the main protagonist stereotypically the 'unpopular girl' is actually unpopular, and the '24 hours before' screen really sets this up.

Our Logo, and credits- Erin Surkitt

Sound or Music choices for our teen angst opening sequence- Rebecca Moorbey

Non-diegetic
Happy Rock and Background Music, which Erin made on garage band.
We chose these two non diegetic tracks because they both have a happy vibe to them but also keep to the rock theme we wanted. This is because the message we want to put across with the mental illness is rather serious, and it can be a rather daunting situation to approach, and rather sensitive to, so we didn't want to stray away from the harsh realities we were trying to explore within the film with upbeat, happy music.

Diegetic Music:
Ash's voice over- this is because in Teen Angst movies stereotypically in the opening sequence this is a convention you will normally come across. With films I had researched such as Juno, Easy A the breakfast club etc they all has a voice over at the beginning to introduce the main character and their friends, to set the film into motion in a sense. so we wanted to incorporate that convention into our film opening to.

Amplified Sound:
Kicking of the can
We chose to make the kicking of the sound amplified, because we wanted the harsh reality that teenagers stereotypically can be moody, stroppy and unhappy most days, and especially when school is in the agenda. As this is Ash's walk to school and Ash suffers from the mental health disorder depression, we wanted to demonstrate this not only through what she says but through body language and psychical actions, therefore the kicking of the can.

Our Group Chats- Decisions

Our feedback on our first draft

Our feedback on our first draft - things to improve on:

. Change our fonts and to different colours
. Speed up some parts of walking to the school because it can be boring without action sometimes
. change instead of our title all coming in at once to possibly split it up into two halves with possible sound effects to make it look interesting
. Correct the audio - make the voice over louder and the music quiter, so we can understand the audio better
. Cut down the time of the art competition in screen

Things that went well:
. Good cinematography
. Placements of fonts was good and neat

Our Teen Angst Opening Sequence First Draft

Our First Draft

Our Teen Angst drafts and decisions- Alice Nutter

31/12/16