Today we created a table to check whether everything is in place. From what we can see, we think we are all sorted and ready for tomorrow!
I think it is important to mention the challenge we faced today: we were not able to find an actress for the role of the real mother in our shoot. Over the period of cast confirmation, we received a lot of rejections, which undoubtedly started to stress us out:
Zoe dealt with this issue today by asking Karen Barter (her housemistress), whether she could help us out and play the role of the "real mom" in our shoot tomorrow. Thankfully, she agreed and the problem was solved last-minute. Moreover, Hurtwood Inn was confirmed today as well - they allowed us to use one of their rooms to shoot the scenes we need (Juls morning routine). Now everything is definitely sorted and we are ready for tomorrow's shoot.
In the modern film industry, opening titles and credits undoubtedly play a significant role in setting an appropriate ambiance for the movie and emphasising its genre. The rapidly developing technologies have allowed us to produce complex title sequences, turning this side of film production into art. Even though the opening sequence we as a group are developing right now is small scale, researching and, consequently, creating suitable titles could add the unique "kick" to our product and make it high quality.
To start off, I decided to look into the history of opening titles and credits to get the idea of how and why they were originally invented. The first person to ever add something similar to the modern opening titles was Thomas Edison. In 1897 he put a credit at the start of one of his films with an intention to put an anti-pirating and copyright warning before the movie. Those were originally created by photographing a printed board or painted glass. Later, when filmmakers wanted to add the credits with some movie scene running at the background (not just on a blank canvas), an optical printer started being used. The latter is a device that mechanically linked a film projector to a movie camera and allowed filmmakers to take another photograph of one or more strips of film. It was early 1900s when opening titles starting developing with more and more professionals adding them to the movies.
It is interesting to analyse how different production company logos changed over years as well.
1. MGM - an American media company, producing and distributing feature films and television programmes:
Back in 1916 this famous logo was just a picture, which later emerged into a picture with a roar sound (in 1957 it would be played via a gramophone record) and finally to the one we can see nowadays. As the technologies developed, the logo became more interactive, but the concept and the text didn't change since its first creation.
2. Universal Pictures - an American film production and distribution company:
It is evident how since 1914 (the first logo version on the first picture) the logo of Universal Pictures evolved dramatically. Motion, colours, special effects were all added as the film industry was developing, leaving us with the top quality logo we see nowadays (the last photo). Note that the text of this logo changed over time as well - in the very first one it said "The transatlantic films" apart from the actual name of the company, then it turned to just "Universal" and finally to "Universal: a concast company".
3. Walt Disney Pictures - an American film production studio, subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, owned by the Walt Disney Company.
As it can be seen, in 1985 (the first picture) the logo was quite simplistic, however over time Disney started modifying its logo depending on the movie theme/genre. For instance, the fourth picture is the logo from "Home on the Range" (2004) which is a Western-themed animated movie. The "burning away" motion of the logo in this case sets the genre of the film and gives the audience an idea of what it is going to be about. The last picture represents the latest version from the movie "Mulan" (2020), where the landscape is Chinese. This company links its logo to the movie theme, which is why it changes every time a new film is released.
In order to create titles suitable for the genre of our opening sequence, I decided to look for inspiration from successful thrillers:
- "Split" (2016): thriller/horror about an individual with 24 personalities, who abducts three teenage girls.
In this opening sequence, title appear on black screen, cutting away from short scenes of the movie. The font is quite simplistic, but the majority of words are written in caps, making it aggressive. Almost every credit appearing turns into a split screen with the same text appearing 23 times (and one blank space fro the 24th time) which directly links to the plot of the film. The abductor has 23 main personalities with the 24th being hidden till the end of the movie (the most evil one). The narrative is worked in this "split" in the editing/titles, referring to the main theme of the movie. The titles are abrupt and the cut aways make the sequence discontinuous, which sets the tense and suspenseful ambiance, as this motion confuses the audience.
- Taken (2008): a thriller/action about a government operative/agent, trying to find his teenage daughter, who was kidnapped during her trip with a friend.
In this sequence the titles are not as obvious and intrusive as in "Split". They appear in different parts of the screen, fading in and out gradually. The simple font and the relatively big gap between the letters makes the text stretched out and, thus, unconventional. The genre of the film might be represented through the motion of the titles. They are not static, but slightly moving horizontally. This motion attracts the audience's attention to the text (even though usually the titles are not to be paid extreme attention to). As a consequence, the tension is built gradually and the titles only slightly hint to the fact that the movie is going to be violent, scary and breathtaking.
- Run (2020): a psychological thriller/horror about a girl, who is excessively controlled by her mother since birth and as a teenager starts to explore her mother's secrets.
This example is not necessarily an opening title sequence, however it contains the way the movie name is revealed. Here, to introduce the audience to the narrative and the main theme of the movie, the definitions of certain disabilities and diseases are shown on a black screen for almost a minute. As they slowly fade in, the viewer starts to realise that someone in the movie has all of those conditions, which already creates the atmosphere of suspense and compassion. The font is quite simplistic, however the size of the text, disproportionate to the size of the screen (tiny) makes it hard to read it and therefore creates the tense ambiance. At the very end, the name of the movie appears at the very bottom of the screen. It is presented not as a separate object, but rather the ending of a sentence from one of the descriptions, which is why it is not written with a capital letter and has a dot at the end. This unconventional way of revealing the name of the film links to the genre of the film - a psychological horror.
There are many ideas that can be taken from these sequences. From what I found, I'd probably suggest my team to pick an unconventional font and size for the titles (maybe calligraphic/hard to read and very small). More to that, I think, we should add motion to them (like in "Taken") to make the scene suspenseful. Finally, it would be a good idea to present the name of the movie on a black screen at the very end of the sequence, making the name occupy the whole screen. This way there will be sharp contrast between the titles throughout the scene and the name of the movie itself.
Today during the lesson we decided to do a test shoot to see what our planned shots would look like in reality. The majority of the footage we are planning to collect are simple close-ups, mid and long shots. At the same time we aim to film some more complicated shots (e.g. the tracking shot transitioning into a mid shot from the back of the character). That's the reason why we made an emphasis on these more challenging ones in order to see whether our goals are actually realistic and doable.
One of the main things we did was filming the transition part, editing it and seeing what it is going to look like:
To sum up this part, we are very satisfied with the way our idea is implemented. Taking into account the fact that on the shoot day our equipment will be significantly more sophisticated, it is clear to us that our goals and ideas are definitely achievable.
Apart from this, we were making test videos of such shots like an over-the-shoulder of the fake mother walking or a close-up of Juls turning the tab on.
Finally we shot a few POVs (we plan to use quite a lot of POVs in our opening sequence) to figure out how to place the camera the way that it looks like a realistic POV shot.
Today, me and my team were discussing all the details of our project to make sure we are ready for our shooting day - 1st of March. We emailed our cast one more time in order to make sure our actors are confirmed. The only thing we still need to sort out is one of our locations. We are hoping for Hurtwood Inn to allow us to film in one of their rooms (we are figuring it out during this week). Finally, we need to buy a couple of props, including the box of personal belongings the main character will be holding, the pill box she will be throwing away and posters/ photos we'll hang up on the wall for the ambiance.
One thing that we need for our final shoot day are the small decorations and props for our opening title sequence. For our opening title sequence Jules opens a box where she finds memories that trigger the next scene where her real mom is yelling at her to leave. For this box we were planning on buying little notes and envelopes with bracelets to decorate and jewelry to make it looks like an old memory box. We also need a box of empty pills that we can get from the theatre department as they have many props. We were thinking of making the box look some sort of this way:
This way we can make it clear and obvious that it is the memory box that triggers her remembering her past.
Previously we had to change our action list and modify our sequence a bit due to the fact that it was not realistic for us to find two different cars to film inside of. Especially because we needed one expensive and one cheap car (where would we get the expensive one and obtain permission to film inside of it?). As a result we decided to develop al the action indoors and change the rooms during the flasback.
According to our final plot and action list, we only need two locations for our opening title sequence.
Pt.1 The neat, beautiful room for the teenage girl (Juls)
Our initial idea was to shoot this scene in one of the Boarding Houses in school, however due to the fact that we want to emphasise the social classes difference between Juls's actual and fake families, we decided to look for a room, which looks like one from an expensive house. After researching different options, we chose Hurtwood Inn as our final location. Hotel rooms do look neat and relatively expensive, which is why this is the best choice.
Pt.1 The not-so-good looking room for the younger version of Juls
Again in the flashback we need to emphasise the financial and status contrast between the real and the fake families. Looking for something that would be a good fit, we decided to shoot this part in Turrets (Ewhurst). Our teacher suggested to film there, as the rooms there look quite dark and crusty, which is the ambiance we are looking for.
Today we had our second camera workshop, where my class divided into three groups and collected footage using sophisticated filming equipment. The task was to film a short dialogue sequence in a classroom, use different types of angles and shots.
For the first time we tried recording audio using the microphone, which gets attached to the camera through a wire. An interesting piece of equipment we also had a look at today was a "wind muff" (or a "dead cat") - the fluffy, synthetic fur, the microphone is placed in. This item is useful when collecting footage outdoors, as its main purpose is in preventing the wind noise from being recorded.
We were limited in time (only had an hour), which is why as soon as we arrived to our location (a media classroom), we set up the tripod, the camera and the microphone (relying on our knowledge and skills from the previous camera workshops). Our first decision was to place the main characters (who were going to have a dialogue) in the middle of the classroom and shoot them along the light direction (the large window was behind the camera).
We kept in mind the 180 degree rule and after setting up the exposure and focus, we started recording wide shots of the action. The two actors learned a few lines of the dialogue, allowing us to make multiple shots of the same action (for the editing material to be versatile and not limited). After making a few wide shots, we moved on to creating mid shots and finished with a few close-ups on details.
Overall, we definitely collected enough footage for us to edit during our second editing workshop and most importantly practiced our skills in terms of using different filming equipment. The latter is crucial for us at this stage due to the upcoming opening title sequence shooting day. As for now, I personally feel on track and quiet confident about the project me, Zoe and Isi are developing.
I was absent during the last camera workshop (2), which is why I joined one of the groups in my class (Caitlin), who collected footage and were ready to edit it. As a team, we were trying to operate in Adobe and edited a short sequence using the footage they collected last time. This is the final product:
During one of the camera workshops, I was in the group who created the dialogue sequence below. However, the editing was completed not by me. I still decided to post this sequence in order to show what type of footage I managed to collect during one of the workshops.
Today we had the first editing workshop, where we obtained the basic knowledge on operating in Adobe Premier Pro. The exciting fact about this software is that it is both straight forward for beginners to edit simplistic videos as well as extremely in-depth for creating more complicated projects ("Deadpool" was edited in Adobe!). This means that after gaining the core understanding of the main tools of this software we are free to explore it more in details in our free time and, therefore, create a high quality opening title sequence.
I was absent for the previous workshop, which is why I joined one of the groups for the editing process of the footage they collected that last session. Prior to practice, the teacher provided us with the information about the key terms and tools in Adobe Premier:
1) The layout of this software consists of four quadrants with each of those having its own purpose. The bottom left quadrant displays all of the uploaded material (footage), which can and should be organised into separate files. One of those should be called "Rushers": all of the raw, unedited footage should be stored here. It is important to save the raw material in a separate file and keep it unedited just in case at one point during editing it is necessary (e.g. the video was cut too much and it's difficult to revert it back to the original - one can open the "Rushers" file and start the editing process of the raw video again). The second important file is suggested to be called the "Log Bin". This one should contain the roughly sorted footage from "Rushers" and each video should be named (not abstractly: it should be a concise and clear description of what's happening in the video). Obviously, one will probably have more files that this, as different people prefer to organise their footage differently, but the important tip we learned today is: "keep everything neat". Organisation is key for producing a good film and in general to not get frustrated with the amount of footage in the software.
The top left quadrant displays the selected footage from the bottom left corner. By double clicking on a particular file one can have a look at the video and even make the initial alterations (e.g. cut it). The bottom right quadrant is the area, where one can actually edit the selected videos, audios, apply effects, transitions etc. Basically, it is the main working space. The top right quadrant displays the changes made and shows what the film looks like as you edit it. All four boxes can be changed in size, depending on the personal preferences.
2) Talking about the special symbols and tools, one of the most important ones is the playback head, which is the small blue shape, that helps one look through the video without actually playing it. The arrow is used most frequently as it is responsible for moving the footage around in the lower right quadrant, selecting effects and so on. The symbols can be studied in more detail by looking at the column in the lower part of the layout. We were taught that by pressing "C" on the keyboard, the arrow changes to a tool, which cuts the footage. In order to change it back to the arrow one just need to press "V". This is just a tip/shortcut, as one can aways complete the same actions by selecting the desired symbol/tool in the column between the two lower quadrants.
3) Third, and most importantly we got to practice our skills and explore Adobe Premier by trying to edit the footage my classmates collected during the previous workshop. First, we had to double click on one of the files just to see what the contents of the video are. Then by dragging the bottom grey playback head we roughly cropped the part of the video we needed. After that we dragged the videos (after going through the same process with each one of them) from the top left quadrant to the bottom right in order to properly edit it. During the process we were also taught that videos+audios we place to that editing box should not overlap one another. If that happens, some bits of the video or audio get cropped out, which can be inconvenient and frustrating. Moreover, we learned how to cut videos (apart from pressing"C" for the cutting tool). If one places the arrow to one of the edges of the video line selected, it changes to a red symbol, which is supposed to be dragged in one of the directions, cutting that video.
My group (me and Caitlin) created a short video by combining four pieces of footage (one long shot, that we divided into multiple parts and one close up that we also cut into two parts). This is what we managed to produce:
Finally, we were told to never forget to save all our work before shutting the programme not to loose any of the work. On our next editing workshop we will explore Adobe Premier more in depth and hopefully gain knowledge that will be useful for us when creating our own opening title sequence.
Julia: she is 16, brunette and has blue/grey eyes. Relatively tall, 1.68-1.75m, has scars from the car accident that we can always add on the actress. Vision impairment, wears glasses.
Cast list for Julia: Lauren Bos, Sienna Friend, Gracie Lupton
Lauren: she is the fake mother, around 46 - 48, has blonde/light brown hair and blue or brown eyes. She is the average height, 1.64 - 1.70m.
Cast list for Lauren: Beth Greenhalgh, Nikie (english teacher), Lottie.
Aveline: she is the real mother, around 36-40, has brown/light hair and brown or blue eyes, her heigh is around 1.65-1.72 she has a messy bun.
Cast list for Aveline: Stephanie glide, Danielle (carriers department teacher)
One of my teammates, Zoe Case completed research about the art of flashbacks in film. This is the information she gathered:
I look at other media's portrayal of flashbacks, the screenwriting needs to have a clear timeline. I have found the 'flow of logic' of the timeline needs to be accurate, so the plot makes sense. There needs to be enough clarity through the whole script. I think it would be used full to write the storyline to the most film.
For most film flashback should only be used if there is need for the context of the story, or used instead of the character speaking about past experiences which explains the way there are to an audience, its shown. For example Ratatouille.
Flashbacks can easily confused an audience if not done right. Most films may have a couple used to give a background of an idea. But some films whole concept is the flashbacks telling the whole story through flashbacks and different people such as "The Hours" which has flashes back from the perspective of three different women.
Flashbacks that has been well executed,
Ratatouille -
How it's shown: The sound goes very quiet, as only can hear the bites, then the sound zooms (like a car zooming past or computer restarted). The editing makes the camera zoom out around the man. Which the zooms to the man as a child, then when the flashback ends it zoom back out into the start.
There is no dialogue but the flashback displays what is happening clearly
The flashback helps give context to the character and adds to the story
Eternal sunshine of the Spotless Mind -
The flashback in the film are taken to a literal sense in the film. The flashback are of the lead interacting with past memories. The flashbacks change by a shot, there is a whole scene of him talking to his ex girlfriend, she goes to kiss him from an OTS shot and then it cut to a wide shot of him alone, no transition, she just disappears.
The social network -
The scenes are key in the story of what actually happened. The film jumps back and forth to what happening in actual time and what had happen before. The scenes just cut through conversation, if the side text of what actually happened is needed. The story has more fluidity with flashbacks, they do not make you focus on the fact there is a flashback but more on whats happening. As the film is about other people view on to what happened, the flashback help the audience to clarify to what is happening and who side with like.
Today during the lesson, we as a team modified the initial bullet-pointed action list. This is the current version of it:
blurred POV of the girl waking up (vision impairment)
static mid shot of her seating up
close-up to her hand reaching out to the bedside table to take the glasses
static mid shot+ change the angle (e.g. from the table's perspective) of the girl putting her glasses on
following close-up shot of the girl fixing her hair/yawning
static mid shot of the girl starting to stand up from bed
long shot of her standing beside her bed and stretching for a second
"over-the-shoulder" shot (through the books on her shelf) + rack focus to draw attention to the object
close-up on the girl turning the radio/playlist on (through her phone)
following shot (from the back) of the girl walking to the bathroom
mirror shot with the camera moving away from ECU to the mirror to a mid shot (creates an illusion in the beginning, that there is no mirror, but as the camera moves away, the audiences see it was a mirror after all)
close-up to her turning the tab on
"over-the-shoulder" shot (through the objects in the bathroom, like numerous pills), while the girl is washing her face
static mid shot (profile) of the girl drying her face with a towel
following close-up shot of her reaching out to a box of certain pills
mid shot from the mirror's POV, as she can't get a single pill out
close-up to her trying to get a pill out
low angle "over-the-shoulder" (through the bin) shot of the girl approaching the bin and throwing the box away
following shot of the girl walking out of the bathroom (the camera captures her from the front)
match on action (she approaches the wardrobe)
close-ups to the objects in her room (posters, photos, neat clothes etc.) x4
POV of her tying her shoes (while seating down on the bed) +she is already wearing the school uniform
floor-level static shot of her standing up and walking away to apply her perfume
"over-the-shoulder" (through the perfume on a shelf - the perfume should be expensive) shot+following shot when she takes the bottle
close-up of her spraying the perfume
static long shot (door's POV) of her putting the perfume back and approaching the bed to take something underneath it
following mid shot of her sitting down on the carpet and reaching under the bed (the camera moves along the girl's hand)
over-the-shoulder shot of her taking out a box
close-up on the box+ her opening it
mid-shot of her trying to find something in the box while sitting on the carpet
long shot from the door's POV (she found the piece of jewellery she was looking for)
close-up on her looking at the object
mid-shot of the girl from the front (she started paying attention to the music, seems confused) + the song on the radio changes
a following shot (from behind) of the fake mother walking towards the room
a close-up to the girl getting even more anxious (she heard this song before, but can't remember when)
back to the following shot of the fake mother approaching the room
mid shot dolly zoom on the girl
the camera comes closer to the girl (a close-up)
from that position: a following shot, as the camera moves around the girl and captures her from the back
during that movement - transition to the other location and the younger version of the girl sitting on the carpet
mid-shot of the real mother walking in
long shot from behind of the girl, as the mother walks towards the little daughter, disturbed
POV of the girl looking at her mother (the mom keeps saying "we have to go, we have to go now")
back to the long shot from behind the girl
following shot: the camera moves from behind the girl, closer to her clothes and back to the front (this is the transition back to real time)
close-up on the eyes of the main character (terrified)
POV of her looking at the fake mother (the mom keeps saying "Juls, are you okay, we have to go now, we'll be late for school)
mid-shot of the two females next to each other
back to the POV + rack focus: from Juls looking at her mom to the door
Today, as a team, we decided to change the action of the opening title sequence a bit, keeping the plot and main idea the same. As we started to think abut our cast and props more thoroughly, we realised some goals we set for ourselves might not work out in the way we desire.
First, the part of the action, that is set inside the car is quite hard to organise. Not only we need to find two cars (an expensive/new and an old one), but also manage to collect high quality footage from inside the vehicle. It is inconvenient and relatively difficult to shoot the inside of the car and, thus, that footage might negatively affect our sequence. Moreover, we tried to search for the two cars, that would be suitable for our scene, but, unfortunately, we didn't find the ones that match our description in our area.
Second, for the flashback we initially needed a 7-8 y.o. girl, that would look similar to our main character (the younger version of the protagonist). For this part to make sense, we were planning to make a transition through the eyes of the girl (therefore, we'd need to see the faces of both females). The issue with that is actually finding two similarly looking girls with a 10 year difference. After doing some research and asking searching for such a pair locally, we decided it would make more sense to modify our action list in such a way, that we don't need to see the face of the smaller girl. That's why today we made a decision of creating the flashback inside the girl's room right before she potentially leaves for school. As a transition we would make a following shot, that captures the girls from behind, which means that the audience doesn't necessarily need to see the face of the protagonist to understand the small girl is just the younger version of her. Furthermore, we won't necessarily need both sets of parents, but just the two moms (the real and the fake one). The real one will enter the room, stressed, in the flashback with the words "we have to go", which will then transition back to the real life, where the fake mom stands in front of the girl saying "honey, we have to go, we'll be late for school".
As a result, we kept the main idea/plot the same, but changed the kind of footage we will collect just in order to make sure our sequence is doable and has a potential of developing into high quality opening titles.
