Evaluation

Evaluation!

For my project I chose to make an opening sequence of a film. We called our film ‘fixed on you’. We did our project in groups. My group consisted of myself, Grace, Lauren and Luke. We all shared out equally the responsibilities of the project so filming directing and editing were done by all equally! Overall we wanted to be able to relate to our opening sequence and also be 100% happy with our work and effort! The genera we choose to show this was Romantic Comedy we chose this because we felt that more people would relate to it and also be attracted to it.

We choose romantic comedy for a reason we had a think between us all and none of us really wanted to do a horror or anything like that we wanted to do something that was easy going and enjoyable! Also easy for the audience to understand but would also get them thinking! Our opening sequence has everything in it that a normal opening sequence would have in it, it introduces the characters and also the main settings and the way the characters come across to the public we use cinematography by changing the camera angles and shots to emphasise the difference between the two characters. To show the romantic comedy in this opening sequence we chose the fact that they were going on a blind date you can see that they are going on a blind date by the texts they are sending and the fact that he is called ‘Mystery Man’ this is as she doesn’t actually know the name of the character. The comedy side of the of the opening sequence is created by how the character Luke looks he looks like a geek and the character Gemma looks far from this and is also emphasised by the way they are both dressed. Luke also looks funny by the way he is dressed it’s all very over the top and there wont be many people that actually look like that. We also challenged the genre by both the characters walking past each other as this is unexpected it also shows they don’t know each other at all and not what a normal romantic comedies show as the characters are normally exactly the same and one of them already has a crush on the other but in this film they wont fall in love till the end of the film we create this by the two different shots of the characters then comes into one long shot showing both of them. We also used other types of media language to show the opposites between the characters we use mise en scene by showing the bedrooms and how different they are as Lukes is very organised and tidy and Gemmas is very messy and unorganised. Lukes bedroom also shows the geek look even more by his room being as tidy as it is. It also shows the more rebel side of Gemma by her room being so messy it gives her the cant be bothered aprocech to life like a rebel would have. Using our feedback sheets everybody said that our opening sequence was a romantic comedy so we feel like we did a very good portraying this, they also said they wanted to watch more of the film, so this makes me feel like we were 100% successful with our work!

Our opening sequence represents young people getting ready for a date by doing jump shots we show them both getting ready at the same time which keeps the audience remembering both the characters. Our two charecters are very different as the girl character is potrayed as a reble quirky, stylish character as her costume attire was riped shorts, purple socks over black tights, pumps, lepord top, patched shirt, black cardigan and a green mac, her makeup was very over empersised and her hair was made very scruffy and messy. The male character is a stereotypical geek. We portrayed this by him wearing a tweed suite, newly polised shoes, big glasses with tape holding them together, a big woolly hat and scarf. The way they are both dressed emphersises the difference between them and also shows based on aperance you wouldn’t put them together. This was the whole aim of our opening sequence to make them as oposite as posible so then there would be more of a shock as they got together later on in the clip.

We wanted our film to appeal to an audience aged 15 and above by the reaction we had on the questionaires we seemed to do this as everyone stated that the film would be aimed at young adults. The reasson for us aiming it at this audience was becasue we didnt think that the older generation would be to interested of teenage love and oposites where as teenages and young adults thrive off love and romance especialy when there is a catch to it. When we did research into what we were interested in going to watch at the cinema romantic comerdy came out on top so this means that bringing another film out which is of this genera would mean that it would be bringing in a good boxoffice and would have more chance of sucseading than another genra at this moment in time.

These images below have been cut from our opening sequence and they show the types of media language and also the type of feeling we are trying to protray.

At the beginging of the opening sequence we use an image og gemma (on the right in the image above) opening her wardrobe but we then use a jump shot to change to the exact same shot but in lukes wardrobe (shown on the left) we throught this was a cleaver way to show the two charecters in the same light doing the same thing and both concentrateing on what they are going to wear we also throught that it is a cleaver way to introduce both of the characters so that not one of them gets forgoton they both share the limelite. On most of out images we used natual lighting we chose this as we throught it would give a natual effect and also make the audience believe more easily that they were part of the film. Also througout the film we used non digetic music that went along and also told the story for us the charecters cant hear the music only the audience and the audience cant hear the charecters. the best way to describe how the song was used is basicly by the line 'there was a boy and girl who fell in love' so this tells you what is going to happen but also in the song there are plently of obsticals along the way.

These images are the only part in the opening sequence we chose to use side lighting the resason for us choosing this is because it distinctly showed what the charecter was doing without giveing to much away. The image bellow right shows the oposites between the charecters as you can see luke is a very neet person and very natural from both the above pictures you can see that gemma issnt very natural and very diffrent to the charecter luke.

We used this image (on the left) in the opening sequence to establish the diffrence between the charecters this shows how messy the charecter gemma was and ho she didnt really ahve a care in the world but also a very diffrent and weired dress scence. where as the other image (on the right) shows how neet and tidy the charecter luke is we showed this by useign a white room in comparason the gemmas room as it was all dark and made it look more messy.

The images above both show luke and gemma coming out of there homes we yet again chose jumpshots to flick from one image to another we also chose to shhot it on the lines so it kept the audience focosed on diffrent points and didnt look like the same shot.

The images above show two shots of both characters walking past eachother. The whole point of this shot was to show the audience that they lived so close to eachother didnt know eachother but yet they were about to meet and later on fall in love and it is totaly unexpected. Also with these images it shows the oposites of the characters more clearly as they are both in the same shot as you can see gemma is smokeing and looks reasonably scruufy and the character luke is very neatly dressed and wraped up.

This final image is the title image this image we chose to keep it plain and simple so that the audiene can clearly see the title of the film without being distracted. We chose the font so that it makes the clip look more hand done and not so perfect like on all the other parts not everything is neat and tidy.

Overall I am incredibly pleased with the outcome of the opening sequence! I think the way that the characters were portrayed very well as Luke as the geeky on and Gemma as the different more daring character! I think it also showed the opposites very well by using the cut editing from flipping from one clip to the other. I think if we had made the character Gemma more daring it would have been more distinct. Also it would have stood out to the audience more! We ended up takeing out alot more that we filmed the reasson for this was to make sure that we kept it short and sweet and also to the point. This project has made me realsie how much work actually goes in to makeing a film and how much time and effort it takes up. I am very happy with the overall outcome of the opening sequence and i really wanted to carry on and make the film.

Gemma x

Final Evaluation

Our project is an opening sequence to a film. The members of my group were Lauren the angel, Grace, Gemma and my self. My main contribution to the group was playing one of the main characters in the opening sequence, I had to dress up as a geek to fit stereotypically into my part, all the feedback that we received agreed that my costume and my character was achieved effectively “Stereotypical girly girl and geek”. The filming of my self getting changed into my costume was filmed in my bedroom, as I was the only boy in my group with a male looking room. When researching the background of the genre we choose for our opening sequence I helped gather information about Working Title films and gathered figures of three of the top romantic British comedies made by the company and how much money they made on them, i discovered the figures are huge. When filming the our preliminary task I also played one of the main characters in our made up job interview, after finishing our final opening sequence it is easy to see that we have dramatically improved our skills with a camera and methods of filming. I also researched the type of target audience we should be aiming for as well as researching the genre we have choose to discover how popular it was.

Qn 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The genre we choose to work with was a romantic comedy we choose this genre after researching and finding out it was a popular genre in the UK. Romantic comedies such as Four weddings and a Funeral made a worldwide total gross of $246,942,017. Also our group consisted of three girls and my self so we had to actors required to do the job. From the feedback we discovered that 100% of people who took the questionnaire could tell what the genre we choose was “romantic teen comedy”. We used such media language conventions as two opposite locations and the characters appearance to typify their stereotype.

We choose typical elements to make the opening sequence seem more believable and not blown out of proportion and by using stereotypes and exploiting a typical geek and girl the audience can understand what’s going on quickly. It was vital for us to do something new to the genre we choose so that it was different from other romantic comedies and so that it would stand out from the rest, by using a blind date plot we were able to create a different kind of romantic comedy for the audience. We believed our innovations would work well because by doing a stereotypical geek and a stereotypical girl the audience would be able to understand the flow of the sequence and that by using the storyline of a blind date we could exploit and try different shots well when filming the two getting changed and create interesting shots that fitted well together within the opening sequence. I think that our decision to choose a blind date for our opening sequence worked well for our audience because every one who watched it and completed our questionnaire said that they enjoyed it and found the shots we used fun and different “yes after watching the sequence I would definitely want to continue watching”.

Qn 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The two different characters we choose to represent in our opening sequence were a geek and a normal stereotypical young girl. Our costumes helped to establish our characters very effectively. The geek who was myself wore geeky glasses, a tweed jacket, pants, black shoes and had a come over to add to the image.

We also used the setting which was my room very effectively to establish my character, we did this by making the room appear tidy and organised and had books and a map of the world on the wall to add to the point of my character being very geeky and leading a simple neat life of dedication.

The stereotypical girl we choose to represent was also established well with costume and the setting. The room in which she got changed was a complete mess with clothes, shoes and equipment scattered around the room to emphasise the point that the geek was organised and the girl un organised. The costume Gemma wore was also very effective she wore typical girls going out clothes and her task of having to search for her outfit also added to her character.

I think the image we created of a geek was the sterptype being strange, socially outcast, clever, organised, dedicated but unlikely to be the kind of people going into a relationship. The image we created of a young girl was messy, un tidy, unorganised and more concerned with appearance than anything else in the world, so some positive images of both characters but also some negative ones. Our non digetic music also played parallel alongside with our opening sequence, the song we choose was called The Golden Silvers – Arrows Of Eros, the songs lyrics are about two people a boy and girl who meet and fall in love with such lyrics as “There was a girl who lived in London town”. Our use of cross cutting editing between the two opposites getting changed worked well and flowed well making the opening sequence interesting and helping to represent the kind of lifestyle our characters lived. An example of this is:

The shots used in the above stills are similar to one another as they are both preparing for their outing by looking in to the mirror and applying their accessories in the first two and in the second two shots they are both picking their outfits. We used different shots to establish place ant time for example:

The use of the two above long shots emphasises the two characters un awareness that they are the ones meeting for the blind date. We used other methods such as close ups.

By following the storyline of a blind date, the use of close ups on the two phones created enigmas about who the boy was sending the text to as well as establishing the genre of the opening sequence.

I think the stereotypes we used did adhere to what we commonly see in the media today but with the upset of two complete opposites who wouldn’t expect to see with one another going out on a blind date. We choose a geek and a girl to emphasise the point of out opening sequence of two opposite kinds of people falling in love and I think our audience responded to that well because they were able to identify our characters easily and thought that the way we represented them fitted into our plot well “comical outfits and stereotypical appearances.

Qn 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
One of the media institutions we researched was Working Title Films which is a British based firm producing similar romantic comedies as us. Such films as Four wedding and a funeral, Love Actually and Notting Hill are three romantic comedies produced by Working Title Films. I believe that a company such as Working Title Film would back our opening sequence for a number of reasons. Our opening sequence ‘Fixed On You’ is different to other romantic comedies because it follows the story line of two opposite people falling in love, the cross cutting between the two characters getting changed works well and makes the opening sequence flow well and keeps the audience interested in what’s happening. After conducting our questionnaire we discovered that 100% of the people who watched the opening sequence liked it, after being asked do you think this opening sequence needs to be improved? One of the participants put “no I really enjoyed it”, proving that it was an appealing opening sequence.

Qn 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience that we would like to target for our opening sequence would be 15-34 year olds, probably mainly aimed at females but would also appeal to males and people who are fans of comedies or romance or both. We decided to choose this target audience because after researching the BFI Handbook 2005 we discovered that 41.5% of cinemagoers are between the ages of 15 and 34, which is a large proportion of people who go to the cinemas. By aiming at this particular target audience our opening sequence would benefit financially because this is the most popular age for the cinema. After reading over the feedback we received a very positive feedback from our target audience “Yes after watching the sequence I would definitely want to continue watching”

Qn 5: How did you attract/ address your audience?

At first the audience establish that there is two completely different characters getting changed for something but they don’t know what. After discovering who the characters are, the boy being the geek and the girl being a typical girly girl, the upset of normality takes place when they discover they are both to be on a blind date with one another, this is established when the geek texts the girl. This shocks the audience because in normal life to opposite people who are so greatly different aren’t usually attracted to one another in modern society this attracts the audience because they want to know what happens next. Throughout the sequence both characters put on similar clothing in the same order this creates enigmas because the audience want to know where they are going. We created binary opposites by making our stereotypes extreme, for example the geek has a comb over and geeky glasses like of Harry Potter, creating conflict as the audience want to know why two complete opposites are being filmed in sequence of one another. Our opening sequence suggests to the audience that two different people can fall in love this works effectively because the audience wants to know what happens on the geek and girls blind date and incenses them to concentrate on the opening sequence and find out.

After completing our final opening sequence and comparing it with our preliminary task I discovered that we had progressed dramatically. In our preliminary task our shots didn’t flow well and the sequence it self looked jumpy and poor and had no consistence to it. Compared with our “Fixed On You” sequence, which flowed well, was interesting and completed all the jobs of an opening sequence. We learned that by keeping the camera recording at all times you can work with what you’ve got more efficiently and that by using a range of different shots and styles are opening sequence was more compelling and easier to get in to compared to the boring shots we used in our preliminary task. Teamwork was also vital to the successfulness of our sequence and by using the ideas of everyone in our group we came out with the best possible final product we could produce.

Technology helped us out hugely with the creation of our opening sequence, obviously we used a camera to shoot our footage and edited our what we had done on the computer using an I Mac. The computer allowed us to include our music into the sequence and made life a lot easier for us to edit.

I am extremely pleased with the outcome of our opening sequence, teamwork prevailed and our final product was a lot better than I thought it would have been. After showing it to a number of different audiences all of them enjoyed it and wanted to watch on but were unfortunately unable to do so, I don’t think there was anything we could have improved on and out use of costume and location helped to establish our characters very well making our project a complete success.

Media Evaluation of Fixed On You

For my media coursework I worked as part of a group to create an opening sequence of a film called ‘Fixed On You’. I worked with Luke Shufflebottom, Gemma Bland and Grace Rewaj; together I think that we communicated and cooperated well and were able to portray our original ideas as we first planned. My particular contributions were filming the opening sequence and drawing the story boards. We all had different thoughts and ideas of what we wanted to include so I tried to incorporate these in the story board designs and piece together which ideas would work best. Our initial idea was contrasting a male and female in some way, we finally decided that by stereotyping these characters into some form of binary opposition, such as male geek and popular female, that the audience would be able to recognise what point we are trying to get across.

The genre for our opening sequence is British romantic comedy. We have used the typical elements of using a male and female- an obvious choice for romance- so we decided to make a twist. We realised for some watchers the genre may be confusing as at first the sequence doesn’t connote ideas to do with love this is why we included the text message between the two characters to make the audience think these two are romantically linked. This is a vital point in the opening sequence and alerts the audience about what could be about to happen. We challenge their ideas once we get to the end of the sequence as the two completely walk past each other in the street, not even noticing each other’s existence. The long shot establishes location and emphasises that the two characters are completely un aware of each other.

This creates enigmas in the audiences mind of who these people are and what they are doing, therefore, making them want to carry on watching the film. This also challenges the requirements of the rom-com genre, a typical storyline is not what we wanted to portray, we wanted something unique and different, something that would make you want to carry on watching. In our questionnaire we asked ‘What genre do you think that opening sequence was and how could you tell?’ people replied ‘Teen romantic comedy by using stereotypical representations of teens in this modern society’ which shows that we portrayed genre in the best possible way.

The social groups we have represented would be the young male and female groups. In this modern day, stereotypically there are various different social groups people are associated with, such as Chavs, Goths, Fakes and many more. Usually boys are associated with mess and unhygienic habits, in our opening sequence we wanted to portray our female character as this and our male character more female like, such as taking care of his appearance and keeping himself tidy. This idea of switching roles makes our film slightly unusual a bit different from the rest, a technique we used to try and keep the audience interested. We have tried to portray two completely opposite characters that be known to the audience will eventually fall in love. The watchers first thoughts would be noticing how Gemma is extremely untidy, from shots of her bedroom floor, her messy hair and her wild dress sense. (seen below)

Luke on the other hand is a geeky neat-freak which we have shown this through his costume mostly, for example his shirt and tie and his cellotaped glasses.

I think how our characters act and the situations they are put in offers an alternative to the typical stereotypes of girls and boys, it challenges the boundaries for normal representations for these sexes, showing the audience another point of view.

We have used various different shots to show each character. When trying to focus on on ething we experimented with camera angles, levels and shots. Below are a few examples of screen shots we included to portray our characters.

This is a close-up of Luke typing a text to Gemma, this particular shot creates enigmas in the audiences mind of who he is texting before the text is recieved (seen below).

This is a lower angle shot of Gemma buttoning her jeans, with this we then used fast continuous shots between her and Luke and they both did up their pants. This looked really effective one put together and also added to the link between the characters.

Because our sequence follows the genre of a British romantic comedy I think the best media institution that could distribute our product would be Working Title films. They have produced many famous British films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually, most of these being the most popular British (romantic comedy) films up to now. Because the company are so well known for making great films people would be inclined to come and see ours after following in the footsteps of many other well-known films.
Our target gender would mainly be females, as this is typical of romantic comedy films, however we would also welcome a secondary target audience of males to watch the opening sequence to relate to the boy in it. Research is shown that in the BFI Handbook 2005 that the largest percent of regular cinemagoers are ages between 15 and 34, I believe targeting our audience at this age would be more financially right as it would bring in most money. In our questionnaire we got feedback on the audience it would attract and this was ‘teens and possibly various other ages’. I would probably give our film the certificate of 15 because aiming the film at this age group could potentially create the most interest with the public. Another factor I would expect could be that a large percentage of our viewers to be female teens due to the characters ages and also the similar social situations young people can relate to in this film such as dating and stereotypes.
We have used lots of technologies to research this product such as youtube.com, blogger.com and imdb.com along with various other websites. I think these have helped our group to remain focused on our final piece and by researching other similar films has given us the ability to expand our ideas and note down what we think would eventually turn out best. iMovie and iTunes were the software we used to create our finished piece, although sometimes difficult to use once we learnt the techniques it was fairly easy to edit and piece it together giving us an effective and realistic outcome.

In our preliminary task our shots didn’t flow well and I thought that personally it was a poor example of directing and filming a sequence. “Fixed On You” looked dramatically different than our first sequence, I think that as a team we have all learnt new techniques that have improved the quality of our work. By keeping the camera recording at all times we learnt that whilst editing you can create a much smoother flowing sequence that looks less jumpy and is more efficient. By using a range of different shots and styles our opening sequence was more convincing and looked more professional. Teamwork was also essential for being successful by using the ideas of everyone in our group we came out with the best possible final product we could produce.

In conclusion to what I have stated I believe that we have created a very realistic and appealing opening sequence. I have found from the questionnaire that 100% of the audience that watched the opening sequence really enjoyed it, 'Good average pace, fantastic music... makes you feel good' and 'would deffinately want to watch the rest of the film '. I am really happy with the outcome and believe the feedback from the audience we got showed us that a lot of people, and more importantly mixed genders would enjoy and want to watch the rest of this film.

Lauren

evaluation of final film.

Evaluation

Our media film was called ‘Fixed On You’, and was a romantic comedy opening sequence. I worked with Luke, Gemma, and Lauren and to create our piece, and although I was not part in the acting side of our piece, I took part in the filming and directing side of our opening sequence. We also worked together to come up with the idea for our piece and to write down what we wanted to do and achieve through our work.
Our genre is a romantic comedy, based on a blind date scenario. Our product fulfils the requirements of an opening sequence as we introduce the main characters of the film and introduce a setting to the film. We introduce these elements of our film by using cinematography and different shots that show the character and their surroundings. Also, we used many conventions of a typical romantic comedy. We showed that by going on a blind date it is bringing in the element of romance, and by having lukes character the way he was portrayed, it brought humour to the piece which is the comedy side of our piece. We challenged the genre by showing our two characters pass each other in a long shot at the end of our sequence. The audience would not expect this as the general build up to the climax of them meeting each other would suggest that this would not happen, and the typical genre would have the two characters talking and interacting. In contrast to this, we did feature a typical convention of a romantic comedy by making our two main characters opposites, which means that you would presume they would not get along, and especially not fall in love, which is what would happen later on in the film. We used different types of media language to establish the opposite characters, such as mise en scene when showing the setting of the characters bedrooms. This contrast in the characters engages the audience in a more exciting way, raising an enigma where they want to know how things will turn out between them, setting up different audience expectations. Our choice of doing this proved successful towards our audience in our feedback that we received. 100% of our feedback correctly stated that our opening sequence was a romantic comedy, and said that we portrayed it well and made them want to see more of the film, which shows that we were successful in our work.
Our piece represents young people, getting ready to go out on a date. In our case, we had a unique, quirky character for our female role, and we presented our male role as a stereotypical ‘geek’ character. Our male character wore big glasses, a suit, and at the end, a hat and a scarf to go on his blind date with our female character, who is the complete opposite, wearing up-to-date clothes and is portrayed as a stylish character. This represents opposites between the two characters by using mise on scene. Our representations of the two different types of people were dominant representations as they were how the audience would expect those stereotypes to look and act. For example, the way Luke side combs his hair and puts on the glasses, in contrast to Gemma putting on her makeup and back combing her hair. Also how Gemma’s room is un-tidy and she comes across as laid back and relaxed, whereas Luke’s room is well organised and tidy. This is typical behaviour for the opposite characters.
Film companies such as ‘Working Title Films’ would produce a film like our piece, as they have put money into films such as this before. They have made films such as ‘Love Actually’, ‘Notting Hill’ and ‘Four Wedding And A Funeral’, all of which are British romantic comedies. This is why I feel this company would back our product within the industry, as I feel they this company feel as though there is room within the film industry for this style of production. Romantic comedies are proven to be popular with a wide audience; with films such as ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’, which is a romantic comedy, making a lifetime gross of $241,438,208.
Our film could appeal to a wide variety of audiences, however we decided that our main target audience would be teenagers of around 15 and young adults to around mid-thirties, as they tend to be the people mainly interested in this type of production. Also females would be targeted more in this film as it is females who would tend to watch this genre, however, it can also appeal to males too. Our audience could have a lot of public interest, as when we researched into people who regularly attended cinemas, this is the group that came out at the highest percentage, which would prove good financially for our production. Also, our audiences feedback proved that we was right in believing that this group would enjoy this type of product as they all said that they enjoyed it.
In our opening sequence we gave basic information on our characters everyday characteristics and with the use of showing the phones and the text messages, is set the story off to show the idea of a ‘blind date’. Also, when we finish our opening sequence with the two characters walking past each other, it shows that they do not know that they are going on the blind date with each other, which raises the enigma of what will happen between them as the audience can clearly see the binary opposites within the characters. A sense of time is created by the jump shots between the two characters getting ready to meet, and then when they ultimately leave there houses and walk past each other. The ideologies within our piece is that normally, these two type of characters would not be put together to go on a date in a normal situation, and therefore you feel as though it is going to be a disaster when they finally realise that it these two people going on the date with each other. However, this is how we used our characters to attract the audience, as because this ideology is there, they will want to know if it turns out this way or not.
The overall feeling of our piece is very up beat, and the music we used goes with this. Our music is non-diegetic as it is not what the characters can hear, it is just used over the top of what they are doing and you cannot hear the characters. The connotation used with the music however, helps to begin to tell the story in a different way. Some of the chorus to this song says: ‘And she(he) knew from the finish to the start, that it was bound to fall apart’. This is a good connotation to put across to the audience, as this is what we feel we want the audience to expect. We don’t want the audience to feel as though these to people will get together and be happy, and if they do think this then it would spoil the end to the film. The mise-en-scene- used is effective in the way we represent the characters in their clothing and appearance, and in the way that there rooms are represented when they are getting ready. The shots that we used were linked together by using jump shots between the two characters whilst they are getting ready to go out and leave to meet each other. A particularly effective part of the opening sequence in which we did this was when we put the camera in the characters drawers. When Gemma opens her drawer we see a low angle shot of her pulling out some makeup, and then when she shuts it, we see Luke open his drawer and pull out a tie. Also there is a part where we link up the shots when they are putting on their pants, swapping from each character until Luke has zipped up his trousers. Our editing pace is quite fast in these parts, as we had to get the timing right for it to work as them getting ready. If we did this slowly, it would not have worked as effectively as we wanted it to look as though the two characters, although opposite, where doing similar things but in their own way, at the exact same time, without knowing. This is the first initial clue that they could get along later on.
I feel as though throughout our work I have learnt a lot about the technologies used within the making of a film. We have used you tube to research different clips that are relevant to our film. Also we have Imovie to edit our film and transport our filming from the camcorders to the computer. I would not have known how to do this if it was not for our film. The way in which you edit the film was new to me as well so again; our film has helped to teach me new things about making a film. We had to edit and trim our shots to make it look correct and run smoothly.
Since our preliminary task, I feel that we have learnt a lot in our group about how to make a film and about how you edit and make it look more professional. When looking back at our preliminary task, the shots seem very jumpy and therefore do not work as well as the shots in our final piece as our shots are now much more smoother and look better. Also, we use better shots in our film than the ones in the preliminary, such as low angle and jump shots from one character to the other. Also, our characters are introduced without the use of dialogue in our film, which I feel is better than how characters are introduced in our preliminary task as the upbeat music for example makes it less boring and more enjoyable to watch and get into the feel of the film.Overall, I feel as though our film worked really well, and I feel like we put across our characters really well, making the comedy in the piece stand out too, which I think was an important aspect. I am very pleased with our piece and I just feel as though if we was to do anything different, we could have improved on our team work skills to come up with some more challenging camera angles and different lighting for different types of shots to create a different mood, and also to just make the shots that bit more interesting. But, overall I do feel as though we have made a very successful opening sequence and have set up the story well for the rest of the film.

Grace.

Ananlysis of opening sequence (love actually)

I have chosen to analise the opening sequence to love actaully, as it is the same genre as our opening sequence to out film and I can look at the features that appear within the opening sequence to set the scene for a romantic comedy.

First of all, the sequence starts with long and medium shots of different people hugging and kissing. The sound is non-diegetic as we cannot hear the sound that is matching the images on the screen as we hear a voice over. The voice over and images both show or introduce the aspect of love. The spoken aspect of the sequence talks about different types of love and how love is always there within society, while the images that go with this show us love in a visual way as we see different types of relationships showing their love for each other.

When the title of the fi;lm is shown, the word 'love' itself is shown in red. This is because red is associated with love, so this connotation suggests love and romance within the film.

The comedy aspect is introduced within the song that is sang as it is up-beat and they have to start again several times as he keeps getting it wrong. First we see a close up of him singing along to a well known song about love, however, it is changed to be sang about Christmas.This establishes the time and setting of the film as it is set within the christmas period. Also, swearing is used to create quite a relaxed and normal atmosphere.

here is a link to watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_saCHD4Wzqk
Grace

Analysis of opening sequence (Its a Boy Girl Thing)

I am only evaluating the first two minuets of this clip as the clip is a lot longer than an opening sequence.

The sequence starts off with titles this is a regular thing on most opening sequences. Then it goes to a white and black contrast and shows characters been drawn to show how the main characters have grown up. This is a very clever way and very different as they don't usually do it like this for a movie. Also shows the opposites of how the two characters don't get along. By using digetic music and non digetic speaking to show the music that can be heard and showing the difference that the girl is reading and the boy is listening to really loud music. This shows opposites yet again between the two characters. By using jump shots it is also a clever way to switch from one shot to another to show the closeness of the characters and also introducing them to the movie. Using mes on sen it also shows the differences between the two characters as you can see the girls room as clean and tidy and siting down very elegantly as the boy was jumping around the room with a messy room it shows the opposites of the characters.

Gemma
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Analysis of opening sequence (need to embed video

The film begins with an extreme long shot of New York city and then the title of the film comes up in big red flashing letters, the title being red connotes that the film could be about love or even danger. This then cuts to a medium shot of a couple walking out of what looks like a hotel towards the camera, as they walk towards the camera it backs off with them as the audience there and is handheld to add to the realism and the non digetic music of mike suggests that the mood is a happy one. The mise en scene in this shot is a woman wearing a grey dress and a man also in a dull looking suit, which would put them in the stereotype of working class and of white collar. The shot seems to be of them walking through the middle of New York obviously going to their jobs and everyone else in the also seems to be wearing dull business like suits. This jumps to a point of view shot of a man opening the door to what appears to be a flat, the man himself is not presented well and is also wearing plain clothing and we can see in the background that his flat is a mess hinting that he isn’t as well organised or well off as the first two characters. This then proceeds to a point of view shot of a girl standing in the mans doorway, she’s wearing a scouts outfit with a short skirt giving the impression that she is a tart, there is then a long shot of the woman jumping on to the man so we know that they are in a relationship of some sort. From watching the opening clip we have established two different kinds of people the woman who was of white collar and looks like she is upper class and the man who looked that he may be of blue collar judging on his home, by seeing the lives of these two characters we know that they are different and obviously the storyline is going to be about them. I think this clip is a good example of what we are trying to achieve because it creates two opposite stereotypes and the audience know that they are some how going to be linked in the film.

Luke