Animation for my opening 2 minutes of Lost Girl:

For the animation storyboard of my film I chose to take photographs of the scenes of the clips I will be recording and left the photo on screen for how long the clip will be. By doing this it enabled me to receive a strong understanding/ feeling for what my film opening will look like as well as planning how long it will be on for. From making this storyboard I realised that my idea may be slightly repetitive, which is going to be a problem, also if I feel that it is going to be slightly repetitive I also believe that it will reduce the timing of my film opening and make it shorter than what I need it to be. To resolve this I will be thinking about filming and maybe even including the moving images as I feel that they came out really well.
Overall I feel that by taking photos and putting them together in a sequence rather than drawing pictures allowed me to get a much better as well as who is viewing my blog of what the opening will look like. I am pleased with the opening titles, they work well and are not all the same transition so therefore mixes it up a bit but follow the same colour theme/ font type therefore remaining a strong brand image that I would create if I was to look at the advertising side to my film. The music also fits in well with what is going on, it builds tension and keeps the audience wanting to know what may happen next resulting in them carrying on watching the film which is what I was aiming for.

Looking at opening titles for my film opening of Lost Girl:

For my opening titles I feel that in terms of keeping a strong brand image that it was successful as I used the same colours/ same font throughout. This makes it easier for my audience to recognise my film if I was to broadcast and advertise in other cases such as film posters or a trailer. Editing on the Mac I was able to know what I am and am not going to use. In the future, so for example when I make my animatic storyboard I need to research further into the order that the titles go in and link it to the production company that I am choosing for my film.

Preliminary Task:

For my preliminary task I practised filing different shot type techniques as well as practising editing them on the Macs. Because I was using a new editing programme and filming a conversation it was new and I found it hard to adapt. After this task I was a lot more familiar and felt confident with using imovie to edit with.

Location Research:

For my location I have chosen to pick an everyday setting which a young girl would be likely to walk through on her way home for example.
Because I'm choosing to film when it is dark to fit the setting of my film I needed to consider if the video even came out when I record and that the lighting isn't too poor reducing the quality. Because of this I looked at areas that was well lit with street lights and found that it still wasn't bright enough. So, I went to a road that is next to a football training pitch which had the flood lights to light up the pitch. Because the road is on the other side of the pitch it will allow me to use the lights without me getting the football pitch in the recording, so the audience will be unaware of this.
So in the picture to the right it shows the flood lights that I will be using, the audience will be able to still see that it is dark/ late evening time because the sky is still dark grey and over all the atmosphere is still gloomy and dull.

In this picture to the left is an example of the lighting without the flood lights in the shot. I think the lighting looks natural, it looks like the light is coming from the lamp posts/ street lights which is good and the effect I wanted to achieve.
The only problem I will have with this is that the majority of all my film opening will have to be on this one street, because of this I will need to think about ways I can change it up to avoid repeating myself as well as making it boring and predictable for the audience, especially if I am trying to create enigma towards the end of the opening which is stereo typically shown in horror films.

Diary post: 25/11/2014

Today I started to plan my storyboard animatic, my idea is to take photographs of each different shot types showing briefly what is going to be in this clip. As iv planned I am looking to take around 60-75 different shot types which is what I planned in my shot lists to see if it is realistic or not. I will also add my titles over the top with the sound in the background and any dialogue I that I am planning to use.

Film 2 minute opening analysis of Hush:

Hush analysis. The certificate for the film is a 15, a British horror/ thriller genre, 91 minutes long and was released in 2008. The basic plot is that a young couple on a motorway journey are drawn into a game of cat and mouse with a truck driver following a near accident. The film’s director and writer was Mark Tonderai, starring actors such as William Ash, Christine Bottomley and Andreas Wisniewski. The genre is introduced into the film because of the range of wide shots introducing the setting, the setting tend to be dark and mysterious. What also helped introduce the setting was the weather; it was raining, dark and gloomy which follows the conventions of the film genre I am looking to re-create. Because of this reason I thought of different ideas that I could do to re-create different scenes that are similar to hush. I want my film opening to be as clear as to what type of film it is as soon as the audience begin to watch it, being a stereotypical horror/ action film. The film is introduced straight into action of the couple in the car on a journey on the motor way, however the female is challenging stereotype as she argues back and just as much as the male. From first impressions I can tell that the woman is slightly confident and not afraid to argue back, however she does uphold stereotype when she seems to become upset after the argument the couple share. Her appearance is casual comfortable clothing which suggests that this is a normal car journey for them that they are used to and by doing this makes it easy for the target audience to relate with the couple making it more appealing to them. The males appearance is slightly similar to the female, which again suggests the same type of things, also it is dark and the roads seem empty which makes me believe that it is a very late drive. So, for that reason is understandable / again relatable for the target audience to relate to their situation. There are a mixture of wide/ mid shots and close ups during the opening sequence of hush. I believe that these mixtures of shot types worked well for different reasons. Firstly, the wide shots helped introduce a range of different locations such as the inside of the car, where they were driving (the motor way), where they stopped off (petrol station) and also the other vehicles involved in the film opening. Introducing the setting into a film is important for a audience to be able to understand and be able to familiarise themselves with what is going to happen in the film. Mixtures of wide and mid shots were used to help introduce the actors in the film and what type of people they are. So, for example how they dress, how they sit- so what they’re posture is like, how they present themselves to each other, how they react during the opening sequence to each other and also to get slightly more detail than a wide shot using a mid shot gives you a little bit more detail. The close ups helped the audience to be able to understand the actors emotions and how they felt about the situation, so for example when they were arguing, I found it easier to tell who was more in control in the relationship and also I was able to tell that she felt more upset after looking closely at facial expressions or close ups of her hands for example fidgeting.

An example of a typical audience member for my film:

A typical person for my audience would be a teenager 15 and over until late 20's. The reason I started at 15 is because that is the rating of my film so it was impossible to go any lower. Being a teenager or being in their early twenties the audience tend to have a lot of disposable income which is good for the cinema business, seeing as it is a choice to go, not something you have to have which is why it is key to target this age audience.

Also from research I have found that late teens to early mid twenties are the most popular audiences in cinemas over all, followed by families. As the family target audience are not who I'm aiming my film at its almost impossible to consider them for my film. 

The gender of a typical person for my film is either male or female, as it isn't aimed at one or the other, during research I found that action/ thriller may be stereotypically thought to be aimed at males, but from secondary research figures it is only slightly more so that doesn't matter.