Digital Storyboard

Reflection

The task set was to produce a film opening with titles for the duration of no more than two minutes.

An opening title sequence has the purpose of enticing their target audience, they do this by focusing on their needs. It also establishes the location it is set in and gives an opportunity for the genre of the film to be introduced. The opening title sequence acquaints the audience with the people behind the camera, for example the director, editor, costume designer and the rest of the film production team. Throughout the film opening the main character is also usually introduced, this is called the protagonist or antagonist.

Throughout my opening title sequence my location is established and this is along with the main characters. The typical conventions of a film opening are to introduce either the protagonist, which is the hero/heroine and the antagonist who is his or her opposition. The credits of the production team are used in a chronological order based on importance. The director is the last to appear, meaning they are most important, these credits appear clearly and so that they are clearly legible. The music and body language of both the characters, showing clearly mysterious actions, for example when the girl walks past the bin, with the next shot showing the envelope gone, urges the audience to want to question what is in it, what relevance it has etc. The close up’s towards when she is about to walk past the bin followed by an extreme close up on her hand when she has walked past emphasises the importance and increases the attention on to the envelope.

In my opening film title sequence the protagonist is the girl who finds the envelope and the antagonist is the other female character who left it on the floor. I have represented a particular social group within my media product through both characters. Having both females attracts my target audience but also allows all ages to find some sort of connection with the particular scenes therefore widening the social groups it could reach. The demographic of my opening title sequence is teenagers to young adults who are supported in a positive light for the opening film title sequence.

The production company I have decided to use is Mandate Pictures, I chose this because they have also been the production company of films such as Whip It! and Juno. This production company was founded by Joseph Drake as an independent film company in 2005 although it was formed in 2003, helping make many films since they first began which have helped also to finance and award-winning films. Also the films this particular production company tend to support have similar and the same genre to my own film. I also decided to use Pathe Pictures International as my distributor as they have a huge influence within the media industry and therefore can help play a huge part in distributing my film well.

I chose a target audience of 12 and above, my film requires a certain level of understanding, this is because there is no diegetic sounds so it may need more thinking, the mise en scene also reflects this as the people shown are teenagers. According to my primary research in which I gathered through questionnaires, 7 out of 10 would rather watch a Drama based film rather than a Comedy. Also my research shows that 80% of people thought my film was of a Drama genre with the further 20% choosing Action. Furthermore, 2 people who were given questionnaires both under the age of 12 said even though they could not because of the age rating, they would like to watch the film if they could.

Through this task I have learnt to use various programmes including a blog, which was used to track and show evidence of my planning. I also created a digital storyboard using a camera to take still images, of my hand drawn storyboard, I then uploaded them to the Mac computer in which I added titles by using final cut express to create a moving storyboard of what my final film should look like. By using final cut express I also discovered that I could fade the titles in and out over certain images and make my title’s bigger or smaller, this was useful because I was then able to use it on my final piece. Although I have had previous experience with using the film camera, throughout this task set I was able to gain a wider more advanced knowledge of how it works. I was able to film specific scenes whilst using my storyboard to know where the film titles would be when I came to edit. I then was able to upload all my filming to final cut express when I had completed filming in which I was able to edit, using specifically the razor tool to remove unwanted clips and through this I was also able to take out the unwanted diegetic sound and replace it with the non-diegetic music which I had researched and found. I used a copyright website to find the track I specifically wanted and then transferred it to iTunes in which I then moved it to final cut express and added it to my film and made sure it fitted in with the specific timing.

From the preliminary task of a person opening the door, going from one room to another and having a conversation which was a very simplistic task, I definitely feel I have improved as I have been put in specific situations which have helped me to progress. I can now use equipment such as the camera, tripod, editing software confidently and am much more familiar with final cut express. The continuity between shots in my final piece is definitely more consistent than in my preliminary task. I have also been able to identify how specific conventions of a film such as lighting, music etc can effect a film and how they can be used to the advantage to help portray the genre of a film.