My Final Cut :)

Final Cut is finished!

Today I finished my opening sequence and exported it ready to be shown next weekend to a small audience with the other A level media work.

Last week we got some feedback from our class on our opening sequences. Overall people seemed to like mine however a majority of the people felt that the black screen towards the end was too long.
So after a few tweaks I managed to cut it down to make it shorter, add some extra clips in and shuffled some shots around to make it fit in better. I added in a shot of some wood being chopped which fitted around the shot of the woodchopper. I also had to cut down the music and move the last shot so that the woodchopper chopped on the last beat of the music. This emphasised the ending much more than it did before.

Overall I am pleased with the outcome of my opening sequence. I think it is different to what other people have done and I'm pleased that all the hard work I put into it has payed off.

Finished!

Today i finished my opening sequence. The plan is to get some feedback from everyone to see what they think and if there are any improvements that I can make.
Personally I think that i can improve the title sequence as I feel that it is the weakest aspect of my opening sequence. A part from that I am really happy with how it has turned out.

Using Black and White

For my opening sequence I decided to use black and white. This makes it seem as if it is filmed in the 1940's and also helps to emphasise that the footage is from the past. There are two clips in the sequence as these are in the present day from the girl trying to find out what happened to her mother. The black and white effect makes it seem more artistic and more appropriate to the era.
However, films such as Changeling which is set in the 1920's is in full colour. I am yet undecided whether to keep mine in black and white or to have it into full colour. This is because I wanted to give my film a fairytale feeling to it and made the main character, Marie wear a red dress with red lipstick as the film is set in the woods and she encounters a woodchopper which is much similar to Little Red Riding Hood.
My plan is to do two different rough cuts, one in colour and one in black and white to get some feedback on which one looks better.

Soundtrack

After trawling through Youtube trying to find a piece of instrumental music appropriate for the opening sequence of my film I finally found a track called La Plage by Yann Tiersen.
This is just a piece of plain piano music which fits perfectly into the sequence of my film. As the piece develops it becomes more and more dramatic which fits in with how the opening sequence develops and I purposely edited the clips together so that the more dramatic scenes fit in with the more dramatic music. In addition this also adds a lot of emotion to the sequence and sets the mood and tone of my film.

This is a link to the soundtrack I am using. I posted a comment on the video asking for permission to use the music.

Finally managed to Film

Today I finally manged to film the final shots of my opening sequence. I shot the woodchopper scene and the scene where the baby is left alone in the woods. Im glad that I managed to get it all filmed as I hadn't been able to due to the weather and the snow.
All the filming went really well and I managed to get it all done in the matter of about half an hour. This means that I will be able to fill the gaps in my sequence and complete the editing for a rough cut to get some feedback on.

No filming today.... still snowy in the woods :(

Rough Cut Deadline

Today is the rough cut deadline. unfortunately, I planned to film the remaining scenes last weekend but it snowed so i was unable to as obviously the continuity would be ruined. However, by today I have managed to edit all the footage i have together including a soundtrack and a title sequence.

This is a printscreen of my opening sequence. This is the part where Marie reads the letter from her husband. As you can see there are titles of the actors also.










This is another shot of the letter from a different angle. I wanted to include different shots and angles so that the video was much more interesting to watch. In addition it allows you to see most of what is written on the letter when all the shots are combined.







I plan to film the remaining scenes during the half term and hopefully if the weather permits, i will be able to do this. These shots are the ones that include the woodchopper and where Marie leaves her baby. I also plan to include shots of the woodchopper perhaps watching Marie as she walks through the woods these will include shots of him watching her from behind trees or in the distance. Also, I plan to do a shot where the woodchopper is chopping wood in the distance perhaps on the shot where the baby is left. As this subtly introduces him into the film but so subtly that you may not be aware of him.

More filming...

Today I did some more filming. I Refilmed the letter scene because my original was awful. I used the letter that I got my nan to write for me because her writing is a lot more old fashioned than mine it therefore looked much more realistic for the time my film was set in.
I got my mum to hold the letter and filmed over her shoulder only getting her hands in. I then did some shots zooming into certain words and panning across the letter so that I can create some kind of montage/ overlapping effect of the letter like they do in some films.

Filming...

Today I did some more production work and I got quite a bit of filming done in about an hour. Today I filmed a majority of my opening scene. Mainly the parts with the woman Marie in. Gladly, my sister volunteered to be Marie so I went round at about 1.30 to ensure that after I had dressed her up it would still be light enough for me to film.
She is good to use in my film as she has the dark brown hair that I wanted and in addition she is readily available at pretty much any time that I want her to be which may not be the case if I use someone I don't know very well. Also, using my sister as the actress will make it easier for me to be able to tell her what to do whereas I may feel less comfortable having to tell someone I don't know very well to do something over and over again untill i get a good shot.
I firstly started off with the hair and make up. I tried my best to create some reverse victory rolls like in the tutorial that I found. I was actually quite difficult to do but after about half an hour of faffing around I managed to create something that resembled a 1940's hair style. I then proceeded to put on some make up which consisted of some black eyeliner, mascara, blusher and red lipstick. I then dressed my sister up in a red patterned knee length dress, a fur coat and some small black heels.
We firstly filmed the part where she reads the letter however I feel that this footage isn't very good as I rushed writing the letter which made it look awful. so I plan on re-doing this part and perhaps creating an overlay of what the letter says over the top of the footage of it. My main aim is to try and find someone with curly writing who will write it for me as it will look much better than my own handwriting.
We then went into the woods to start the filming. I started off with filming the part where she walks through with the baby in her hands. I tried to capture this from many different angles so that I could perhaps create a montage effect. This involved me having to climb up a tree in order to get a view looking down upon her. I wanted this view to look as if someone was watching her from a hidden place.
After that I basically did lots of different shots of her walking through the woods with and without the baby so that I could have some variety of shots to make the opening sequence a lot more interesting than just watching from one perspective. This also means that I will have to do short clips when I edit all the clips together which will hopefully create some suspense in the opening sequence.
I also filmed the part where you see her feet running away. My sister couldn't seem to run in heels in the woods so I decided to do that bit instead with her filming. I actually found that it was quite difficult and actually hurt my ankle a few times...
Overall, I am pleased with the amount of work i managed to get filmed today and I am very pleased with how it went. My sister was very cooperative thankfully which made the whole process a lot easier and quicker.
Now all that I have left to do is the part with the woodchoppper.

Filming :)

Today I did some more filming. I went into the woods and filmed some shots of the trees as establishing shots and a point of view shot of 'Marie' running. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to get the right high angled shot of the trees. I originally wanted birds to be flying about too but unfortunately there weren't any flying about today so nevermind. Fortunately it was quite sunny and I managed to get quite a bit done but I still seem to have a lot to do.

Finished Production Company Logo!

This is my completed production company logo. It is a little different to how I wanted it to be. Instead of the butterfly landing on the dot of the first 'I' I decided to make it land on the top of the 'A' as this was more central and looked better. I found it quite difficult to do but found a tutorial to help me. However there were some aspects of the tutorial that I couldn't get to work so I had a play around with things until it looked right. For example, with the angles of the wings the tutorial gave me made the butterfly seem as if it was spinning rather than flapping its wings. so, instead of making them meet all the way I reduced the angle which made it look as if it was actually flapping its wings. I originally wanted the colour scheme to be black and white with a black and white butterfly but I realised that if I did that the butterfly would merge in with the background and look rediculous so I changed my mind and went for a baby blue colour instead. This could perhaps represent the sky and freedom or maybe a blue mood which may hint at what the films are like. Overall, I am really happy with my production logo and I am quite pleased that I actually managed to get it to work!

Filming

Today I did number 2 of the storyboard. I filmed the postcards, pictures and letters that were on the table doing a panning shot with a zoom into a picture at the end. It was quite difficult to get the camera up high enough to get a birds-eye view of the photos even with the camera extended as high as it would go. So, I stood on a chair but made sure that the camera was level using the level bubble on the side. It took a few takes to get a good enough shot which I narrowed down to 2 different ones. The first shot pans more slowly across the table whereas the second goes much faster and zooms just at the end. This is so that if I need to fill a long gap in my clip, I will have a long enough shot to do that because it's always better to have too much footage than not enough.

Starting to Film!!

Even though I haven't found anyone to play the woman 'Marie' in my opening sequence, I thought that during the Christmas holidays I could film the parts that don't include the woman in them to get them out of the way whilst I have time and before my exams in January so, today I started to film the very first part of my opening sequence. After rearranging the furniture in the house to make sure nothing else was in shot, I managed to get 3 shots of the picture of the soldier zooming in and zooming out ensuring that I left enough time before and after the clip to use when I edit. Even though there was noise in the background, this doesn't matter as you can edit it out during the editing stage. Next, I will do the panning shot of all the old postcards, letters and pictures covering the table making sure that there isn't anything that shouldn't be in the shot in view.

My Production Company Logo

I thought of a logo and name that I would like to use as my production company logo. My idea is:

a Papillon Production film

On the dot of the first 'I' i want to have an animated butterfly that flies from off screen onto the screen and stops at the top of the 'I'.

I originally was going to use an image of a butterfly that I found on the Internet and cut the different sections out ( right wing, left wing and body) for the animation but i found it quite difficult to do this on after effects so decided to draw my own butterfly on there instead. In addition, the image i planned on using may have had copyright on it and i wouldn't have been able to use it whereas if i draw my own I won't have this problem.

I chose to use a butterfly as my logo and company name because it perhaps gives the impression that my company is a free less mainstream company that doesn't produce huge glamorous Hollywood type films. In addition i really like butterflies and think that they are really pretty and it may create a false sense of security compared to the film I currently plan on creating a 2 minute opening for.

An uploaded version of my complete animated production company logo will be uploaded asap.