Sunday 25 October 2009

Rough Cut

This is our rough cut of our opening sequence:



Because it is a rough cut is is not complete yet. We have to work on our soundtrack and titles.

Monday 19 October 2009

Favorite moment while filming



This is my favorite moment while filming our opening because is if framed so good. The two characters step into the frame almost at the same time.
Under the picture it says: Gang leader and main character walking pass each other in a tunnel.

Sunday 18 October 2009

Film that relates to our film opening

The film 'Boyz n the Hood' starts with the story of a young boy living with his mother having disciplinary problems. Therefore he moves to his father who shows him to become a man.

Some aspects of this film are fairly alike with our opening, for example, the gang life in the film.

In our film the main character will join a gang. The film Boyz n the Hood also deals with gangs a lot.
At the beginning of Boyz n the Hood the main characters walk along a street from school which is similar to our opening because our main character also is walking home from school.

Saturday 17 October 2009

Final Shootings

Yesterday we finished filming for our opening.
Because we filmed after college, I had to take the camera and the equipment home. Therefore I transfered all of the material to my computer and tried out a few editing possibilites and how it is going to look like.
Here are some screenshots of scences which we will use in the opening:




This picture shows the main character laying on the ground.






This picture shows the gang leader walking across the street.








This picture shows the characters passing each other.






This picture shows the expression of the main character to the gang leader.


We actualised every shot in our storyboard and I think we did a good job by doing that. The first edit I made of the opening at home looks pretty good, but we are going to edit the whole film opening on tuesday.

Friday 16 October 2009

Working on the Soundtrack and Filming

Today we are going to work on the soundtrack for our opening.
For the bits where the gang leader is appearing we are going to look for copyright free music that is like rap, hip-hop, or grime.

We are going to use GarageBand to create the soundtrack for the main character.


Today after school we will film the last bits of our opening. We are going to meet up with Lars the main character in the opening at the grafton centre in Cambridge. We are going to shoot every remaining scene in that area. The weather does not look as good as it did the other day we filmed but as long as it is not raining it does not effect us in any way.

Thursday 15 October 2009

Storyboard


The 1st frame shows the main character's point of view, looking into the sky and blinking.
The 2nd frame shows the main character (M. C.) laying on the ground blinking and getting up.
The 3rd frame shows the M. C. getting up from another point of view.
The 4th frame shows the M. C. walikng out of the school.
The 5th frame shows the M. C. walking along a street.
The 6th frame shows again, the M. C. walking along a street with cars on the street.

The 7th frame shows the M. C. walking to a traffic light.
The 8th frame shows the M. C. pressing the button of the traffic light.
The 9th frame shows the M. C. walking to some stairs.
The 10th frame shows the M. C. walking down some steps.
The 11th frame shows the M. C. from a helicopte view walking.
The 12th frame shows the M. C. walking into a tunnel.

The 13th frame shows the M. C. walking in the tunnel, seeing a gang.
The 14th frame shows the M. C. and the gang split screen looking at each other.
The 15th frame is a reverse shot showing the 15th frame from another point of view.
The 16th frame shows the M. C. walking to some steps to get to his flat.
The 17th frame the M. C. goes to his flat's door to open it.
The 18th frame the opens the door.

Moodboard


This is a moodboard I created for Beat the Bully. It shows various pictures which relate to our story.
The 1st picture shows a gang leaning against a fence.
The 2nd picture shows someone getting bullied.
The 3rd picture shows a tunnel (which we will have in our opening).
The 4th picture shows a fight between gangs.
The 5th picture shows a city at night.
The 6th picture shows gang.
The 7th picture shows someone who bullies.
the 8th picture shows a knive.
The 9th picture shows an empty street.
The 10th picture shows a gang with hoodies.

I think that through that moodboard the main picture of the opening comes across very well. It shows gangs, bullying and other images which relate to our opening.

Fontboard


This is a fontboard for Beat the Bully. I have chosen lots of different fonts which could appear on the opening as font for the titles.
I looked for graffiti fonts and fonts which represent urban life.

Tuesday 13 October 2009

Greenscreen activity

This is the greenscreen activity we did and I edited.
We wanted to create a look-a-like of the Juno opening.


I think that I could have make the effects better than they are now, but in my opinion, for the first time using the greenscreen effect it is not that bad

First Shootings of the Opening

Today we shot the first footage for our Beat the Bully opening sequence.

Our opening story starts with a 12 year old boy who got bullied and pushed to the ground. The audience only hears the sounds of it and sees a black screen to increase the tension, after that the main character sees the sky and blinks.
He gets up and starts walking home. On the way home he walks past a gang.

This character is our main focus in the opening.


Today we thought that we could introduce another character which is the gang leader.
He is also walking and is meeting up with his gang.

Because we want to show a difference between these two characters we shot the gang leader (Jahmal) handheld and we are going to shoot the main character (Lars) on a tripod only (steady shots).

We have done some various shot with Jahmal in which he walks, waits, and him crossing the road.
We basically got every shot we need for the gang leader apart from the bit where he and the main character pass each other.
This was a session which was very productive as well as fun.

Monday 12 October 2009

Tomorrow's session

In tomorrow's session we have to shoot a bit of our opening sequence. But because we do not have the actors available tomorrow we only  are going to shoot the first shot and some other shot without the actors. 
The actors in our opening cannot attend tomorrows shoot because they are in school. We would shoot the other scenes with the actors on a weekend.
Because we can't shoot many scenes tomorrow we are also going to work on the soundtrack.

Sunday 11 October 2009

The Company - titles timeline


This is the title timeline I made about the film opening 'The Company'. (sorry you have to click onto the picture to see its full size)

The opening is like the Juno opening animated although it looks like it is drawn and it is also in black and white.
At first you see two rabbits looking at a rocket launch that is happening in the background. At the same time the title 'TNT presents' is shown.
After that the shot is a helicopter-shot looking upon the two rabbits rushing to their holt, again with titles showing up (Starring aso.).
The camera showes the rabbit hole at 0:16 and then the hole becomes part of the main title (it formes the O in Company).
Then you see a missile hitting a city and the producers titles show at the same time. The atomic bomb smoke forms a mushroom and then the city fades and the smoke transfers into a real mushroom. After that it again transfers to another location, this time the mushroom is a picture in a book. While all of this is happening no titles are shown.
Tthe camera goes out of shopwindow and follows a person walking past.
Then the animation dissolves into a real black and white film.

The Company


This is the 9 frame grid of the film 'The Company'. (sorry you have to click onto the picture to see its full size)

Here is the link for the opening: http://www.artofthetitle2.com/media/tv/2007/the_company.mov

Saturday 10 October 2009

Animatic


This is the animatic Jahmal and I created on Friday.
It shows what the final opening scene will look like.
The first thing we did was creating the storyboard, shown in the post below.
After that we took photographs of each scene and transfered them into Final Cut. The next step was to make every scene to the right length as it would be in the real opening. After that we made cross dissolves between scenes and the movement of the camera. The last thing we did was putting titles and music on to it as well.
This task showed me what to expect from the final opening. It was good fun to create the storyboard as well as the animatic because it was an important step towards our project and I really enjoyed it.

Friday 9 October 2009

Producing the storyboard

Here are some pictures of Jahmal and me producing the storyboard for our opening sequence:
Jahmal was putting the storyboard together. He used the sketches I drew and cut out before hand.
This was really fun because I enjoy drawing storyboards and thinking about the way it is going to be shot aswell as thinking what the audience might expect from the whole film.

Tuesday 6 October 2009

9 frame grid

This is the first 9 frames grid I made with Jahmal:
Add Image
It is an first attempt to create stills of a opening sequence.

Then we did another one relating to our opening sequence pitch:

In the first picture it shown a boy getting bullied.
In the second picture it shows him running away.
In the third picture it shows his home.
In the fourth picture he sees a gang.
In the fifth picture he joined the gang and 'transformed' to a cool gangster.
In the sixth picture he is bulling the guys who bullied him first.
In the seventh picture he is getting involved with guns.
In the eighth picture he is getting arrested.
And finally in the ninth picture he gets his sentence.

We will not show every thing I listed above in the film opening. This is just the idea what the film is going to be like.

We made these nine frames in Photoshop. The first thing we did was looking through google images for good pictures to put into the grid. Then we copied and pasted these images onto a grid wich Steve transfered onto the Macs before hand.
After the pictures were in the right order we put titles onto them.

Jahmal's Pitch

Pitch 3- Cambridge gangland(regional film)

set in cambridge, a 12 year old boy who gets picked on at school, is about to change his life around, but in the wrong ways...he wants to join a gang. Blood and violence makes him even more interested in the gang world, and he even gets involved in some horrific attacks. Bullies prepare to be beaten!
This pitch is the one we are going to make an opening sequence of.
We think that it is the most doable sequence out of all of them. We are going to use my little brother as the 12 year old boy, and we are going to need props like: fake guns, knives, and gang clothing. What we need to do now at this stage, is to find more actors/actresses to be in the film opening sequence.
I think because of the guns and knives we are using, and because of the violence, we are need to film on private property.

Pitch 4 - animated feature

The crew of the spaceship 'BH23' are a partnership of bounty hunters, called "enforcer", who travel the solar system trying to apprehend as much bounties as they can.

Pitch 3 - independent movie

A family struggles - the father lost his job because of the credit crunch. He can't find any work and gets depressed. Many conflicts between his parents make Tom run away from home.

Pitch 2 - supernatural thriller

A women is pregnant. But before the baby gets born the devil appears in person. She has to make a choice, either the she survives or the child.

Brief 1 - fictional action film

A 25 year old male awakes not knowing who he is. He discovers his past by detecting signs laid out for him. The villain behind all this awaits him already.

Finished Production Logo

This is the final 'moving' video production logo that I am going to put in front of the opening sequence.

I made this production logo in Final Cut aswell as in Photoshop.
At first I created a new project and made the size the same as one frame in an PAL standard. Then I made several layers in Photoshop and named them so I was organised and knew which layer was which. After that I thoght of an title for my production company and named it after me and attached the words Film and Media Production below it. Then I looked for a nice font and colour and the I joint it all together.
In Final Cut I pasted all of the layers into the timeline and arrayed them in the order they are now in. After that I inserted some dissolves on to the layers and created an sound in GarageBand.
I think that the finished version could be improved by combining the whole, camera and Sven Mattes, together as the 'business card' which I made in the post below. (picture 2)

Thursday 1 October 2009

Video production logo
















This is the video production logo we created over the last sessions with Steve.
The first stage is that the camera projects SVEN MATTES film and media production into the screen (picture 1) after that it will combine (picture 2)
I will put this logo in front of the final opening we will create.