Group Discussion - 14/3/13

Today our school had an academic mentoring day which we spent in media finishing off editing our opening sequence. We spent most of the day finishing the opening sequence but towards the end of the day we started on our music for the opening.

Editing - 15/3/13

Today we spent the day doing our opening credits, we did these on Adobe After Effects, we managed to find a template to work from on the interent which gave us a basic start, which we then worked with and added things to make it our own and suitable for our opening sequence.

Re-Editing

Our group has finally finished editing our opening sequence for the second time. We managed to do it a bit quicker as we knew which bits we needed to edited or change. A set back to our editing was that we had to learn to use a different program 'Adobe Premier' but we managed to learn how to use it fairly quickly.

 

Here are some photos:

Research Into Similar Media Texts: Children Of Men

Children Of Men is a thriller film which is set in the future, 2027.

• The future is represented as being very dull as all of the colours are dark greys and black, the lighting is very dark. You can tell that it is set in London as you see the big red buses and the signs on the shops. It also represents the city as very polluted as the vehicles have thick grey smoke coming out of them. The city is very dirty with rubbish everywhere. Overall the city has been shown in a negative way.
• We firstly see the main protagonist, we understand this as he is the main focus of the whole opening scene. He is shown putting alcohol in his coffee so we are not sure if he is a is a hero or a villian. When the explosion goes off he is not shown to go and help anybody. His appearance is quite scruffy and dirty so the audience do not see him as a hero.
• The lighting is very natural and it gives a cold effect. It helps give a more realistic feel to the opening scene.
• The camera shots which have been used mainly being a high angle shot, then a low angle shot. Following this is a continuous shot following the main protagonist. The continuous shot allows the audience to view the setting of where it is set in one go instead of different shots. The shaky camera effect that has been included is making the sequence more realistic when the bomb goes off. Which also makes you think of someone running.
• The sound of the opening scene is the voice of a news reader's voice which is very serious. There is no music to start but music is gradually added, which is very touching music. This is done to match the mood of what is happening in the shot and to give the audience a feel of how people in the scene are feeling. As the camera moves out we start to hear the sound of the city, which is mostly cars and people talking.

Credits and Titles: True Blood

Secondly we looked at the opening of True Blood:

• The clip opens with a panning shot of a swamp, this creates a distinctive setting and sets the mood for the overall programme, which has a dark and mysterious theme, this is also commonly associated with a swamp. It then cuts to a glaring crocodile which makes you think the crocodile is watching you, maybe judging you, there is low lighting used to create a dark and cold atmosphere, which makes it scarier for the audience as they are watching this crocodile.
• We then see a sudden tracking shot of a church, which indicates the area is religious, but it then changes to a sexual shot of a womens body. This gives the audience an obvious contrast between good and evil.
• Lots of the cuts showing quite run down looking shots indicates the poorness of this town or village. The grass is shown as a very dull green colour which shows the lack of care shown to their environment.
• The main clip we see is the clip of the church, which sets the tone of the programme. From the view of the car the camera passes a church and on the notice board it states 'God Hates Fangs', this instantly tells viewers that this programme has something to do with vampires. Earlier we had seen clips of racism and this could relate to the way the human and the vampire race treat each other.
• After this we see the main title, it is covered by blood dripping which connotes danger and murder. But the title 'True' shows a sense of purity. The title also relates to the vampires, as their food is blood and they use it to survive

Credits and Titles: Misfits

In todays lesson, Me and Rianna looked through extra things we could put on our blog, we decided to do some work on analysing the credits and titles of a couple of programmes that had been on TV. We took down notes in class and planned to write it up at home, here is my work on the Credits and Titles of Two
shows.

Firstly we watched the title sequence for Misfits:

• The colours used are mainly black, white and grey. The grey may represent the concrete on the floor of an urban environment such as London. You also see flashes of orange which represents the outfits that the characters wear (which is the bright orange probation uniform). The orange can represent that they are different from other people with what they are wearing, they are 'misfits'.
• The background is like a storm which is typical London weather. It also relates to the programme as they all gain powers from a storm. The colours represent a dark atmosphere.
• It starts off with mid shots of all the characters, you are able to see the facial expressions on all of their  faces and you can see that they are all quite sad and not happy. They look like troubled characters who are all doing their community service for a reason.
• The first shot used is a tilt shot, going down, this shows we are following someone.
• Misfits uses their own title sequence.
• The writing is written like graffiti, the characters doing community service may have done this before but now they are doing their community service they will be more likely to be scrubbing it off. Which are opposites, like the colours black and white.
• The actors names come first and they are firstly shown as all jumbled up but then put together to create their names. This shows the characters also as 'misfits'. The titles also look like they have been scribbled like someone has written them.

Sound - Speed

The second opening we looked at was the film Speed. This is also a thriller film, and the music is based on creating the right atmosphere to the audience. The opening starts with the 20th Century Fox sequence, which is there to let the audience know and recognise the institution that was behind the film. Firstly the only sound we hear is a sound of an elevator, this is diegetic sound as the sound would have already been there. It also could of been non-diegetic if they had decided to add in the sound of the elevator. Secondly you hear an eerie sort of music that is quite orchestral, this creates an atmosphere for the audience and helps them to work out what sort of movie they are watching. You then hear a sound as the movie title 'Speed' exits the screen, this is parallel music as the visuals match the sound. The music seems to be getting quite fast but then going slower, this is confusion to the audience as they are not sure to whether it is ment to be rushed or not. It is also suspicious to the audience that the music keeps changing how fast it is going. There is no speech in the whole opening sequence and you only see one character who appears to be opening a door.

Sound Research - A Mothers Son

While we were waiting for the new mac computers to arrive Me and Rianna spent some time doing some more research in lessons. We firstly watched some clips and analysed the sound, here is the first one:

'A Mother's Son' is a thriller TV programme, based on 2 episodes. At the opening of the first episode we firstly hear a lot of nature sounds. This helps us to imagine whereabouts the programme is set, the main noise we can hear at first is the sound of seagulls, this could suggest that the programme is set by the beach. Next we hear a non-diegetic sound of an instrument like a violin, music which you would hear at places like funerals, or mourning a death. You are also able to hear the sounds of walking on stones on pebbles, the walking is quite fast which makes you think you that this person is trying to get away from something. The pebbles also indicate the audience to some sort of beach. The non-diegetic music is slowly getting faster paced and more frantic and this creates tension and suspense to viewers, who are wondering what has happened. You then hear a faint noise from this girl, which is sort of like a cry, this is diegetic and is helping to create a sense that something is wrong with her. The only speech throughout the whole clip is the girl saying 'I'm Sorry' which adds to her cries of pain. This speech is diegetic. Throughout the whole opening all the sound is helping create the atmosphere of this programme and helping you figure out what sort of programme it is that you are watching. This relates to our opening sequence as we are also doing a thriller genre, and it helps me to see how much the sound is needed to create the right atmosphere for viewers.