Monday 14 March 2016

Soundtrack

For the soundtrack for our title sequence, we decided to go on to the un-copyrighted website 'audio'. We managed to find the soundtrack that we wanted from this website and use it as the soundtrack for out title sequence. Personally, I like this soundtrack because it is a soundtrack that builds, grows and develops as our title sequence progresses. The soundtrack at the beginning of title sequence begins very dramatically but slowly, but as the sequence progresses further, it becomes more intense and dramatic. Whilst editing, we purposely ensured that when each cast members names appeared on screen, it fitted well everytime the song peaked at particular points.

Font Research

For the titles and names that appears during the title sequence, Tyrell and I investigated and looked into different fonts within 'Dafont'. We finally came across a font in particular in which we again felt fitted the theme of our title sequence, with this font being the 'Dark Underground' font. We chose this font as we felt it appeared to look very gritty yet bold and again, eye-catching.
For our font choices for out title sequence, Tyrell has done a bit of investigating into which fonts in particular best suits the dystopian theme of our genre for the titles. After spending multiple and countless times searching through the website 'Dafont.com', I came across a font in particular that I felt really stood out and fitted very well for the font on our government's map. I used the font style of 'Orion' to achieve this as I felt as though it was bold and eye-catching, which is essentially what I felt was needed.
On Thursday 18th February 2016, Tyrell, Jacob and I decided to meet to shoot the scenes for our Rebels and Scavengers for our title sequence. Unfortunately, due to miscommunication, Jacob wasn't able to come and film with us on the day. So, Tyrell and I brought the tri-pod and the two cameras with us. We decided to use the location of Fanny on the Hill park in Welling for both of our scenes. Luckily, we managed to get 3 actors to act the parts. In the park near the woods, we managed to build and create a mini-set of survival things such as: shelters made of twigs, an amateur clothing line and an stack of twigs for a fire. We then shot this and took multiple angles and camera shots to achieve the vision we wanted for this Scavengers scene.

For the Rebels scene, we went to a back road near the park in Welling. Down this road, we saw a wall covered in graffiti, with the road looking quite desolate. We came supplied with 4 fake guns for our actors to use for the Rebels scene, along with scarfs and bandanas to create an atmosphere of mystery and, to make them look the part for this particular scene. We also experimented with different camera angles and different camera shots to help achieve the visions we had set.


The Shard

On Tuesday 16th February, Tyrell, Jacob and I traveled into London in order to capture the two establishing shots that we needed: The Shard and a Church. We took a tri-pod and two cameras. At the Shard, we recorded using both the cameras on the tri-pod and, the camera seperately to give a hand-held effect. We panned left and right to try and get the full effect of the Shard and, we titled the cameras going from top to bottom and from bottom to top. As we traveled deeper into London, we also decided it was necessary to record the outside of a church, again using the tri-pod and camera together and then the camera seperately. These two establishing scenes that we shot were for our government scene       and for out evangelist scene in our title sequence. 
 
This is documented feedback from fellow students in our class. I took the initiative to make a power point presentation with all the feedback sheets that were filled in during the screening of our first rough draft of the title sequence. 


For our title sequence, we have decided to create a map consisting of the different names of our cults and groups. It features a futuristic outtake of a city and includes highlighted areas of where the different cults are staying. We created the map using Photoshop and we managed to find the font of 'Orion' for the typography used on our map.

This is our audience profile for our film 'Genesis - The Uprising" 


Storyboards

For our initial ideas we had to storyboard what our idea was to get a visual idea of what we first thought of to set our creation in stone. We storyboarded our ideas by drawing out each major scene and the types of camera shots and angles we'd be using. Although this isn't necessarily the final copy/version of the way our title sequence looks, it is a rough idea as to how we want the finished version of our title sequence to look like. 









In order to keep track of filming dates and plans Tyrell, Jacob and I planned when we would meet on arranged dates.This was also to keep track of what equipment was needed for each day and who will be there.

Sunday 13 March 2016

Research into similar title sequences

When looking into other movies that are similar to the groups title sequence idea and genre, their title sequences usually involved a particular style of typography and, the style of the title sequence being either computer graphics based or, real life acting and gritty. For our title sequence, we have researched 2 other title sequences within the dystopian genre; The Matrix and Children of Men. The Matrix's title sequence is completely CGI based whereas the Children of Men's title sequence is real life acting based. So, for our title sequence, we are looking to essentially combine the two ideas of graphics based (the map) and real life acting. These techniques have both been shown to be useful and effective for them two movies so, we feel it is appropriate to incorporate these ideas in to our title sequence.

Shooting locations

Our initial location is at The Shard in London, this is our establishing shot and it's a shot where we pan from top to bottom and then pan from Left to right to set the scene. The great thing about using the shard is that we had a massively populated work place, to simulate workers and people who work for the government in our sequence. The drama room is a go to place for the illuminati and also the evangelicalists as the darkness provided great eeriness for the illuminati but the lights in the drama room also provided lights that acted as "the bright white light" being projected from the big guy upstairs, to give it a spiritual feel and atmosphere. Our school library or "Ibrary" was the main setting for our government scene, it provided a long table and a big projector which was perfect for displaying the map and the table set the scene really well as it most defiantly looked like a confrence meeting. Last but not least was our location "Fanny on the hill park" which is a park near our school which has a wooded area, which Tyrell and I saw fit to be our location for the scavengers. This is where we made a stick hut and camp Fire to help create the setting of our scavengers. Just round the corner from the wooded area was a concrete road with graffiti along the walls , so I took this as an opportunity to get some montage shots , where I tracked along the walls and got shots of broken fences to create the setting of chaos.

What's involved with our title sequence

Our title sequence involves shots of a high tech map, created by the government. This map shows where in the dystopian city these different cults and communities actually live in. The map is shown within a conference room which consists of all of the other government members, almost as if a meeting as to how the government can take out the cults. As the narration goes on, we will be shown the different cults through 10-15 second clips. The casts, production companies and, the title of the movie will be displayed at the end of our sequence.
For our title sequence, we have decided to go for the theme of a Dystopian-action themed genre. The reasoning behind this is due to our budget (which is set at $156million). With this given budget, this allows our group to go for the route of a more action themed movie. The narrative for our groups title sequence consists of the idea of a government owned society (set in a dystopian future) that is looking to be overthrown by different and smaller cults/communities. These cults consists of: The Illuminati Scavengers Rebels The Government The Evangelists
Tyrell, Jacob and I have begun working on editing our title sequence for Media studies.We have been staying behind multiple days after school to edit the shots we've recorded for our title sequence over the past week using Final Cut Pro on the Apple iMac. We have done multiple draft versions of our title sequence, ensuring that we can edit and alter what we already have so that it fits our idea and direction for the genre, we want to ensure that we get the best shots and By filming multiple shots and different angles we have so much more to work with. In terms of altering certain things for our idea, we found we had to re-shoot a scene. For our Illuminati sequence, we originally discovered that the file hadn't saved and loaded properly onto Final Cut, meaning that we unfortunately lost the footage. But, on Thursday 3rd March, we decided to take the initiative and re-shoot our Illuminati sequence again, using the same drama room as before where We experimented around with the lighting equipments provided in order to get our desired effect. Hopefully this time round with this experience of our last shoot we can get better lighting. Although k was happy with how it tinted out, once edited it was way too dark. So this was a chance to re-make the gold. On top of this, we decided to shoot the scene (again on Thursday 3rd March) for the Evangelists and the Illuminati scene. We again used the drama department and played around with the different varieties of lighting equipments that were provided. We used symbolic religious imagery in terms of Mise-En-Scene as the setting was brightly lit, almost as if this scene was spiritual and illuminating. We also used a T-pose to crudely imitate Jesus on a cross. We still have to shoot one more scene which shows the government leader entering into the building and meeting his secretary who directs him to his meeting and then, we should have the majority of the title sequence finished (along with any more re-shoots that may need to be considered).
Today was the day Tyrell , Jacob and I decided to go to the drama room and start to shoot our illuminati scene. We knew the drama room would be perfect as it's a dark room and there are lights that can be controlled via a control panel... Genius. So with some adjustments to light levels , making it dark but still light enough to see Jacob emerge out of the darkness to add an eeriness to te scene. This was purely an experiment at first , to see what light looks good amd what didn't work.

As cinematographer, I was in charge of filming again , so I tried to experiment with using a crane to get high angle shots of Jacob standing in the middle of a make shift "Devils trap" but the footage was terrible and unusable. However, I'm now educated on what works and what doesn't. As a group we decided that it was best to just have the camera on a tripod and have Jacob emerge out of the darkness. We achieved this affect by adjusting the focus on Jacob as he walked forward and also having the lights behind the camera on but the ones behind him
Off to have the emergence effect. Overall I was happy with the footage we obtained today.
Tyrell, Jacob and I managed to get the help of some eager sixth form students to start filming the essential parts of our title sequence, the scene that includes the government conference. I was in charge of cinematography today , so I really wanted to make sure this scene was perfect and symmetrical because I felt that this would give it a professional feel to it and would add to the seriousness of this scene for our sequence. I mainly excuted shots like mid shots and establishing shots but I also included some tracking as well as match on action - which was executed via final cut editing. I also never broke the 180 degree rule when changing angles and shots. 

We managed to a few vital scenes done , however we need a high angle shot of two sixth form students who play lead roles in this sequence to enter the building so this sequence makes sense, as of right now it's a little jumpy. We gathered the students round the table and projected our map onto the board and made out that this was a meeting about the other groups. This was clear , but it was unclear that this was the government so we are trying new ways to make this clear for the audience to see. 

Rebel scene re-shoot

Today Tyrell , Jacob and I managed to have the hell of a few other sixth former students to help re-shoot our rebels scene in our title sequence as we weren't happy using the same cast for the rebels and the scavengers. We also was unhappy with mise-en-Scene and cinematography, so this was a needed reshoot to make our title sequence better. The current state of our title sequence made it unclear who the rebels were , so we added a high angle shot and are going to add a CCTV footage effect and label the security camera with "rebels" to make it clear for the audience. With mise-en-scene , I drew some "tattoos" on our cast including Jacob and I to make the part seem more convincing. We had "the rebels" tattooed onto our forearms and had some close up shots to help establish to the audience that we were in fact the rebels. We really wanted to make it clear as it was unclear before.

We took this opportunity to experiment further with more complicated and interesting cinematography, for example:
Focus pulls
High angle shots
Panning
Found footage / hand held
And so on , although in our scavenger scenes as well as our other scenes, we have used similar shots but this was the perfect time to perfect these cinematography shots.