American Pie and the breakfast club title sequence

The American Pie helped us with the foundation and themes of our title sequence. The sequence illustrates the high school years through the use of lined paper and doodles which is something we plan to inspire our title sequence by.Our plan is to create a visual title sequence where by the cast and crew are introduced and the narrative is illustrated through the use of graphics and visuals.The light hearted music also gives a youthful feel to the sequence. The breakfast club title sequence sets out the stereotypes teens hold within high school in America. I think the idea of representing each social group such as 'the nerd' 'the princess' and 'the jock' is a really good idea as it introduces you to the characters and ther personalities before the film has started. The use of bold red typography throughout American Pies sequences connotes American High School.This font type is also used in films such as high school musical. From both the American Pie and Breakfast club title sequences we have came to conclusion we want to base our sequence around these, with the use of bold, vibrant colours to represent the youthful times of High School.Also we feel that showing the stereotypes of the social groups within a high school is a great idea for a title sequence as it introduces each character and their stereotypical label.This will help us to stick to conventional aspects of High School comedy/dramas with the high school yearbook

Evaluation part 7: Looking back at your preliminary task,what do you feel you have learnt from it to the full product?

My role within the title sequence was the director and at first i was quite apprehensive of taking on this role as i am not to most authorative or outgoing character, however throughout the process of making the title sequence throughout all the scenes i directed i feel like my confidence improved and i become more assertive and actually ended up enjoying the role.I also learnt a lot about technology as i mentioned earlier, how to navigate around final cut pro and how to use the DSLR properly including focusing it properly and altering the lighting.I have also learnt a lot about working in a group and how to deal within certain things when working with more than one person such as taking everyones ideas in to consideration. The two feedback sessions we had really helped with the process and helped us to learn a lot about other peoples views and preferences which enabled us to improve our title sequence as best we could in order for it to be more appealing.

Evaluation part 4:Who is the target audience of your media product?

Evaluation part 6: What have you learnt about tehcnologies in the process of constructing this product?

Throughout the process of creating our title sequence a lot of different technologies were used to achieve the best possible results.This included both hardware equipment and software such as final cut pro and photoshop.In terms of cinematography we used cannon DSLR to shoot the whole of our title sequence scenes.The steadycam was used when shooting footage from above each character due to the fact that we needed these shots to be as steady as possible with no shakiness in order for our book to be liable to our audience.When the camera followed the characters walking we were using both a tripod and dolly as well as tracking equipment. The use of the internet also played a huge part in the making of our title sequence. It enabled us to find our memorable,catchy copywright free sound track and introduced us to dafont which offers over a thousand unique fonts.Even though editing wasn't my allocated role i still got to use final cut pro to help with editing and before this i was useless at navigating myself around it however now i feel as if i woud be able to use this with some level of confidence in future projects.Photoshop is something i have used for a couple of years now and become quite confident and capable of using. However throughout the process of our title sequence and the preparation and research i gained more experience using this software meaning my skills have improved. My role within the group was the director, so typically i would be less hands on with equipment however due to us helping eachother out i got to experience using a lot of technologies and also directed my other team members on what to do with them to create a good effect and end product.

Evaluation part 5: how did you attract/address your audience?

Our target audience for our title sequence was Teenage girls as we have researched films of the same genre such as: clueless, mean girls, American pie and high school musical and they all have a similar target audience to ours .The memorable soundtrack and the use of new and current actors and actress' really appeal to our target audience and we as a group agreed as all of us are teenage girls and all the other teenage girls within our friendship groups and in our class that this would appeal to us .Stereotypically the most common genre for teenage girls to be attracted to when watching trailers or looking at film posters are comedy and drama therefore the use of a high school drama is a perfect way to attract the audience we want.Micro-features proved to be exremley important in the process of trying to attract our audience, these include of the cinematography, sound, editing and mise-en-Scene. We had the advantage of gaining the opinions of other teenagers as we are in an environment where we are surrounded by them, this made it easier in terms of research to find out what would really appeal to them and how we could attract them. Showing the class our sequence and gaining feedback really helped the process although the class is not all teenage girls, it is a class full of teenagers and what they thought we needed to add in order for them to want to watch our film became our main priority. One of the main aspects that would attract an audience is the music used when recieving our feedback most the class said they liked our music choice and once asking the class afterwards, all of them seemed to remember the beat from our sequence. Throughout our feedback we was also told how our mise-en-scene had really fitted well with our setting and audience. 
For a stereotypical teenage girl fashion and overall appearance is very important, therefore making our Elite girls wear a lot of makeup and dressing them in cute,fashionable outfits was very important to us as our aim was to make the target audience idolise these characters and be able to identify with them.This would also help in creating a franchise as girls would develop their own preferences to these girls and want to look just like them, so introducing merchandise would encourage them to do this.This knowledge was gained from researching other films such as clueless and meangirls. Including conventionally good looking and physically fit boys would also entice the hormonal and boy mad teenage girl of this generation and this is why we chose our cast members to enforce this.

Evaluation Part 3: What kind of institution would distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation part 1:In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

 

For our Title sequence we used STINC to convey our micro-features: Cinematography, Sound, Editing and Mise-en-scene.We also used this with our Macro-features: Representation, Genre, Narrative and audience. 

S = Settings. Choosing the appropriate location to set the scene within your film is one of the main priorities a film maker should have. The setting should be conventional of the chosen film genre genre in order for your film to conform to the genre ideals and ultimatley address the target audience.Choosing the Settings for our title sequence was quite an obvious task as it was crucial that all footage was based in a school which we had to our advantage as we were working within one.However we still had to decide on which locations within the school building would reflect the identities of each social group and their stereotypes.This proved to be quite difficult for the 'Elite' for example as no where within a school is particularly luxurious or a girls paradise however we decided that a bench would be the perfect place for the girls to gossip and socialise as they would not have to share it with any other students that does not meet their standards.Re-searching into other films and TV series that had represented characters with the same characteristics helped us with the process of choosing settings.We looked at the film Meangirls and the TV series 'Gossip girl' for inspiration, we debated whether to place the girls in the canteen on a table as they spend most their time in mean girls, or on a bench like gossip girl, however after thinking about it we come to the conclusion that they would sit on the bench as their was not enough of them to fill up a canteen table which wouldve efffected the shot and also our group of popular girls were already heavily inspired by the gossip girl characters.Thinking of a setting for both 'The Jocks' and 'The Geeks' was more simple ,undoubtedly the perfect setting for the Jocks is the sports hall,and luckily for us our school hall has basketball hoops and markings on the floor so it was perfect for reflecting the characteristics on our basketball playing 'Jocks'.For the Geek We set our scene in the science corridor in school as geeks in other high school films we have researched are usually found in the science lab revising chemistry,biology or physics.The classroom that we used for the geek also looked the most American out of all the other classrooms and departments in our school. 'The Freak' scenes setting was difficult to decipher.  however me Brittany and Jazmine sat down and spoke about the most isolated setting within a school, we decided that the schools toilet was the perfect place as an individual cubical could not be any more isolated and remote compared to the hustle and bustle of other areas of the school such as the corridoors and the canteen. When finding settings we had to consider whhich areas would reflect each social groups characteristics best and also which parts of our British school looked most like an American High school.

T = Themes. Evidently our title sequence has a recurring theme of America and High school, me and my group heavily had relied on the setting and Mise-en-scene to help communicate the theme of an American high school.However the more underlying theme within our title sequence that is slightly more sinister is the theme of discrimination and prejudice. The fact that these social groups are still so prominant within the American High School community is an issue that needs to be uncovered.We decided that in our narrative the most popular girl within the 'Elite' group Brittany, would flourish a relationship with the hopeless 'geek', this would challenge the conventions of a high school drama where usually the popular girl would get with the Jock and hopefully change the views of our audience among the prejudices against certain social groups and what is socially acceptable.

I = Iconography. The 'High school drama/comedy'genre is heavily dependent on iconography to illustrate the narrative therefore focusing on key iconography was important in the process of production.The use of different social groups being represented which were ; 'The Geek', 'The freak', 'The Elite' and 'The Jocks'was one of our main iconography features as these are broadly known stereotyped groups that American schools are believed to have and this is supported in other films that we have researches such as American Pie, Meangirls,Clueless,High school musical,21 Jump street and the Breakfast club. The iconic high school event that has now spread all over the world but was derived from America is the end of year prom. We included this in our narrative idea , however unfortunately it did not feature in our Title Sequence due to time restraints. The foundation of our title sequence was based on the use of the Yearbook which is a main iconography feature in high school.This was our main prop for our title sequence which we depended on to convey our narrative and titles.Throughout our title sequence there are shots that include the front of our book that includes the title of our film, this worked really well as throughout the title sequence the audience were constantly reminded of the title of the film subconsciously.

N = Narrative. Within our title sequence we focus on the introduction of the characters,social groups and the relationships that arise between them.However we chose not to focus on the narrative of our actual film due to the fact that we didn't want there to be any confusion of our title sequence being a trailer.  Furthermore the use of our iconography and settings it becomes very clear to the audience the narrative style that is foreshadowing.The narrative of our entire film that we had pitched at the beginning of the process was a very conventional of the high school drama genre as it included the main issues that this style of film should include such as relationship problems, gossiping/rumors ,partying and the struggle of school life in general. 

C = Characters. The characters within our title sequence were very obvious and typical of the genre.The use of different social groups and the relationships between these social groups is usually what forms the foundation of a high school dramas narrative.As i have mentioned throughout, our social groups that we represented were the 'Jocks' the popular girls/ 'Elite' the 'Freak'and 'The Geek'and we did this in a very cliche way in order to conform to the conventions of our genre.However we did challenge conventions as unlike most high school dramas where the geek is normally outcasted from the rest of the groups and only plays a small role ,the Geek plays a main role within the film as he is closelyt linked as the film progresses with the main elite girl Brittany. 

S = Style. Our title sequence has a very conventional style in terms of addressing the genre's ideals. As mentioned earlier the use of social group representations shaped the narrative of our title sequence.We had used a very similar style to films such as Mean girls, Clueless and The breakfast club.The actual style in terms of visuals of our title sequence was the idea of using a book to illustrate the narratve and introduce the cast and crew members. I think this worked really well in terms of style as not only was it aesthetically interesting but also it conformed to the genre conventions and helped our narrative and character backgrounds become clear before the film has even begun.

Directing: The Freaks yearbook photo and video

For the Freaks I directed her to push all her hair towards her face and to have a tired and uninterested expression upon her face. Then I asked her to walk in to the frame and throw up a rock n roll sign with her hand. This reflects not only her personality but her music taste and style.I feel as if we did a good job of presenting her as unordinary not just with my directing but also the mise-en-scene of the year book photo and video.

Directing: The Elites yearbook photos and videos

The 'Elite' girls yearbook photos and videos needed to reflect their personalities as being slightly superficial, confident and self obsessed. As i mentioned in my post about the Elite,I directed Brittany to play with her hair then look in to the camera with a neutral facial expression, both Brittany and Jacob finish their videos with a blank facial expression this was deliberate as they are both the main characters within their social group. I directed Ella to play with her ponytail and smile at the camera this reflects her ditsy personality and portrays her as the bimbo of the group which is relevant as she is blonde and this is a stereotype that blondes carry. Ellie blows a kiss in to the camera and smiles this suggests that her character is flirtly and promiscuous which is what I wanted to get across when directing her. None of the actions of each of the girls are suggestive that they are well educated or good people instead they have been represented as superficial, boy orientated(due to them taking pride in their appearances with a full face of makeup and Ellies actions within the video) and unapproachable. This is a very typical representation of Popular girls within high school dramas. Furthermore I think it is clear from the year book videos and photographs that these are your stereotypical popular clique of girls that you would expect to find in a high school drama film. My directing for this particular group was influenced by the films: 'Meangirls' 2004 and 'Clueless'1995.

Directing: Jocks yearbook photos and videos

Our initial idea was to illustrate our narrative and titles visually through a year book that includes photos in the style of school year book photographs. We then had the idea to add in videos that demonstrate each characters role within our film. In order to accomplish this I had to direct each actor to act in a way that reflected their characters personality and role within the high school whether that be a Jock, a Geek, a Popular girl or a Freak. This was my favourite part to direct of the title sequence as it was interesting to see the characters that we had imagined and create come to life.

For the Jock's yearbook photos and video's I needed them to act as confident as possible even to the point where it could be percieved as cockiness. Jacob, the main Jock, being the most confident of them all.We filmed Jacob first and we decided it was only right that he used a basketball as a prop in his yearbook video as this was his role within our film, an avid sportsman particularly interested in playing basket ball. I directed him to spin the ball on his finger as he walked in to the frame and then to stop it and abruptly catch it in his hands whilst staring emotionless in to the camera. This worked really well as it was suggestive that Jacob was a show off when it comes to his sportsman skills and was uninterested in all over aspects of school which was portrayed through his emotionless expression at the end of the video. Jacob was the only one out of the three Jocks to wear a basket ball Jersey the other two boys wore just plain white tshirts and tracksuit bottoms, this was due to the fact that we wanted it to be obvious to the audience that Jacob was the man Jock and would have the most significant role in our film.Tommy and Oliver also needed to be percieved as overly confident and so i directed them to act as so.I Asked Tommy to brush his fingers through his hair whilst looking in to the camera which would suggest to the audience that he is looking at his reflection in the camera and fixing his hair before he has his year book photograph taken. This makes him come across as vain as he is taking pride in his appearance. Oliver simarly came across in this way as i directed him to stroke his facial hair and smile and point at the camera, this suggests to the audience that he is a 'cheeky chappy' and like Tommy, quite fond of himself and his appearance. The overall aim was to make the Jocks come across as confident , vain and show off's and I feel like we was successful in doing this.



The Geeks yearbook video was a very steretypical viewpoint of a geeks character traits and personality.     

Analysis of our final cut

Our title sequence has come along way since our first screening and feedback session. We learnt that having blank spaces in the book was confusing so we added stills to make the sequence flow more seamlessly. We made improvements to the font as we had added an animation that made it unlegible, this had to be immediatley eradicated as the whole point of a title sequence is to introduce the cast and crew members whilst also giving a preview of the narrative to come. There were also cinematography issues to do with the steadiness of the camera, the lighting and the focus which we tried to improve as best we could. Overall i am happy with our end result and i feel that our hard work has paid off however if time was not an issue there would have been some things that we could have improved further in terms of miss-en-scene for example the lighting when Brittany passed the book to Frankie (the geek) was very dim and it is quite hard to see the full miss-en-scene of this shot such as the setting and the costumes of the characters. However we done the best we could in the time that we had.

Final cut


This is the Final cut of our title sequence with all the improvements from our feedback made that we possibly could within our time restraint. We hope you like it.

Evaluation part 2 : How does your media product present particular social groups?

As we chose high school drama as the genre of our title sequence, there were already set social groups that are conventional of the genre that all hold their own stereotypes. The groups we chose to represent were the popular girls which we called ‘the Elite’, the ‘Jocks’ , the ‘Geeks’ and the ‘Freak’ . Within these social groups there were other minority social groups for example: ethnic in the 'Jocks' group. The Main Jock is from an African background and has been represented as athletic as he is a sportsman, this is a very stereotypical representation of people from other ethnic backgrounds and is very commonly found in American high school dramas.

The 'Elite':

This is our version of a popular girls clique and this social group is particularly stereotyped as bitchy bimbo's who are spoilt by their parents. They are also commonly conveyed as bullies who pick on people who are lower in the social hierachy at school. We chose to stick with the 'Bitchy bimbo' stereotype and conveyed this with our year book videos as Brittany(queen B) sarcastic smiles then pulls a nuetral expression which is broadly known as a 'bitch face', ellie blows a kiss to the camera which is suggestive that she is the flirtatious character of the three and finally Ella plays with her ponytail and smiles innocently at the camera which hints at the fact that she is ditsy or the 'bimbo' of the group. These actions portraying each characters personality are supported by the girls physical appearance. Ella is blonde so therefore is represented as being the 'dumb blonde' which is definitley a broadly known stereotype of blondes. Brittany has dark haired aand pretty and is the tallest making her come across as the most dominating out of the three girls and this is definitley supported with her personality traits. She is the ring leader of the group and is very confident in the way she carries herself. She also comes across as unpleasant due to her permanant neutral facial expression. Her actions in her year book video to which i directed her express this personality type and i think it is clear that she is the main girl from the video despite this being made obvious by the layout of the Elite page and her having her own seperate page from her side kicks.

The 'Geek' and The 'Freak':

These two social groups are represented within our Title sequence as the 'Outcasts'.These social groups are isolated in the school society due to their unusual character traits that define their identities.Unlike the two popular social groups both The Geek and The Freak have their own page within the yearbook, this reflects the isolation these social groups experience in their everyday school life due to them not having friends to share the page with. Unlike the Freak, the Geek is not a hated character within our film and this is highlighted with the 'Headboy' badge that features on his title page. The fact that people would've had to vote for him to gain this title shows he had achieved some respect in the high school community.On the other hand the Freaks page was completely blank,no other information on her character or her achievements were stated on her title page which emphasises the irrelevance of her character within the school.Although in this narrative the freak is alienated, she is part of a bigger social group stereotype that is spread amongst schools in America and this representation of this specific character is commonly illustrated in High school drama films. 


The 'Jocks':


The Jocks are the conventionally attractive sportsman in our film and sequence and the most popular group of boys within the high school social hierarchy due to the attention they gain from the girls and most importantly the 'Elite'. The Jocks are closely associated with the 'Elite' girls and it could be percieved that they are the male version of the 'elite'. Both social groups abuse their popularity to hold authority other the more outcasted groups such as the 'Freak' or the 'Geek' and almost intimidate them.Like the 'Elite' ,the 'Jocks' are represented as arrogant and superficial due to them only dating girls who are part of a high social status just like themselves. We chose to conform to the stereotype of an arrogant athlete due to us wanting to fulfil all conventions of our genre which typically has very cliche representations of different social groups.We decided that to achieve this representation of the 'Jocks' the three boys should walk into their yearbook photos acting particularly smug and confident.Jacob (The main jock) was directed by me to walk in to the frame showing off his sportsman skills by spinning the basketball on his finger whilst making direct eye contact with the camera and catching the ball in his hand for his end pose.Oliver ,one of the Jocks side kicks,clicks his fingers and points directy at the camera with a cheeky,smug expression on his face this conveys him as cocky and full of himself which is a stereotype usually held by jock characters in this film genre.Tommy, the last Jock,is identified as a vain character due to his actions within his yearbook video as he brushes his hands through his hair whilst looking at his reflection in the camera which suggests that he prioritises his appearance and is aware of the way he is percieved by other people,especially girls.Once again this is a very stereotypical representation as the Jock in the latest high school dramas is a reflection of how boys are getting more and more vain in this generation. 

The 'Popular Girls/elite' scene

Every American high school drama has to have its popular girls and this has become a very leading role in this film genre. You just have to look at films such as Mean girls and 'Clueless' to notice this.Our title sequence has it's own clique of poplar girls called 'The Elite'. Conventionally there is a ring leader in our 'Elite' as Regina George is in Mean Girls and Cher is in Clueless. Ours is Queen B played by Emma Roberts (but Brittany in our title sequence) and her Side kicks are Ellie Whelan and Ella Bradford.In the Girls scene we filmed Brittany taking the book from the jock then walking along the Bench area (using a tracker)as if it were a catwalk and sits down and opens the book. She looks at the sound title page, followed by her own page (The Elite page) and finally the Cinematography title page before shuttuing the book and passing it on to the geek. Me Jazmine and Brittany picked a particulrly sunny day to film in and therefore we was lucky to have good lighting which meant the picture was clear and no alterations to the lighting needed to be made. Initially we filmed Brittany walking over to Ella ( her side kick) and them opening the book together however due to us having to make corrections after our feedback session we had to reshoot and Ella was not available to film on that day so we had to compromise and just use Brittany however it worked out well in the end. For the girls Yearbook photos we did a photoshoot with the three girls.I was present to direct the girls on what actions to do in front of the camera to reflect their characters. We went through quite a lot of actions such as hair flicks, eye rolls and blowing kisses but in the end decided that Ellie would blow a kiss to the camera then smile, Ella would play with her pony tail then smile at the camera & Brittany would play with her hair sarcastically smile then pull a neutral 'Bitch face' to finish. This worked reallyu well and was very effective in conveying each of the girls individual personalities and characteristics instead of them just being clones of each other. 


Order of Credits

Creating the book

Me Brittany and Jazmine have been working together to create our year book which is our main prop within the title sequence. We focused a lot of time on the design of this book and how we could illustrate the narrative and make it flow within and using the book. This took up a lot of our time both in our february half term and in school but it was worth it as it has become the base of our sequence and I think has been successful in creating a visual and aesthetically pleasing title sequence rather than a acted out title sequence.

Typography

Within our title sequence we used two main fonts, one being 3D stickers that we had bought and manually stuck on the book to create the titles and one that had been added in the process of editing.We found the font in Hobby Craft and immediatley thought it would suit our title sequence perfectly as it connotes high school and particularly old school America. However after using 6 packets of these stickers we realised that it was inconvienient to keep having to go and buy more and therefore we found a very similar font on dafont called 'be true to your school' which we used for the titles of each character.

Logo



This is the school logo that we created for our made up high school that would feature in our title sequence. We chose the colours blue and red as they connote America(due to it being the colours of their flag) which is where our title sequence is set and they are also primary colours and schools often only use primary colours for their uniforms and logos.This is the logo we used on the front of our year book along with a photograph of a high school with welling school edited on to it.

Reshooting

Me Brittany and Jazmine chose to reshoot the Jock scene and the Geek scene( the geek scene being in the science lab and the jock scene being in the sports hall). We chose to do this as when watching these scenes on the macs they seemed to be shaky which made them come across as unfocused but also we needed to reshoot as we had added the stills of each year book photo physically in to our book after our feedback session and therefore the filming needed to be altered to fit in with this.When refilming it was crucial for us to make sure the camera was steady so we used the steady cam and i filmed it as we learnt that i had the steadiest hand out of the three of us. To support our steady filming,Brittany used the stabilisation tool on final cut to ensure that these scenes were as clear and as stable as possible.Reshooting made a huge improvement to our sequence and made it look a lot more professional.

Audience profile


The 'Geek' scene

We casted a male for the geek scene as me wanted to make sure there was no overlapping between the geek and the freak as they are completely different character roles. We set our scene in the science corridor in school as geeks in other high school films we have researched are usually found in the science lab revising chemistry,biology or physics. His costume reflected his character, he wore a chequered shirt, smart trousers that grazed his ankle and glasses with tape (which is a very cliche prop of a geek).We filmed him walking down the corridor and then a shot reverse shot of him walking in to the science lab. As he is the last person to look at the book he closes it and that is where our title sequence ends. Next to his designated page is the graduation page followed by the welling high logo. His page has stickers and badges that support his 'geek' characteristics such as a prefect badge and an A* which Brittany added during the editing stage and a 'success' sticker which we had bought and physically stuck in the book. This scene was successful and I believe conformed to the conventions of the stereotypical 'geek'.


 

The 'Freak' scene

We chose to set our freak scene in the school toilets as the stereotypical 'freak' in american society would not have a designated 'spot' in high school were they could relax, socialise or study due to not gaining acceptance from their peers. This gave us the idea to use the toilet as it is unhygienic and not somewhere anyone would want to hang out, but for our freak who doesn't care to be around their mainstream peers, this would be a perfect place to scour at the year book. When shooting this scene we used an establishing shot to introduce the setting and a birds eye shot when Jazmine(the freak) was opening the pages of the book. She opened the 'JBB productions' page, the 'Directed by B. Humphreys' page and her own 'Freak' page. Initially Brittany filmed the toilet scene inside the cubical and i was in charge of the lighting from outside however due to there being a level of shakiness and graininess when we looked on the computer i had to reshoot this several times using paper to cover the spotlight in the cubical and I used a steady cam to ensure the shot was still. Me and Jazmine played around with the two variables of light and camera angle until we was satisified with how the shot looked although looking back at the final cut there is still room for improvement however we did the best we could with the time restraints. We then filmed Jazmine walking out of the toilet area and throwing the book in the bin to which it fell on the floor and the narrative continues as The Jock picks it up off of the floor to read himself. Although there were some hiccups in this scene i really liked the mise-en-scene elements such as Jazmines make-up and costume which really conforms to the stereotype of her character. She kept her base makeup really pale whilst her eye makeup was very dark and smokey as was her bold black lip. This contrast between the pale foundation and the dark eye and lip make up was very effective in making her look freakishly looking and definitely not the norm. With her costume we kept it to all black as it supported the nature of her character, being quite dark and mysterious. Her hair is very dark which also nicely contrasted with her pale face and tied in with the dark eye make-up. Below are the stills from the freaks year book photos and the toilet setting.


Roles within the group

Me- Director
Brittany-Editor
Jazmine- Cinematography 

These were our original set roles that we all agreed to however there was a lot of interchanging between roles throughout the process as we all benefitted from eachothers help.I found myself helping quite a lot with cinematography as a filmed the freak scene where Jazmine was the actor and therefore wasnt able to film as well as the Jocks videos and year book photo and the Jock opening the book in the basketball court. Brittany also helped with cinematography throughout and Jazmine took on edititing responsibilities towards the end of the process,putting in some finishing touches whilst i sat with her and directed her in terms of certain editing style choices: fonts, colours, animations. This worked out really well as the finishing touches were what made our title sequence polished and concluded the project.

Props

We all went to hobbycraft in the february half term to buy the equipment to make our main prop that leads the narrative: the year book, as we were unable to film in this time due to our title sequence being set in a school. Once we had bought everything we need we spent time in our half term going round to eachothers houses and decorate the book and each page that would feature in our title sequence. Each page decoration connotes the content of that page and the character on it. For example on the geek page we decorated it with badges,books and a 'success' banner these features are conventional of the 'geek' stereotype. The Jock page has trainer stickers and a basket ball sticker which connotes their athletic characteristics. Then on the title pages we added stickers that will illustrate the crew members jobs, for example on the editing page we used a pair of scissors, on costume design a dress sticker and on the sound page an ipod sticker. We have 3D letters which we bought from hobbycraft and used as one of our main fonts throughout the title sequence and as the actual title of our film 'Welling High'.


Pitch Info

Me Brittany and Jazmine had to come up with a pitch including character allocations (who we chose to cast for each character), a brief overview of our storyline (including an equalibrium, a disequalibrium and a new equilibrium), a log line, the budget of our film and the revenue it would make based on the research we had done on similar films of the same genre, a release date, a chosen production company and a director all with explanation as to why we chose them. We divided the slides up between us so each of us wrote 3 slides however we all gave input on every decision made as a group.We then presented this pitch to our class and gained feedback on what had gone well and what did not work so well. I have embeded this presentation from Brittany's slide share account.

Pitch

Music choice

As a group me Brittany and Jazmine decided that we wanted our copyright free music not to have any vocals, we also wanted it to have a lot of guitar riffs and to almost be soft rock, as this music genre would be listened to by students in an American high school and therefore this music type would be conventional to our title sequence genre. After identifying the type of music me was looking for,for our title sequence we began looking on copyright free music websites and found that Ben Sound had a good variety of music that would fit our criteria.With a poll on both mine and Brittany's blog, we gained the opinions of other people to see if they agree with our music choice, and which one they think suits the genre of our title sequence best. This reassured us that we were making the right decision and allowed us to come to a conclusion of the exact track we would be using which ended up being: 'Happy-Roc'k which happened to be our favourite anyway so it worked out perfectly. 

The 'Jock' scene

For our main Jock we chose to use Jacob.We recruited him as he fits the conventions of the role due to him being physically fit and athletic looking as well as tall. Brittany then recruited 2 year 11 boys to be Jocks in our title sequence and ,like Jacob, they both look physically fit and athletic however they are not as tall as the main jock or as built up this is deliberate as the need to look cool and fit but subordinate to the main Jock as he will be a main character within our film and they will play less prominent roles. For the main Jock we got him to wear a basketball jersey with black shorts as he is a semi-professional basket baller and the other Jocks are wearing white t-shirts and tracksuit bottoms to fit the conventions of them being athletic and 'cool'. When me and Jazmine were filming the boys video's I suggested that Jacob should hold a ball to connote his role as a Jock and i directed him to spin the ball on his finger in his video and then catch in and look straight into the camera so he came across as cocky and confident. With the other two boys, I directed Tommy to brush through his hair with his fingers and look into the camera and Oliver to stroke his facial hair and look into the camera i directed them to do so as it makes them come across as full of themselves which is the stereotype of a Jock. Then me and Jazmine filmed the main Jock walking into the sports hall to open the Jock page in the book, we decided to do it in the sports hall due to the mise-en-scene being conventional to a Jock. 

Feedback from initial screening


Feedback presentation from bronte Humphreys

As a group me Brittany and Jazmine gained some constructive feedback from our first screening in class. Our peer group filled out these feedback sheets (in the presentation above) which illustrated to us what had worked within our title sequence, what needed to be improved and what didn't work at all. In general the main elements that people thought worked well was our soundtrack, the editing, the overall narrative ,miss-en-scene and our use of titles. The things that we needed to do to improve were: having the shots that include the videos in the book on for longer so they can be seen more clearly, having the pictures of the characters in the book before the video's appear in order for there not to be any blank spaces on the title pages and the pace needed to be increased by introducing some match on match action shots. The thing that didn't work and would need to be reshot were the pages with blank spaces, in order to change this we have decided that we need to stick the photos of each character in the book and then re-film all the shots that the book was being opened in. Overall this feedback allowed us to identify the improvements we needed to make and eradicate any mistakes that we may have made meaning our title sequence will be better quality. 

Story Board






This is the story board of our title sequence which is being used as a guideline whilst we are filming.It draws out our idea of the year book introducing the cast and crew of our high school film.This is demonstrated with the themed pages such as: The geeks page, the elite page, the prom page, the freak page and the graduation page.On each page it has either a picture of the actor followed by their name or the name of the crew member and their responsibility e.g Directed by B.Humphreys.

Our title sequence idea

As a group me Brittany and Jazmine have decided that our title sequence is going to be based on the High school drama genre.We came up with the idea that we will present our title sequence as a year book/scrap book and have the cast and crew members names incorporated in this.As a group we decided to take a more graphic and visual approach with our title sequence instead of showing the narrative through souly filming actors. Then i suggested that we should use moving pictures within the year book to reflect each characters role within the film and this was really popular within our group and others in our class when we was discussing our idea.We took influences from the films such as Mean Girls, Clueless,High School musical,the breakfast club and American Pie.These films all follow the conventions of a high school drama and share the target audience of teenagers. 
The codes and conventions of a high school drama are:

  • Generic,stereotypical characters/cliques E.G 'The Jocks', 'The Populars','The Geeks','The freaks' e.c.t.
  • A romantic sub-plot
  • Settings: High school- corridor,locker rooms,field/gym,the cafeteria The mall,characters houses.
  • Typical teen issues:boy problems, winning prom queen,peer pressure, being an outcast.
  • Rebellion
We looked at the style of the title sequences of the films that ours is inspired by and found that our idea of a year book not only conforms to the style of the genre but is unique and therefore we decided to go forward with our idea.


Se7en title sequence


Kyle Cooper ,the title sequence of Seven, has took a very stylistic approach, using short cuts that include newspaper cuttings and following the actions of the suspected main character to illustrate the narrative. The short cuts help to build suspense and the simple actions of the mans hands such as the sewing of the paper,with the sepia filter added,creates a sinister atmosphere to the title sequence.

Monsters Inc title sequence

The Monsters Inc title sequence by Susan Bradley is heavily inspired by Saul Bass as it completley relies on graphics to create a introduction proologue to the film. The linear design creates a certain style and feel to the title sequence that conveys the narrative and is shared within most graphic title sequences such as the anatomy of murder and westside story. As this is a later title sequence than Sauls work the design is more intricut and tells the narrative more obviously and artistcally due to the improved technology that later designers have access to.The chosen serif font connotes the theme of monsters as it looks irregular and slightly freakish however the way the designer has used the text as almost a prop in the narrative makes it fun and child friendly and therefore reflects the target audience of the film which is families and specifically children. 

Vertigo


The veritgo title sequence by saul bass shows imagery of a womans eye. The whole duration leaves the audience feeling quite disorientated which reflects the title and the genre of the film. This is one of Saul Bass's title sequences that rely heavily on graphics and imagery rather than any dialogue or actual shooted action footage The choice of music compliments the thriller genre perfectly as it creates suspense and makes the audience feel slightly uneasy as if something bad is about to happen. This immeditaley sets the tone of the film before the audience even begin to follow the narrative and is therefore reflective of how title sequences are a crucial part of a film.

Saul Bass


Saul Bass is a well respected Title sequence designer, probably the most famous and this is due to him changing the whole concept of them and combining them with graphic design.However he started off as a graphic designer and designed lots of corporate logos and film posters before and along side title sequences.He has worked with a number of Hollywoods best film makers in his career including Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorese. He became famous in the industry after his amazing title sequence for 'The man with the golden arm'. He went on to make many more impressive and aesthetically interesting title sequences such as 'The anatomy of murder','Vertigo' and west side story. Saul Bass is such an influential designer as he completely changed the dynamics of a title sequence making it much more visual and making the titles become part of the art.

Catch me if you can title sequence

The catch me if you can title sequence is a very graphic monologue created by Kyle Cooper but inspired by Saul Bass's earlier work such as vertigo. Kyle Cooper is a very successful title sequence designer and has made title sequences for films as prestigious as Home Alone, The Incredible Hulk and Se7en. The narrative of Catch me if you can is set in the 1960s which is reflected within the graphics of the title sequence with the prominant colours and black lines which act out the storyline. The monologue goes through all the main events of the film through just colour and black figures and lines. This is sigificant as it shows how title sequences have come from only displaying the main cast members names to showing a full narrative and in this case representing the events that are to follow within the film. The lines that make up the text in the title sequence create a certain flow to the title sequence and results in the text giving a bigger impact than it would in a filmed title sequence. Kyle Cooper has been very clever and particular with the features he has included in this title sequence to support the narrative, even in his font choices. The typewriter style font is reflective of the main character in the film as he uses a type writer. 





















So what is a title sequence?

A title sequence is the introduction to a film which often states the main cast members and production company,as well as the director and any important members of the production. It is the films opportunity to make a good first impression on the audience so that they are gripped from the very beginning.Over the past couple of decades film makers have tried to make there title sequences as aesthetically interesting and unconventional as possible. 

Conventionally a title sequence will include cast and crew members names,the title of the film

The history of title sequences

During the early days of cinema, title sequences were often purely informational and had very minimal aesthetics,if any at all. That started to change with the introduction of film with sound,when visually interesting montages and prologues were derived. By the 1960s, they became an art form, especially with the establishment of the iconic graphic designer Saul Bass. Above is an example of a simple title sequence from the 1940's.

AS specification

I have looked through the OCR media studies specification for AS and looked at the way my work will be marked to ensure that i know what is expecteed of me and how i can follow the specification to achieve the best possible grade. 

Video: 
Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.
Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

Continuity sequence



When we were given the task of making a continuity sequence initially i thought it would be quite simple as, as a group we had lots of ideas of the narrative and how we could incorporate the key elements that we needed to include which were:
  • Match-on action
  • 180 Degrees shot
  • Shot reverse shot to demonstrate a conversation

However when we begun filming our continuity sequence we came across a few hiccups in the process. We initially started filming in a classroom but was interrupted as there was a lesson in there so we had to relocate to a different classroom. We chose to follow the narrative conversation between a teacher and a challenging student, however due to not taking enough shots we did not fufill the 2 minute criteria and the continuity sequence required. Also due to not having enough time the editing was not up to the standard that i would have liked and at some points in the video there is evidence of the camera being unfocused and shakiness. Overall i thought the narrative and acting within the continuity sequence was the most successful part however if i was to have more time i would re shoot the shots that were shakey and spend more time editing to improve the quality of cuts.