Bloopers

We had a lot of fun making this video opening and this is the result of that. Enjoy :)

Production Diary

Production diary:

9th of November:

Today the class got split up and put into three groups, the group which I'm in involves Sarah, Tilly, Connor H and Jack. The first task which we had to do was to create our own individual film opening idea to then pitch to the group. This was so everyone could equally come up with their own personal idea which they think was a good idea and is doable.

10th of November:

Today we all pitched out individual film openings to see whether or not the group enjoyed it and so they could get constructive feedback.

Sarahs pitch- Sarah came up with a more futuristic film which involves the government being very corrupt and has tried to take control of the common people in the world. They have done this by irradiating speech and communication and has replaced is with media and technology. However in this there will be a glitch in the system which hasn't been affected by the government and is trying to fight back, this would be what the rest of the film would consist of.

Tillys pitch- Tilly came up with a teen drama which has an upcoming teen star who is about to preform her first consent. However before she goes on she has flashbacks of her dramatic past. This involves her mum and dad dying and how she has been bullied throughout school. The stress of all these memories gets to her and she passes out before the concert.

Connors pitch- Connor came up with a drama which shows how a child has to deal with his OCD during school. This is presented as he his doing a voice over of what condition he has while he is tiding up a class room, each time he tides something the names of the people involved will appear. However after all the names have been shown two other kids will run into the room because they are trying to hide so why don't get into trouble, they see the other child and aggressively force him not to talk. The rest of the film would be based on the child having to keep a terrible secret which if said would help someone but if he does he would get very hurt.

Jacks pitch- Jack presented the idea of having the opening scene to be set in a hospital and some one is in a coma. Then while the camera is slowly doing a 180 degree shot round the bed there will be a few flashbacks of how the person is put in the coma. The rest of the film would be set in the past and is showing why and how the person is in the coma.

Once all of us pitched our ideas we had to discuss which one was the best. However after the lesson had come to an end we couldn't decide which one was the best because each of us defended and though our idea was the best so we didn't come to a conclusion by the end.

11th of November:

Today we sat down with our teacher to try and finally decide which film idea we were going to do, we then came up with the idea of a group of friends who have stayed friends over the course of there child hood and high school by playing games in a small hidden place which only they know and love because of the memories they have made over the years. After we had came up with this we then had to produce a slide which to pitch to the class and teachers to get feedback.

13th of November:

Today we got set each other different tasks to do, Sarah was finding opening scenes which related to our film so we could get more knowledge of what to include and how to shoot it, Tilly writing down a list of what props we need and how they could be used during the opening scene, Jack was set the task to find the background music the the opening scene which was important because the music sets the mood and atmosphere of the entire scene. Connor had the task to keep the production diary up to date.

16th of November:

Today we again set each other different tasks to complete, Sarah was writing about opening scenes which are similar to ours, she was saying how they were similar and what was good about them. Tilly was making a start on the script of we scene and what actions/emotions they would show when taking. Connor was in charge of producing the story board to show what is happening in each scene and to update the production diary. Jack had to use the camera and take pictures of us doing each of out tasks and to show the location of where we are shooting and what the place looks like, 

17th of November:

The tasks which we had to complete today were, Sarah was writing down all of the shots for each seen and researching film titles. Connor was producing the shooting diary and updating the product diary. Tilly was producing a risk assessment for each filming in the cabin and doing the scene down a road. Jack was looking up extra props we could buy and use during the opening scene.

19th of November:

Today the tasks we had to accomplish was Jack was doing the representation, Connor has doing a video of the story board where he was saying what was going on and updating the story board. Sarah is doing the audience of our film. Tilly is completing the marketing of our film.

20th to the 30th of  November:

In this period of time we set up the cabin which we shall shoot most of our opening scene in. The first thing we had to do was clear out all of the boxes and a desk from the cabin to create space for us to set up all the props, once we had done this we had to bring in loads of games and other props to fill up the selves and fill space. The next thing to do after this was to write and make titles for the opening scene, we are going to do this by putting them on some of the props.

We also have to find four kids which shall represent our younger selves in the opening scene too.

1st December:

Today we found the four children whom we will use to play our younger selves in our film opening and we also went to the cabin and wrote on books, CDs, games etc. the titles which we had earlier come up with. We also started to shot our film opening and start to edit together the footage we got.

2nd December:

 The tasks that we completed today was to continue filming and today we filmed the four younger children in the cabin playing games and also filmed our selves playing the gamed and edited this together.

3rd December:

In this media lesson we all as a group decided on which final shots we should film for our titles which was the pictionary and cup stacks. After filming these two titles

4th December:

Today we asked the four children who played our younger selves to come back to media and we filmed the jump shot scene of them walking into school.

7th of December:

On this date we watched everyone's first draft of their film opening and then was asked to give negative and positive feedback on what we had watched for each video. We also received feedback from teachers and peers and sat down as a group to discuss what we shall do to improve our film opening.

8th of December:

Sarah Olivier wrote the script for the voice-over and then Tilly Hawkins and Connor Harper recorded the voice over and applied it to our film opening. But due to it being fairly hard to understand and not flowing we decided we are going to re-film it so it is clearer on the 11th.

9th of December:

Today in this lesson we sat down all four of as a group with our teacher to discuss our script for our new voice-over and how we will use the voice-over to get across the idea of being childhood friends etc. to the viewer.

10th of December:

After receiving the feedback from our teachers and peers a couple of days ago we decided to re-film a couple of the titles so they make more sense such as the CD title. But after returning to the media room and looking at the footage we re-filmed, we collectively decided that the footage was worse quality than the original footage. Therefore just kept the original footage but edited it to color correct some title scenes.

11th of December:

Today we decided to re-film our voice over in the morning due to negative feedback about the voice over in particular and we edited this onto our film footage. And then after some final editing our final draft for 'Connect Four' was complete.

5th of January:

Today we started are evaluation tasks which were to answer 7 questions. The way we were going to do this is by assigning each person other separate questions and then do the final one together.

Jack did question 1 which was to show ways in which our Media film used, developed or challenged forms and conventions of real media products.

Tilly did questions 2,4 and 5 which was to show how our film presents our social groups, what audience we aimed at and how did we attract /addresses our audience.

Sarah did question 6 which was to say what technology we used and what we learnt while using it.

Justification of the Criticisms

After viewing the first draft of our film opening we received criticisms from both our teachers and from fellow students. One of theses criticisms was that one of our titles "would not feature in a film" as it looked childish, low budget and is difficult to read. 

This is a small clip of that title and below is the justification of our title. We will explain why we chose to keep and not reshoot this particular title.  

Below is a small clip of a similar title that features in the opening credits of Napoleon Dynamite. When conducting similar film research we stumbled upon Napoleon Dynamite and considered it to be similar to our film because of its creative and low budget title sequence. As a result of this, we drew much inspiration from its title sequence and tried to present ours in a similar and quirky way.

It is because of this title that we chose to present our title in the way we did. It does appear low budget but we are essentially a low budget film and so we wanted to make it authentic and quirky, like Napoleon Dynamite, and we believe that our titles create this effect.
As an audience member you struggle to read the name on this title just as you struggle to read the names featured in our title but this is what makes our titles, and Napoleon Dynamite's, quirky, unique and low budget. 

Film Poster

This is the finished film poster for our film Connect Four. This poster will be present throughout all of our marketing campaigns including all of our social media platforms and our film's website.

Further Music Research

After much deliberation we decided, as a group, to change the song we used in our film opening. This was purely because the song we originally chose was not original. After a while it became repetitive and irritating which is not the effect we wanted it to have on our audience. So with this in mind we set out and spent a couple of days each researching possible music choices for our opening.

We each conducted music research and then decided which song we felt encompassed the themes of our film and our opening. 

Brother by Mighty Oaks is the song we have decided to use. This is because it is simple but different and quirky which is what we were looking for in our song choice.

Improvements To Be Made

Plans for the New Voice-over:



Possible Script for Voice-over:

We’ve been friends for as long as I can remember. When we were younger we were care-free and nothing else mattered. 

Those three took me in and gave me a place where I belonged. 

Our club started out as just being a bit of fun but it evolved into a place of refuge when we were older. A place where we could go and just have fun. We didn't have to worry about anything. 

We called our club, Connect Four simply because we that was our favourite game. We would meet two or three times a week and spend hours in our cabin. It would be night before we even realised, but we didn't care because we were having fun. 

As the years past our friendship grew and we became closer as a group. We never expected things to change… 

Teacher Feedback

Things that went well:

• Very clever titles
• Good music choice
• Nice mise en scene

Improvements to be made:

• Voiceover- not strong enough, needs more emotion
• Colour correction- needs to change and be improved throughout the time-lapse 
• Music volume- in some places it's too loud or too quiet. We need to get that balance right. 
• Transitions- something between the two panning shots to signify that we are the same people as the younger children. Possibly a dissolve or similar transition. 
• Lengthen some titles- the domino title needs to be longer; more time needed on Tilly Hawkins' name. 

Connect Four First Draft

This is the first draft of our film- Connect Four.

Film Pitch: Teacher and Peer Feedback

Similar Film Research

Low Budget Film Research

Character Costumes

We have to think carefully about the costumes for our characters so that they fit in with the scene and how we want them to look. 

So below is a list of what we want the characters to look like:

Sarah's costume:

- Black jeans with a plain white t-shirt and black boots to make her character look more grown up.

Tilly's costume:

- Black jeans also so she looks similar to Sarah, with a grey jumper and trainers.

Connor's costume:

- Grey jeans with a plain t-shirt and a shirt with trainers.

Jack's costume:

- Blue jeans with a plain black t-shirt and grey trainers.

We will have to ensure that the four young children that play the younger versions of ourselves look similar to us and that they have similar outfits to make it more realistic or they should wear school uniform which is generally what the younger version of ourselves would wear if they were in Year 7.

Film Logo

After much deliberation we finally decided on the film title: Connect 4 (Four).

This was because Connect 4 is a well known child's game, which our character's play in the film, and we are four childhood friends hence the number/ or word four.

Institution

This is the production company that we have chosen to produce our film:

A similar film production company who produce low budget teen films are Canal+. They produced the film 'Son of Rambow'. There was more than one production company that helped to produce this film but Canal+ was the main contributor in the making of the film and contributed the most money.

Shooting Schedule

This is our group's Shooting Schedule for this week. We aim to film the majority of the required shots over four days this week.

Marketing Campaign

We have done lots of research on how other low budget films, like our own film, can be marketed with a low budget.

Strategy 1: Social media sites 
Social media sites are used for low budget films to market their film because it is free and because so many people now use social media in their everyday life.

Strategy 2: YouTube pop ups
This costs a small fee to advertise films on YouTube but is a very effective way because you can specify what sort of video you want your pop up to be viewed on which means your marketing is automatically shown to your implied audience.

Strategy 3: Vine 
A vine is a very effective way for a low budget film to market their film, because it is free to do and can be distributed all around the world using the internet.

Strategy 4: Blogs
Blogs are free to make and you can add lots of detail to them, something you cannot do on other types of promotions like posters. But it is not easily accessed, so it is hard to gather a large audience.

Strategy 5: Street marketing
Low budget film companies can take to the street, to leaflet and promote their film because it is cheaper than other marketing strategies like TV and radio adverts. But it does cost to print off the leaflets and for the wages of the staff who are promoting the film.

I found this off a website that specialises in how low budget films can market their film successfully, so that the film is well known and people are aware what the film is about.

Paranormal activity low budget marketing strategies:

Before the first Paranormal activity film was released in 2009 few people, other than Paramount production company and select cities knew about the upcoming horror film. The $15,000 horror movie, directed by San Diego filmmaker Oren Peli, first gained awareness at Slamdance Film Festival. A year later Steven Spielberg noticed the potential of the low budget film. The film company marketed the film using social media which intrigued some of its viewers. 

We have decided to use the following strategies to market our film because they are free or very cheap, therefore fit in with our low budget but are still able to make our audience aware of the film and what it can offer them. Here are the strategies we are going to use:

1) Live snapchat feeds- We can create our own snapchat account for our film as this is free and we can create stories that can be viewed by all snapchat users to help market our film. We can also have live feeds of teasers from the filming and production of our film with this we can also leak our release date for the film. This is a really good place to market our film because most of the users on snapchat fit in with our target audience which is 12+ years old.

2) YouTube pop ups- We are going to use YouTube pop ups which are a good way to market our film 'Connect 4'. This is because we can choose which videos our advertising is shown on, helping us target our chosen audience effectively. Also it is fairly cheap to use this method of marketing, which is good because we are a low budget film.

3) Social media sites- We are going to produce a page on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where users can see when our film is being released and can watch clips and trailers of the film before its release date. This is a suitable method of marketing because it is free and anyone around the world, who has access to these sites, can see our marketing page.

Title Analysis and Timeline

Representation

Teen films we used as inspiration for our opening sequence...

High School Musical

High School Musical is a 2006 American teen/romantic comedy musical. 

Male: represented as athletic jocks who stick to the status quo. However, towards the end of the film they break away from their typical representations and become their own person.  

Female: represented as being very intelligent but who also follow the status quo. They also break out of their typical representations and become what they want to be. 

American Pie

American Pie is a 1999 teen sex comedy. 

Male: represented as weird group of loaners trying to out do each other.    

Female: represented as a goal and not actual people. Women are objectified and seen as sexual tools. There are only a select few female characters in this film that are given names, storylines and essentially personalities such as: Michelle, Heather and Victoria. However, the majority of the women in this film are not given names or a role in the film.

Superbad

Superbad is a 2007 American teen comedy film.
Male: represented as a pair of weird, sexually frustrated friends who trying to make a name for themselves at school.
Female: represented as sexual objects and are not really given a role in the film.

Target Audience

PRIMARY: Teenagers

Gender: Female
Age: 14
Favourite Films: Mean Girls, The Breakfast Club, Bring It On and Clueless.
Interests: Watching films and television, reading, playing netball and other sports and shopping.
Why would she go and watch our film: She loves teen comedies and classic coming of age films. She is a big film fan and so enjoys going to the cinema and watching new films. She also has a whole range of interests so she can relate to each one of the characters in our film, thus making her more likely to watch it.

SECONDARY: Parents

Gender: Female
Age: 30+
Favourite Films: Thelma and Louise, Beaches, Back to the Future and Sixteen Candles.
Interests: Reading, spending time with her children and watching movies.
Why would she go and watch our film: Because if she has teenage children, then she will have to accompany them to our film as it is a 12A. She herself loves watching films, especially 80s/90s teenage comedies.

Our primary audience is teenagers between the ages of 12 and 19. This is because our film features both 11/12 year olds and 16/17 year olds thus making it easy for teenagers to relate to our characters and our narrative.
Our secondary audience is parents of teenage children because they will have to accompany their children to our movie as it has BBFC classification of 12A. We believe they will also want to go watch our film as it follows a similar narrative to classic teenage films that were released during the 1980s/90s such as: The Goonies, Stand By Me and Now and Then.

Storyboard

Visual Moodboard

This is a visual mood board that displays the inspirations for our film and films that we consider to be similar.

Music Research

We are hoping to include a small song in our film opening as well as other uses of sound and dialogue. These are the possible options we have found for songs that will feature in our opening:

Possible Film Titles

For the last couple of days our group has struggled to come up with possible titles for our film.
We have had many suggestions but have yet to find the perfect name for our film. These are some of the possible film titles that we have come up with:

• Meeples
• In Bloom
• Then and Now
• Outnumbered
• Fools
• When We Were Young
• Connect 4 
• Gherkins
• Blind Faith
• Out of the Black
• Good Times
• Good Girls, Bad Girls 
• Wannabe 
• 5 Second Rule 
• The  Insiders
• The Normal Ones

Risk Assessment

This our group's risk assessment...

















































We chose to devise two separate risk assessments for each location we were going to film at. This was because as one is indoor and one is outdoor we felt that each of the two locations presented their own, very different, risks and possible hazards. Due to this we wrote two risk assessments: one for our exterior shots and one for our interior shots.



Photo Evidence

This our group's photo evidence of planning and filming for our film opening. It features images of us planning and researching as well as exterior/location shots of where we are going to film.

Props List

Club house:
This is a list of the props that will be needed to fill our portacabin:

• Vinyl Records which will be moved by one of the characters and a title will be shown on the middle of the record.
• Old posters which will be taped to the wall in the club house.
• Boxes of retro sweets and cereals
• A lava lamp
• Scrabble which will spell out the name of the film
• Guess who introducing the characters
• Retro DVDs
• Fairy lights around the room to make it more
• Comic books
• Tea mug, which will have a title on
• Monopoly
• Connect 4
• A round wooden table in middle of the room
• Alphabet Spaghetti to introduce a title
• Rack of fancy dress clothes
• Dart board
• A guitar which will be given to the character of Kurt to show his musical side.
• Cup stacks
• Jenga
• A rug on the floor of the cabin

Using the props to create titles: 

1. The titles will start rolling after the 360 degree shot of the older children sitting in a circle around the table, then one of the characters picks up a coffee mug and takes a sip where the first title will be spelled out on the bottom of the mug. This will be introducing the film's production company.
2. The second title will be using Scrabble pieces which will spell out the name of the film, this will be a sped up version of one of the characters moving the pieces into a line to introduce the film name.
3. The first character Alex, who is played by Tilly, will be introduced by her character walking over to the wall where a posters corner is bent over and she folds it back where her name will be on the corner.   
4. The second character Katie, who is played by Sarah, will introduce her title by pulling out a Jenga piece where her name will be on.
5. The character Kurt, who is played by Connor and is musical, will have his title on his guitar which he will have on his back when sitting down.
6. The character Jacob, who is played Jack and is very sporty, will have his name on the front of a comic book which he will be looking at, at the time.
7. The title for who the film is produced by will be on the spine of a book which will be on the shelf. The camera will pan past the books and then one of the characters will take out of the book shelf.
8. The title of the editors of the film will be on a CD and will be spun around in its case; one of the characters will spin this around.
9. The title of who filmed the opening scene will be on a piece of fake money from the board game monopoly.
10. The title for costumes by will be on a sketch notepad which someone will flip over and the title will be on the other side.
11. The title for who directed the film will be on the top of a coat rack, where someone will go and hang up their coat and the title will appear above the hook.

Other ideas for titles:

1. Glue with glitter on top.
2. Candy stick sweets on table then children’s hands go and grab them.
3. Cup stacks construct to make name.
4. On a whiteboard, steps to clubhouse rules, (First rule of board game club, don't talk about board game club).
5. A slice of cake and pipe onto plate.

Film Pitch

This is our group's final film pitch for our AS Media Project. It has taken us a while to get to the stage where we are able to present a complete idea but we have finally devised an interesting and unique film opening premise. Here it is:

Title Research

In order to understand our own title sequence, and the order in which to present our titles, we had to conduct some research into films that are similar to ours and the title sequences that they have. The films that we have chosen are: Napoleon Dynamite (due to the creative title sequence), Stand By Me (because of the similarities between our four characters, who are childhood friends, and the boys in the film) and Now and Then (due to the same reason as Stand By Me; the similarities of our characters).



This is the timeline for the opening title sequence in Napoleon Dynamite. It contains a list of each of the titles, what time they appear and who's name appears.