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

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