Vlog 5 - Another Sound Update

Vlog 4 - Filming Day 2 & Update

Update

So when we got into lesson on Wednesday, we discovered that our MAC, that we use for editing, would not turn on. We all tried it and even Ms Foster could not get it to work. The MAC had all our footage and our mid-edited film opening saved on it which caused a lot of problems for us. In the history of Enfield County Media, this had never happened so we became very stuck.
Luckily, I had the SD card we used on the shoot with the footage saved on it so we didn't lose any of that but unfortunately, I did not have it on me (it was at my house) so we lost an hour of editing time but we plan to resolve this by spending extra time outside of class to edit and make sure it still looks professional. Also, fortunately for us, we had only edited the footage slightly so we don't have too much to make up for.
From this experience, I learned that one of us should always have the SD card on us, in case someone wants to edit our opening if they have a free period to prevent this from happening again and to ensure our opening is completely edited by the due date comes around.

FO Review: Interstellar

Over the weekend, I watched Interstellar and decided to review the opening because it was amazing! The movie starts with the main character, Cooper (played by Matthew McConaughey) in the midst of a plane crash. One of my favourite shots from the opening is a close up shot of his side profile. I love this shot because it really focuses on his eyes and the panic he is feeling. The emphasise on his eyes ensures the audience feels the fear that he is going through. The sound at this point is at is peak, and the diagetic sound of the space crafts engines dominates what the audience is hearing. Suddenly the sound and the visuals are cut off and the screen is black and silenced until Murph (played by Mackenzie Foy) begins to talk, whispering to her dad. The screen is still black which highlights her voice. The empty screen begins to fade into a shot of Murph, then changes to a shot of Cooper waking up. This sequence of shots is effective because it shows the audience that Cooper was having a nightmare without explictly mentioning it.
The image is has a dark contrast which makes the content hard to see but i find this extremely effective because it really emphasizes their voices and what they're saying. I really liked this and thought that the dark lighting could be good to use in our opening as it could help build some suspense and highlight the mystery of the opening.

Research Questionnaire

To get a variety of results, I carried out my research questionnaire on two platforms. I made a survey on SurveyMonkey.co.uk and I also filmed a questionnaire.

The video questionnaire I made interviewed fourteen different people from around my school, with ages varying from 15 to 50+ which meant I could get a good idea about the distribution of answers in context to ages. I then made some charts to show my results from both the survey and the video. The only problem I faced with the video was that I could not include everyone's opinion on every question so the infographics I made show more votes than the video.

From this infographic, there is a even distribution of favourite movie genres. It is evident that Horror/Thriller and Comedy are the most popular which can help us see what genre to choose. Picking a popular genre such as them will mean that our film opening will appeal to a larger audience and if the film was real, it would hopefully sell more than a film that was in the fantasy genre which got only one vote as peoples favourites in this research.

It is evident that romance in the least popular genre. Horror/Thriller and Comedy are once more, shown to be popular are as they don't have too many votes on this question, furthering our interest for picking one of these as the genre for our film opening.

 This figure shows that the title of a movie, though is important, is only important to a partial extent. Three people thought it was irrelevant so this gives us an idea that when choosing the title to our film opening, we won't have to spend too much time picking it, though it does have to be relevant to our plot line and genre otherwise it may confuse the audience and hinder them from watching it if it was a whole film.



This pie chart shows that most people, regardless of their age, watches films that have the 15 certificate. As shown in the video, there is a common opinion that I found, also seen in the survey, that films don't get enough sold tickets if they are rated 18 so it would be most beneficial for us to rate our film opening a 15 because it'll contain content that is so explicit for a 12 but it will also sell better than if it was an 18 because it would appeal to a larger audience.

FO Review: Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging

Last night I watched Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. This film had a very interesting film opening which used lots of camera shots and angles that we could possibly use in our opening. I really liked many of the shots but I particularly liked this one shot where the protagonist is running in an olive costume between two old people, its from a birds eye view angle. I thought it was a really clever idea for a shot and was very effective. Another shot I especially liked was the dolly shots of her running as it emphasises her distress while also establishing the setting.

Vlog 3 - Update

FO Review: The Fall

This film opening, I think, is amazing.  It is evident that lots of effort has been put into this title sequence and the results show this. Though this is a professional film piece, I think that this would be a great inspiration for our film opening as it leaves the audience in awe.
The opening is in slow motion which really highlights the emotion in each person's expression and not only does it capture the audience, it forces the audience to feel these emotions too. The use of this slow motion means nothing too important is revealed straight away, intriguing the audience to watch more. It is clear that the title placement has been carefully thought about and the hat movement to wipe away the title was very effective as it creates a feel of wonder. As the film opening goes on, more characters appear and objects begin to appear from in the river, presenting immense confusion in the audience which I think is the best emotion to give the audience at the start of the film because it captures their need for clarification and gets them to continue watching the rest of the film. 
One my favourite parts of this opening is the black and white smoke that is emitted from the train, possibly foreshadowing a conflict which gripped me into wanting to watch more. 
Overall, this film opening was very successful in its purpose to capture the audience into watching more as I went away from this to watch the whole film which continued its high standard. I think this inspiration would be great to incorporate into my film opening by possibly slow motioning Zoe's close up shots to emphasise the emotion she's portraying.