Pre-Production Research

Before creating our own opening sequence it was imporant to research the differences of good and bad. This will give our group a clear idea of things that we need to invlove and thigns that we must ensure we do not produce. By looking at bad examples of opening sequences we will have a clear identification of the things that make the scene bad or not fit. An example of this could be when the set is too dark or if the opening sequence did not fit with the actual film.

By looking at other opening sequence we have made sure that our own production had full continutiy and fits with the story behind it allowing us to grab the audience attention and make them want to watch this film.

We decidied to create a practice run in a different loction to were we have planned to produce our opening sequence, this has allowed us to notice things that we have not included and identify different things we could change to produce the best possible opening sequence.

BFI: Youth, Media and Collective Idenitity day

On Wednesday 5th of February 2014 our class went to the BFI (British Film Industry) in Southbank London for a trip to experience and learn new things about the constructing the teenagers and how the media had effected or changed the way the audience view teenagers. This was a great opportunity to find out more about youth, culture and Theory presented by Matthew Hall. We began the day by discussing how the child begins to developed their identity and looking at Jacques Lacan which is a psychoanalyst looking at the mirror image and the psychoanalytic film theory and about how we use the cinema/TV screen as a 'mirror' to reinforce our identity. Matthew discussed that we need to interact in order to form our identity and when we do interact our own identity of influenced by other people that have different thoughts or view to how maybe we look at things. Media representations may influence the way we react. We watched a few different clips that we had to identify the textual detail, dominant messages sent about youth, the negotiated interpretation and what kind of audience would interpret in this way. These short clips were from:

• The Wild One
• Rebel Without A Cause
• Quadropenia
• Kidult hood
• Human Traffic
• My Brother, The Devil

Each of these clips that we watched allowed the audience to recognise how the teenagers were interpreted and their dominate message sent about the youths.

 One of the clips that I analysed was 'The Wild One' presenting a different culture with a black and white viewing, an old town in a motorbike sense. The dominate message sent about the youth allowed the audience to notice the difference from some youths trying not to 'fit into' the adult mainstream and their generation gap. The characters were trying to challenging traditional values and lifestyle by changing the way they act and presenting a different form or life behaviour. This clip fits into the adult hegemony as the film presents a lead ship and dominance of the adults sticking together in the same way and interests. The textual detail that we established after watching this clip, we could identify the jazz music in the background with helps to support their generation and culture that they were currently in. The motorbikes presented the group of boys to come across as rebellious comparison to the other characters in the scene.  The audience were able to clearly identify the fact that the group of men was challenging traditional values making the film become more interesting.

From this experience at the BFI, as a class we have learnt a new range of different perspectives of Media culture and Identity which will be very useful to use in our exam. It has provided a wider view to what positions and different job roles the media industry provides whilst allowing me to learn what is expected of me in my A Level media class to successfully achieve a good A level in Media Studies. As a result I enjoyed the Media Trip and have come away with ways in which to improve my own opening sequence and involve more textual details throughout.

Script for Main Production

This is my groups script for our main task which will provide clear detail on each shots and angles for each scene. By having a good and detailed script it gives us as a group a better oppurtunity of producing a well presented scene including a mixture of shots and range of angles and make sure that we are filming in the correct scene.

Below is our script:

Changes to Pre-Production

After creating our pitch, we found that we wanted to make a few changes to our pre-production plan. As a good we decided that we wanted to create a drama mystery genre but we would like to add some supernatural touches due to altering the ending of the opening sequence. As a group we came up with the idea of at the end of the scene the young teenage girl walks away in a hurry but we felt that this wasnt the best way to leave the scene due to leaving it feeling dull and not attracting the audience attention to wanting to watch the whole film. Instead, we have now decided to have the girl being touch on the shoulder by the person who has been following her throughout the scene. This leaves the scene questioning to who it could be, and i find it a better way of leaving the opening sequence due to the audience intreged to find out who the msytery hand was and what then happens to the young girl.

I believe that change our pitch and ideas have enabled us to create a more mysterious and well explained openening sequence that will draw in the audience attention and create a dramatic atmosphere.

Story Board for our Final Production

Our group have planned out a story board for our main task to ensure that we include all the shots needed for our final production. This will help us when it comes to filming that we are able to identify the order of the shots and make sure that we are clear on the timing and direction of each shot.

Below is our story board:

Story Board New

Production Pitch

Me and my group created a production pitch which includes all important information for the main pre-production of our main task, such as the brief, our initial ideas and a planning of how we would like to shape our ideas into a practical film. We were asked to present our ideas to the rest of class so they were able to identify our thoughts and ideas of what our brief of our opening scene was being based on.

We put all of our ideas on a PowerPoint below;

Pitch2 - Media

The Brief for our Main Task

As a class we were asked to create an opening sequence within our production groups. There are very specific idea's that we need to ensure that is included throughout our opening sequence which contain titles, a soundtrack which must not be copyrighted, and the main focus on a faction film. This opening sequence must be approximate 2 minuets long.

 within our group, it was very important that we all had a clear idea of what we would like to present to our class taking into consideration and thoughts about the gender, soundtrack, introduction to main characters, title of the film and the credits.

There are many different Genders that out group could decide on to use for our production including, romance, adventure, comedy, horror, thriller or action. It is vital that our group are clear on each gender and feel comfortable using a certain gender for our production so research must be used for the conventions.

Due to the use of soundtrack must not be copyrighted, it may cause limitations to our production. However, to over come this problem the use of garage band used on the laptop/computer will help our group to come up with a soundtrack that is relevant to our scene. To be able to produce an efficient soundtrack for our production, our group will research some existing music that we think will suit our production and then use garage band and foiley sound to create something similar that will suit our opening scene. 

It is important that our group have planned out a time schedule for planning, recording and editing allowing us to have enough time to complete our production to the best standard we are able to provide. Although our opening scene is only 2 minuets long, it will take a long time for us to produce and edit before we will be happy to present it.