FINAL VIDEO

Here is our final video.
Hope you enjoy! :)

Costume List

We wanted to create the working class look, for Josh, as he was meant to look like he doesn't take care of him self. The first filming session we did went well, so we thought, however, when we watched the footage back, we realised that our protagonist looked too middle to upper class, as he wore a smarter looking jacket and a scarf. This resulted in us filming again. This time we concentrated especially on Josh's working class look. In the end he wore just a plain black jumper, over a plain t-shirt, with scruffy jeans.
The extras i.e. us, and Aaron weren't really in the shots as we were mainly there to add extra voices to the party scene.

Cast

Our protagonist - Josh McManus.
Extras-

• Aaron Fletcher,
• Danielle Langley
• Harriet Miller,
• Ram Kaur.

Props Used In Our Opening Sequence.

-beer bottles and a wine bottle.
-pillows
-balloons
-Harriet's shoes

We used these props to essentially make our sequence more realistic, as these are the sorts of objects that you would find in any home. The beer bottle was our protagonists main prop, as it showed that he was resorting to alcohol to forget about his broken home life.
The balloons were added to signify a party atmosphere. Even though we only saw a glimpse of one in the corner of one of our shots. The pillows were scattered everywhere to show the state of the house after the party. The pillows also represented our protagonists state of mind, as they were scattered all over the place.
Harriet's shoe was just added to the shots to portray how untidy the house was after the party had taken place.

Permision Slips from Josh and Aaron

Filming again

As a group, we decided our footage wasn't good enough. The protagonist looked too 'middle class' with his scarf and expensive looking coat.
We also realised there were a lot of props in the shots that were totally unrelated and distracted the audience from what was happening.

Another problem we encountered was that when we filmed it was quite dark.
We thought we could lighten it quite easily on 'Final Cut' but when it came to it, the footage was quite grainy.
Therefore we decided to film again.

I (Harriet) took some photographs of us filming which are on the left.

This time we put a lot of effort into the framing, props and the costumes used.
We got our main Actor to wear a plain blue sweater with a plain white T-shirt underneath. We also made sure there were no unnecessary props in the shots. For example last time there was a television in the background and the very top of the Sofa.

Having said that, we did still encounter some problems while filming. For example: The camcorder didn't have the shoe to attach it onto the tripod, so we attached it with sellotape.
The battery and the spare battery were also very low which meant we had to turn the camcorder off between each shot and we couldn't watch very much of our footage back while on set.

However we got the footage we wanted for in the first place and hopefully it will turn out well!

Location for our footage

The location for our footage is Danielle's house. 42 Whitegate Close in Swavesey.
We'll use two rooms for the sequence. This will be the kitchen where our protagonist sits drinking his beer. The second room is the living room, where we will see our protagonist wake up. Ideally we would have liked to film in a more working class looking home and neighborhood.

Test Footage

Here is our test footage, we've played around with the editing of the party scene. We've decided not to use this footage, as our protagonist looks too middle class. We also tested out the music, and how we're going to introduce it.

Snow day!!

It's another day with lots of snow, so unfortunately i am the only one from my group in!
Ram did come in for a bit but she had to leave half way through otherwise she wouldn't be able to get home!
We do not have anything to do until we film and i can't do that on my own, so i have decided to use my time effectively and watch some social realist opening sequences.

Update on filming

This lesson we have decided to film during media and after school next Monday.
Obviously if it is still snowing we will have to postpone.

Class Feedback

In class today we went around the classroom in our groups to analyze other groups blogs. Individually we had to suggest one positive and one improvement each which we should make to the blogs.

This is the feedback we got from the other groups, about our blog-

POSITIVES

• Good descriptive writing
• Nice animatic
• '"I like the production company, but 'Twin' and 'Production' should be in different places"
• Shows development of ideas well
• Lots of information
• Good research
• Good mood boards

IMPROVEMENTS

• Not enough pictures
• Mixed up, not in order
• Random videos with no comments
• Work not spread out amongst group members
• Terrible logo needs attention... (This comes from a group that doesn't even have an ident)
• Requires more comprehensive notes...Try to put some feelings into them-Too impersonal.
• Lack of images

We understand it is essential to receive feedback as it shows us how well we are doing and gives us constructive criticism which is really useful to improve our blog. Later this lesson or in the near future we are going to put these improvements into action and hopefully overall improve our blog.
Our new group is formed out of two thriller groups. Me (Harriet) and Danielle are from thriller group p2-38 and Ram is from P2-40. I like to think that because this is our second project and blog, we will have made significant improvements and learned from our mistakes since last time, therefore i hope this blog is better than our last thriller blog.

Final animatic

This is our final animatic that Ram finished in final cut, we also added our ident to the beginning, to represent our group and production name. We don't have any sound for the argument because we couldn't get the portable microphone that allowed us to record outside. However if we had been able to add sound today we would have had the recording of voices shouting to represent the protagonists parents shouting. The music for the party scene is very rough, and it would probably sound very different when we actually film it. On the last scene where the protagonist runs down the street, we'll freeze the shot, to show a blurry still image of the character in mid run. This will emphasise the speed he's running and the fact he's running away from his life, and going out of control

Planning for filming

On Monday we plan to start filming our opening sequence. We will get the bus to one of our members-Danielle's house and start to film our sequence. We have limited time of which we are all available together, so we hope to film all of it.
We thought carefully about who our actors should be and in the end we decided to take some of our friends who do performance studies or similar, to be actors in the sequence and hope they will be able to portray our characters effectively.

We are aiming to leave quite early, in order to get the outside shots while it is still light, we will then film the indoor shots when it is dark. However we understand the weather can be unpredictable and if there are problems with the light we hope to be able to alter this on 'Final Cut' or return to film again at a later time.

'She's the man' Opening sequence analysis

The opening sequence of ‘She’s the man (2006)’ is a romantic teen comedy. The opening sequence very much focuses on a group of teenagers playing soccer on the beach. This strongly suggests that the rest of the film is going to be about soccer. The sequence also flickers between real life and cartoon stills. This could be read as the scenario of the movie being exaggerated, like a typical teen romantic comedy. The names of the actors and titles also come up with the cartoon animations. The title of the film ‘She’s the man’ first comes up as ‘He’s the man’ and then an animated ‘S’ gets put in front of it. This could be read as a switch between a girl and a boy, which is what the film is about as well as soccer.
The diagetic music in the background is very ‘pop’ sounding. This is stereotypically the genre of music teenage girls like to listen too; therefore we can tell the film is aimed at a youth and probably female audience. The setting is also on a beach full of teenagers and a happy environment which suggests the film is going to be quite light-hearted.
Even in the opening sequence we can tell the film is going to follow convention. This is because at the end of the opening sequence we see a boy and a girl both kiss. From this we can tell the movie is going to be based on a heterosexual romance. Having seen the film myself, I know that the film follows other conventions throughout the film. For example the main character has a makeover to turn her into a boy. It also provides stereotypical characters and is very comedic.
However from the title sequence, we can tell that the film is going to challenge some conventions, as the main girl is playing soccer well with boys, which is stereotypically something the boy, ‘Jock character’ would do.

Definitions and conventions of the five given genres

Social realist: a film that generally depicts culture to the given area. Usually in a suburban area with working class characters. Often uses handheld cameras, to give a documentary feel. The narrative is usually someone fighting to improve their life, which focus on current events. Often inexperienced actors are used. Natural sound and lighting is used. Examples: Malcolm X, Land of Freedom, Milk.

Teenage romantic comedy: Humorous scenes, relatable but often far fetched. Exaggerated scenarios, often based around prom night with very stereotypical characters. Usually based on heterosexual relationships, and generally a happy ending. Examples: High School Musical, Never Been Kissed, Mean Girls.

Crime caper with an ensemble cast: There's usually a leader of a group. storyline is based around sophisticated crime. Consequences of criminal actions arent seen in the film. Usually set in cities. Audience get a sense of subconcious relief by watching characters break free of society's rules. Identification encouraged with the criminals. Examples: Layer Cake, Oceans Eleven, Snatch.

Supernatural thriller: Usually to do with the paranormal and supernatural. Generally a hero or heroine, who has to save someone or retrive something. Sometimes having to find the "answer" to something. Examples: Minority Report, Donnie Darko

Adventure (Children): The characters are constantly placed in danger, usually trying to find something or someone, often involves magic or the supernatural. Usually have to face a fear, something that is explained earlier in the fim. Examples: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia.

Sound and editing for our production sequence

After looking through sound effects CD's we wanted a calming, almost childlike sound.
We decided to use a music box, which made it seem very innocent, and went well with our production sequence.

We also added some animation to the words "twin" and "production"
using key frame, we made the words come out from the frame.
We also faded in the words, making "twin" come first and "productions" very shortly after.

Hey :)

We forgot to mention who's in our group.
There's Ram, she's the one with black hair
Then there's Harriet, she's small and blonde
and, there's Danielle, who's got blonde curly hair.

For this project we'll be making a film opening for a certain genre. We'll be doing all the planning and development on here.

We hope you enjoy what we create!
:)

Production ideas

We thought carefully about the name our company was going to have as it represents us as a group.

We wanted to come up with a realistic name to fit in with our natural Social Realist drama.

We came up with a number of ideas which are written below-

• Stop productions
  
• Twin productions
  
• Quad productions
  
• Gemini productions
  
• Virgo productions
  
• Open films
  
• Jingle productions
  

In the end we decided to use "Twin Productions."