Evaluation - Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The preliminary task took place just before the Christmas holidays, in which we split up into groups and made a basic film in which we had to display a number of video editing and filming skills, such as match on action. We were not in the same group for this, Joe was with Olivia and Bianca, and Jake was with Becky and Kimmy.

Joe

When I was working with Olivia and Bianca, we encountered a number of problems, such as when we thought we were filming and we weren’t, meaning we had lost a small amount of footage, but it was something we could easily recover from with other shots we had. Another issue we had was having strange shots that didn’t go together very well. From all this I learnt a number of things such as being careful when filming and making sure shots went together well in editing.

 Jake

The short film that Kimmy, Becky and I created was quite good. We received good feedback from the teachers and other students, so I was confident going into the coursework.

After the preliminary task, and the Christmas holidays, we were then all allowed to choose new groups, in which we teamed up and made our group, HYDC. Once we were all grouped up, we had 2 weeks to prepare for our filming.

Once everything was planned, we could finally start filming, which we were very prepared for, we had storyboards and screenplays all done, which were prepared to change slightly if we thought of funnier or better things on the day, which we did. When we were filming we made sure that all our shots would flow together nicely and there would not be any odd cuts, something Jake was already a bit more educated on from his preliminary task, resulting in what we felt were shots that, when edited, all went together nicely.

When it came to the framing of the shots, Joe was a little sloppy about these, and occasionally forgot to pay close attention to them, but Jake was very attentive to the shots, in which Joe eventually caught on and started making sure all the shots were framed well. I(Joe) think this came to the preliminary task again, in which we worked in small conditions, so there weren’t many options for shots and we were happy with the ones we got.

Editing was something that was very tricky for what we had envisioned, one example of this was having words coming from behind a character as he walked, but when it came to editing, we found that not only would it be unnecessary, it would be time consuming, and we could be putting that time into making the film generally better and more refined. In the preliminary task, the editing was fairly simple and consisted of editing cuts together and putting in some credits, so since then there have been numerous improvements in our skill set.

The biggest improvement we believe was iMovie, at first we were completely clueless when it came to it, simple tasks took lengthy amounts of time, but as we went on there was clearly progression in our ability to use it, as we were using keyboard shortcuts more efficiently and although the program doesn’t include many advanced tools, we became more able at the simpler tools.

One of the biggest problem we had initially, and we found a lot of people struggled with this, was using a mac in general, most people in the class were new to macs, including us, but they are fairly intuitive and we caught on how to use them fairly fast, we also think that as we grasped how to use a mac, other programs were easier to use on it.

Overall, there have been a lot of improvements, that will make doing media A2 easier as we won’t have to start from knowing nothing about filming, editing and using macs to having a decent understanding of them.

Evaluation - Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of creating this product?

  The thing we have learnt the most is controlled use of camera and editing. Joe learnt more about editing, while Jake learnt more about controlled camera use.  

What have you learn about technologies from the process of constructing this project? on Prezi

Evaluation - Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

We addressed our audience right away with the name of our film - 'A day in the life of a Nerd'. Straight away this addresses our target audience - the 'nerd' stereotype. After addressing our audience, we then attracted them with obscure game and film references. Such as the alarm we used in the film, which originated from here:

The way we parody certain 'nerd' stereotypes may attract people to watch the video - or could push them away. Personally, we feel that this would more likely attract them to the film, rather then turn them away.

There was also an obscure scene we didn't include because only gamers would be able to understand it, here it is:

Mentioned also in an early question, the use of specific nerd shirts is appealing for our target audience.

Evaluation - Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The main audience of our product  is the young male demographic that are interested in video games.

Evaluation - Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?

We believe of these 3 media companies, Warp X are most likely to distribute our product as they produce niche independent films.

Evaluation - Question 2

How does your media product present particular social groups?

Throughout our film, we placed heavy emphasis on the 'nerd' stereotype in society. Many people believe that nerds wear glasses, have braces and love sci-fi, much like this 'nerd':

We aim to play off these stereotypes, and we feel like we did this effectively. With the use of Mise-en-Scene, we showed early on that these characters were nerds, through the use of such shirts as:

 Jake and his Assassins Creed shirt

Luis with his Star Trek shirt, George and his "I scored with the Princess" shirt and Sean with his Nerd shirt

The use of mainstream video games, such as Minecraft and Call of Duty, we also portrayed the young male demographic. Nowadays main young males, between the ages of 15 and 25, play video games. This is because ratings of games can go up to +18, so many young adults are still encouraged to play video games.

A Minecraft screenshot

Evaluation - Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

We always compare our film to 'King of Kong', we do this because we feel the films are very similar, as 'King of Kong' was a very big influence for us.

We developed on features of 'King of Kong' as we felt they could be improved, and we like to feel that we achieved this.

Here is a short commentary over our film, where we quickly discuss the choices we made when filming and editing:

Feedback

On Monday 26th March, we had a class screening of everyone's films. Everyone filled out feedback sheets and these were ours...

As you can see, the feedback was mostly positive, apart from we negative point. We discussed this point during filming and agreed it was the best we could do with the circumstances. 

Overall, we are pleased with the feedback and glad everyone else likes it, and the effort we put in has come out the other end.

Evaluation Ideas

For your evaluation, Joe and I want to do something creative, such as a video log or a commentary, rather than just an essay.

Here is our ideas:

We want to do a video log, that incorporates other programs and software, such as Prezi and iMovie.

We would like to end the project on a strong note, and a creative video log, or series of video logs, would be a unique creative way to do this.

Such an idea will take a lot of editing time, as well as filming and creating the other features.

Unlike our other video logs, we will probably script this one, so it looks much more professional and so we don't stumble over our words as much.

We would like to finish the writing we are going to do, and the other features before the end of half term so in half term we can film the video and edit it together.

Filming Day Vlogs

Throughout the course of the day, we recorded some behind the scenes footage of us from time to time, just talking about progress throughout the day among other things, such as the loss of 7 hours of behind the scenes footage. Apologies for any swearing, general silliness ensues.

Joe's vlogs



Jake's vlogs

 

Headshots

These are the headshots of everyone in the opening Sequence

Sean Williams

Jake Fisher

Joe Reddie

 Nathan Sinclair

Luis Morera

George Fullick

Good Job Team, Get Ready For The Next Round

(Credit to Jake for the obscure Call of Duty reference)

Today, the 16th March 2012, HYDC Media finished their opening sequence at 2:43pm.

Salvation.

Joe's 2nd blog

The blog has been fairly quiet recently, our heads have been down and we have been editing our video thoroughly. I made a short vlog talking about editing, and some of the problems we have had along the way.

Editng so far...

After importing all of our 85-86 clips onto our computer, it was time to start editing.

Joe and I were really looking forward to the editing, as we had some really good ideas.

Joe created our very good production logo and this so far works well with the intro we have created.

The production logo fades nicely into a black screen with "E5Y productions presents" in white text. This screen lasts for about 5-6 seconds and half was through some sound we recorded bridged this black screen and the first interview.

Nathan's interview is shorter then we planned as we did some calculations and we can't fit in all of everyones interview.

Editing Post - 27th February

Today is the day we are going to start with the majority of our editing.

Previously, Jake and I have done a brief piece of editing with the very beginning of our film, and today we are hoping to make a lot of progress.

Recording Session Review

We did our filming on February 12th. The session lasted for about 7 and a half hours and was our only session we recorded in. I arrived at Joe's for about 11, an hour before the "actors" were told to arrive. This hour was to set up the web cam, and film some brief example shots in Joe's bedroom.

Our actors started to arrive around 12, so after their head shots were taken, it was time to start filming.

Joe also supplied several "nerd shirts" for our actors in case they weren't wearing one.

We started filming with Nathan's interview. This was one of the harder interviews to film, as it was the first one and we couldn't stop laughing, although final footage was good.

Filming started off well, and we were confident for a good session.

Next was Sean for his interview, Sean had bought some of his own props, and these were comedic so we aloud him to wear them. Sean added a fairly posh voice for his character and this was also comedic so we let him do so for the rest of the time. We filmed about 3 clips of Sean's first interview.

After taking a short break to watch the clips to see if they were of standard, it was time to film Joe. Joe had a funny shot where he had to storm off swearing after saying how peaceful gaming can be, which we hope portrays the irony we were trying to capture.

So after about an hour, filming was going very well and Joe and I were looking forward to trying some more advanced shots.

It was then my time to be filmed, and we altrered this shot quite a bit, as we wanted to add more irony. So we took about 5 or 6 clips filming this as we had to find an approiate joke for this shot.

Once again, another short break was taken to check footage, and Joe did a quick little vlog to summarise the first part of this session.

The fifth interview was Luis, he was fairly shy of being on camera and we couldn't blame him, but he did well and acted like a proper "nerd".

The final interview we wanted to film was George, which wasn't actually an interview but trying to find george for an interview. Adding more random humour to our film hopefully.

We then stop for a lunch break for about 45 minutes then resumed filming on a HYDC round table discussion. I liked filming this sequence as it had a really smooth 360 shot that Joe and I did, but unfortunately, I don't think we can use this sequence in our opening becuase it is too long.

Then came probably the hardest thing we shot. Joe and I had several different ideas on how we wanted the "actors" to answer the question "have you ever had a girlfriend?"

We tried a sequence were the first person who was interviewed, Nathan, repeated the question and looked confused, then it cuts to the other "nerds" looking confused like they had been asked that question.

We also tried a shot where it panned around the room looking at all the nerds being confused, but this was hard as their was no way that Joe or I could pan the camera and still be in the shot in our places.

The final idea was to set the camera up on its own, and have all of use sit on the settee and say girlfriend and looked confused at each other. This was extremely hard to film! We were all having fun with this one, not knowing when to say girlfriend and generally just messing up. In the end, we had about 12 minutes of footage for this one shot.

Joe and I then also wanted to capture some more footage in case we wanted to use it. So we tried a shto where Joe answers the door to let us all in, just in case we wanted it and also Joe and I did a little sequence of Joe getting out of bed at 5 in the afternoon, then going downstairs and letting us straight in.

It would probably have some better editing and variation of shots if we use these two clips, and add more variation then just interview after interview.

At about 6 in the evening, filming was finished and it was time to say goodbye to our actors after a great filming session.

Unfortunately though, later that evening Joe told me that the 7 and a half hours of footage from the web cam we had in the corner of the room didn't save, which wasn't too bad, but we had some plans to edit that together and add some unique footage in the blog. Wasn't a real problem though.

Overall, the recording session went really well, we got loads of clips we can use and we had a really good laugh recording, so hopefully our end product is the same.

Finished Production Logo

This is our finished production logo, it differs from the previous versions quite severely, as we did not want our Production company name to be HYDC as well as our team name, so we took an inside joke of ours, in which we would greet each other with "E5Y" and it became our production company, and gave it a clever and silly name. "E5Y" stands for "Entertainment 4 You, but it's so good it's Entertainment 5 You".

Previously, the opening was going to be a long sequence in which I  travel along a track, but instead, I dug a hole to a cave, in which I made the E5Y logo, then fell down to it.

I made this on Minecraft, a game in which you can build anything you like with blocks. As it's a game that appeals to children, it somewhat fits our silly comedy theme. After I had recorded it, I added my voiceover to the clip to add another element to it, then added the title over it.

Filming day microblog

Yep, filming day is here and we will be updating the blog with small updates here and there.

11:04 - Setting up filming, waiting for our "actors"

11:47 - recorded some sound from Call of Duty to use in our film.

12:08 - our "actors" actually start arriving.

12:09 - George headshot done.

12:12 - Luis and Sean arrived.

12:15 - Luis and Sean headshot done.

12:31 - Nathan arrives late as usual.

12:34 - Nathan headshot done.

12:38 - Starting Nathan's first interview filming.

12:59 - Recording done for Nathan's interview.

13:00 - Filming for Sean's interview starts.

13:10 - Footage for Sean got.

13:14 - Filming for Joe's interview starts.

13:23 - Filming finishes for Joe.

13:28 - Filming for Jake starts.

13:41 - Filming finishes.

13:45 - Taking a short break.

14:00 - Break over.

14:02 - Filming for Luis starts.

14:17 - Luis done.

14:23 - George goes missing.

14:25 - George returns and starts filming.

14:35 - Filming for George done.

14:45 - Lunch break.

15:30 - Starting recording again.

16:12 - Finish interesting round table discussion filming.

16:28 - Girlfriend?!?

16:35 - Girlfriend scenes record.

16:40 - Re-watching footage.

17:10 - Recording us entering Joe's house.

17:22 - Got the footage.

17:30 - Filming sequence of Joe waking up.

17:58 - Got the sequence with few clips.

18:00 - Start importing footage to Joe's mac.

18:21 - Actors start to leave.

19:16 - Import finishes.

19:27 - Web cam footage didn't save.

Final Decision on Scenario

Before the day of filming, Joe and I decided on what our final scenario will be.

Out of the few ideas we had brainstormed, we decided to do the "Day in the Life" scenario, where we briefly show what a day is like for us.

We thought this idea would be best, as it would be easier to film, and easier for our "actors" to act as they are not actual actors, so a normal role that they are used to would be better for the quality.

This is the best decision for our film, as we can also add more effects, cuts and transitions rather then just interviews.

Rethinking the scenario

We have considered changing our film slightly so that we can have a more believable story, as some feedback we received was that a reunion isn't incredibly believable as after the opening there would not be much more to happen, so we drew up a brain storm to see the different ideas.

Music

In our film, music may be a big issue. We are not aloud to use any copyrighted music, which may affect the choices we'll make.

Luckily, I know of some sources on YouTube that provide copyright free music as long as they are credited, so this will help us a lot.

The artists I know we can use are:

Eoin O'Brien - http://www.youtube.com/user/EoinOBroinMusic

Example song:

Approaching Nirvana - www.youtube.com/user/approachingnirvana

Example song:

Both of these artists produce good music, the type we are looing to use, and we should be able to use their songs as long as we credit them, simply by mentioning 'Music by Noisestorm' or 'Music by Approaching Nirvana'.

The idea of using cover songs from http://www.soundcloud.com/ or from YouTube is very beneficial to Joe and I.

Joe's Vlog 6th February

Joe did a vlog on:

 - The Star Trek prop
 - Setting of the film
 - Experimentation shots

and some other random ideas

Exemplar Work

On the February 8th, in class we watched 3 different films made by pupils from other schools. We had an example of the mark scheme and had to mark the 3 films on a level basis.

Here is the marks and ratings we gave to each of videos.

This helped us get a better idea of the kind of things examiners are looking for and how to get the marks needed.

Titles

For our genre of film, it is very important that the title reflects this genre. Light hearted comedy films normally have light coloured, bubbly font for their title.
Here are some examples from 'Office Space'

Obviously, this style of font isn't going to be used for a horror film, as it simply just doesn't portray the genre.

Here are some examples of titles from non-comedic films. The bold text is simple on the other hand, and arguably could be any genre, but in this case the film is a drama, Trainspotting.

 The simple white text doesn't over complicate the genre, and in this case doesn't give away the genre, up until the end of the opening sequence, this film could have been a comedy.

The font used in this screenshot is from Sweeney Todd, a horror film. The chilling font again that this film probably won't be a comedy, this is supported by the dark colours in the background and contrast with the text.

Here are some more examples from influences we have had. The Other Guys is a wierd example for titles, as the film has a mixed genre of action and comedy. The obvious comedy aspects are more the characters then the title in this scene, and the theme of action is presented through the title.

The next example is from Step Brothers. This is the type of title we are looking to produce, a simple black background with bubbly text. This technique works well in comedy films and portrays the theme well.

Although, this technique is what we will probably use for the simple production screen after our production company intro, and the title of the film may be produced in another way.

We will mock up some examples of our own with different texts and post in it another post.

Target Audience Vlog

This was our blog for our target audience, uploaded a few weeks too late.

Schedule

On February 3rd, I planned out times and locations on our schedule sheet. This also included the date we are recording on. This schedule will be beneficial for us as it will help us manage our time.

Animated Storyboard

This video involves the second draft of our storyboard which we edited together in iMovie.

We improved on our first draft simply by doing more detailed drawings to get a better idea of the shots whilst the original storyboard was more aimed at showing the general gist of how our opening scene was going to look. We animated it to make it all look more clean and we tried to add Ken Burns effects to certain boards to portray effects like pans and zooms, we found it quite tricky using the new iMovie software and will most likely use the older version when it comes to editing the final opening.

Second Draft of Storyboard

After receiving feedback from our teacher, we added some extra detail to out storyboard including effects, music and what the shot is of. The inclusion of such detail will help us a lot more when it comes to filiming our production, as it will be clearer to see what we meant through each shot rather then just a simple drawing we did at the time.

Soundtrack thoughts

In our film we are looking to use two different types of music. We will either use a relaxing, slow song similar to the one used in "King of Kong", or an upbeat indie song, something that gives off quite a light, happy vibe, similar to A-Punk by Vampire Weekend or Norgaard by The Vaccines.

As much as we would like to use either of these songs, they are protected by copyright, thus we must produce our own soundtrack or find some copyright free material.

Location Shots

This is a simple rough panoramic shot from my living room, where most, if not all, of the opening scene will take place. We used this location to shoot the opening as we have actually gathered here to play video games on numerous occasions and we felt it would feel more natural if it was shot here.

Screenplay - First Draft

INT. JOE'S LIVING ROOM. DAY.
Over the 'E5Y Production Presents' screen, ambient sound with sounds from Call of Duty.

NATHAN interview starts.

NATHAN

Yeah, I guess you could say we come here most weekends. We just sort of play video games and you know, just chill and stuff.

Cuts to SEAN interview.

SEAN

We haven't been here in a while since Black Ops, the seventh Call of Duty, came out. To be honest it was just a let down for our standards.

Cuts to a quote over a black background

Cuts to overview shot of JOE playing the game, cuts to JOE's interview.

JOE

Why do we play video games? I dunno I guess it's just fun, and we can be as sociable as we like... without having to leave the house, really I see no negatives from playing video ga... WHAT THE *bleep* I KILLED HIM THAT'S BULL *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* *bleep* 

JOE storms out, throwing the controller, swearing.

INT. JOE'S BEDROOM. DAY.

Cuts to a shot of Joe's poster wall goes across the screen.

INT. JOE'S LIVING ROOM. DAY.

Cuts to JAKE interview.

JAKE

Some people judge us, for playing lots of video games, but really we're deep and intelligent. *Someone tells a fart joke in the background*. People have this "stereotype" of what a "nerd" is, we don't all have glasses and watch Star Trek.

Cuts to LUIS interview.

LUIS

When you really think about it, we use video games as an ESCAPE from reality, we use it to shield off nay-sayers and jump into a world of- 

Cuts half way through Luis's dialogue to another title shot, this time of a controller.

Cut to GEORGE interview, where there is no one to be seen

Pan to find George is not in the seat he was supposed to be interviewing, and he is staring directly into the camera lens.

Cut to NATHAN second interview

______________________________________________________________________

2 POSSIBLE SCENES:

1:

NATHAN

Have I ever had a girlfriend?

*Nathan pauses the game and looks at the interviewer confused*

The camera pans around the room looking at everyone, everyone looks confused.

2:

NATHAN

Have I ever had a girlfriend?

*Nathan pauses the game and looks at the interviewer confused*

It then cuts to each person, 1 at a time, looking confused in relation to the girlfriend question.

______________________________________________________________________

Cut to a shot of everyone sitting on a sofa

JOE

Why are we here today? The reunion of H Y D C!

Joe, Jake, Nathan and Sean jump up, removing their shirts to reveal HYDC shirts underneath, they then proceed to high five 

White title saying "The reunion of HYDC" comes on over the top, before the shot fades to black, then the text fades away.

Storyboard - First draft

This was our first draft storyboard, it was very simple and rough, and gives a brief idea as to the shots we will use. After this, we will draw an A5 page for each shot then give them some brief animations and possibly voice overs from all  the people.

Production Logo

A good production logo is important for determining the feel and genre of a certain film. The production logo should reflected the target audience of the film, as well as the genre.

Copy of Production Logos on Prezi

Our production logo will reflect on the theme of our film, as well as the genre. Our film is all about gaming, and we plan to create our production logo on the game "Minecraft". This will reflect on the theme of games, and also can be very creative. "Minecraft" is a game available only on the PC, where everything is made of blocks, and there are over 100 different types of blocks.

11th January - So far, we have an idea for the production logo where we write the name of our production company, which we haven't decided on yet, inside a mountain and then blow the mountain up to reveal the name. This can be very creative and reflective on our theme. This wouldn't be to hard to create, but would be really effective for a production logo.

23rd January - Upon research and development, Joe created a production intro for our film. It was in Minecraft, but instead of our original, earlier idea, Joe created a interesting track ride that started underground and then came to the surface and travelled through a Minecraft world, until the cart stopped infront of a huge "HYDC" title with lava flowing behind. In my opinion, it was a very good idea for the production intro, we just need to fine tune it whlist editing.

30th January - Joe and I realised that "HYDC" isn't going to be the production companies name for our film, so we are going to rename it to something else.

Initial Production Logo

Initial Production Logo video
This is a video, made on minecraft, of the original footages of our production logo:

I intend to speed up the whole clip and possibly add some music, when it is finished Jake and I will do a more in depth post on why we made it like this.

Detailed influence

This was our rough timeline.

HYDC's Detailed Study of the Structure of an Opening Sequence on Prezi

This is our detailed analysis of The King of Kong, an influence for us.

An issue that occured when making our first prezi was that the frames we used were visible, when we assumed they were hidden.

From this opening, we received a number of ideas and insights, one is the shots between interviews of relevant items of interest, such as gaming posters or controllers or game cases. We also got our idea for simple titles from this as well, in which they fade in and out at appropriate times. Finally, we got the idea for a quote between some of the shots, something we can use to our advantage, to add humour and possibly another shot.

Jake's Update Post

Just a brief blog about what Joe and I have discuss that doesn't necessarily fit into any other posts or isn't long enough for its own post.

Thursday, January 19th.
On Friday, January 13th, Joe and I sat down and attempted to record a video log for our blog, this would add a variety to the types of media we have used so far and can be very creative. We both have seen many video logs so we have had a good idea of how to structure it. The video log was about our target audience, as we agreed that we couldn't really add a variety of media to this blog post, so a video log sounded like a good idea. After we had recorded our video log, we found it quite had to edit creatively, as we didn't take enough breaks or have a lot of variety, so we are unsure about posting this video log at the moment.

Although, we both like the idea of weekly video logs. Over the last few days we have discussed possible names and themes for what they could be about. These can either be together or separately, we both have the same editing software at home so individual wouldn't be so hard.
We both agree that video logs are creative and fun to produce, it would also help improve the presentation of the blog instead of a wall of text.

Joe and I are both looking forward to producing our film, we have so many ideas that we want to incorporate, but I find the problem I'm having is remembering we are just doing an opening scene. We plan to record everything we think of, so we can mix and match when editing together the clips.

Finally, I like the idea of having a random post that quickly shows our ideas and discussions that don't fit into other posts. I will discuss further with Joe.

Tuesday, January 24th.

Over the past few days, Joe and I have been trying to organise the date we wish to record our footage on. This involved talking with the friends we wanted to be involved in our production and seeing when they are available. Filming time is between February 6th and the February 24th, which includes half-term. Joe and I would like to film as early as possible, so we tried to arrange for the 11th of February, but most people weren't available on this date so we decided that the next few days after that should be fine.

I'm also considering doing video logs for this post as it would be a lot more interesting and creative way to share our random thoughts and discussions.

Finally, in my opinion, after the initial beginning posts, influences and moodboards etc, it has been quite slow thinking of ideas for new posts and adding work to our old posts, so work on the blog has been slow whlist doing our storyboards.

Target Audience

When planning our film, we were told that we had to address our target audience. Together, we discussed who we are aiming at.

The target audience we are planning to aim at will be males, and specifically males between the ages of 15 and 30. This is because our "mockumentary" will have a particular audience, people who play Call of Duty, and these people are generally males and are generally aged between 15 and 30 as the game has a certificate of 18.

Also, the humour aspect of our "mockumentary" will be aimed more at obscure audiences. References from Will Ferrell films and jokes involving Star Wars are expected to be included.
Although it is risky doing comedy films, especially with our idea, we believe the humour will be portrayed even if you don't understand the jokes. This is because of the way we plan to represent characters, and the use of  interesting shots and editing we are going to include.
The film would be a "niche" film, with only the particular audience that would be attracted to go watch a film like this, the idea of "niche" was also influences by the low budget of a film like this.
Overall, our target audience will most likely be males between the ages of 15 and 30.

The Pitch & Synopsis

This very brief post contains the pitch we pitched to our class and a brief synopsis of what we plan our film to be about.

Pitch:

Our film will be a "Mockumentary" about a group of teenage boys trying to reunite their old Call Of Duty clan.

Words: 21

Synopsis:

Our film is a "Mockumentary" based around numerous teenage boys, on a mission to reunite their clan "HYDC", it will take the viewer through an ordinary weekend of playing video games, bad jokes and obscure film references, as the viewer finds out about what happened to the clan, the video games they play and their lack of a social life, showing the highs, lows and the mountains they must climb to once again reclaim their prestige. It takes a comedic stance on documentaries and the stereotypes associated with gamers.

Words: 89

Why did we choose this idea over the other ones we had?

All of our ideas were for comedy films, so we both sat down and discussed which idea we could produce that would be funny, but also well structured in terms of camera shots and the use of editing. At first we lent towards our idea of raging in a game and snapping the disc, because it would be interesting to film and would need some clever editing. We stuck with this idea until we saw "King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters". Immediatly, this was an influence for us both and swayed use towards our idea of a "Mockumentary". Not only could we add humour to our "Mockumentary", but we could parody stereotypical features of documentaries, as well as inculding clever editing and camera work. What sealed this idea for use was the idea that we could involve some of our friends to help with the filiming, and this is when we decided to continue with this idea.

Discussion of Ideas

On the 9th January, we decided to brainstorm ideas and concepts for our final product. This involved drawing spider diagrams for genre, scenario and film.

Mutually, we decided that comedy is the way to go, although we already knew this. Comedy plays to the strengths we have. Another genre that came up in discussion was action/drama parodies, where we mock famous action or drama films and add comedic touches to it.

Then we had to decide on scenarios. We both mentioned our love of gaming and Will Ferrell, so this supported our idea of comedy. This then meant we should try implicate the idea of the main character being a stereotypical 'nerd', as we know enough of how to portray 'nerds'.

With our genre and scenario set, we brainstormed ideas on what the film can be, where we came up with 5 final ideas. Listed below:

Outside: This would be a film about a gamer who rages at their game and ends up snapping the disc. This would then lead said gamer on a whole new adventure of the voyage outside of their bedroom, and into the scary place known as the 'outside world'. We decided that we could make a fairly technical, yet simple opening sequence for this idea.
Day in the life of a modern nerd: Once again this idea would be fairly easy for us to produce, as the humour that would be in this film, is the humour and both of us enjoy. It would be set out similar to a documentary, which is quite risky, where we would observe the test subject 'nerd' and see what a typical Saturday is like for him. We decided we could parody features of traditional documentaries, such as one-on-one interviews and casual observation. At this time, 9th January, this idea is probably our favourite and has received the backing of fellow classmates.
Action film boy: This opening sequence would be focused on a character who believes that he lives within an action film. There would be plenty of slow-motion and barrel rolls included. The character would also quote obscure movie references and scenes. The only thing lacking for this idea is how we would produce the opening sequence.
Christmas: Similar to the idea of a character living in an action film, this character wakes up every morning believing that it is Christmas. Once again, this idea would be hard to produce an opening sequence for, but we have some ideas that we could use. This idea, on 9th January, is our back-up plan, if all others seem to hard to produce.
Would you go out with me?: This would be a funny opening sequence to produce, where a character is obsessed over an internet model and decides to ask her out over a video on YouTube. We both agreed on a fairly comical, technical intro we could possiby produce for this film, so we like the look of this one at the moment (9th January)

After our media lesson on 9th January, I decided to briefly brainstorm a few possible names for our production in a spider diagram. At this time, I have only come up with one or two for each possible production but I need to discuss with Joe. Once we have the idea of the opening sequence we want to produce, it will be easier to decide an appropriate name.

The idea is to have a name that is funny, witty and relevant to our opening sequence. A clever pun would also fit in well with our genre.

16th January - We  are now certain on what film we are going to prodcue, it will be a "mockumentary" on the getting together of a group of teenage boys who play games together. We have decided that the name we are likely to use for our film will be something like "The reuniting of HYDC" or something similar, perhaps the "reunion". It reflects what our "Mockumentary" is about and is an interesting title, we also choose this one because it resembles what actual dockumentaries are about.

The Other Guys Intro

The Other Guys is a comedy action film released in the summer of 2010. Roughly the opening 2 minutes is a typical action scene involving a car chase between a couple of cops and a group of drug runners. This scene consists of typical short takes and non-diegetic music to create the sense of action. Although this scene doesn't reflect on the rest of the film, it does give an introduction to the film, it introduces the the NYC police department and the main characters, the 'Other Guys'. This scene reflects on the genre of the film as it has heavy action and some comedic lines from Dwanye Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson. The traditional credits also introduce the other main characters; Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Steve Coogan and Eva Mendes. 
Overall, the opening 2 minutes are not stereotypical. The sequence is almost contrasting to what is expected from the rest of the film and makes it unique and interesting.

The Figher Intro

The intro to “The Fighter” starts with a black background and the words “Based on a true story.” This sets up the film and gives it a bit of background before the words fade out and the opening shot starts. This is a tracking shot in which we see a seemingly well built character is working on a road, before a second character is revealed to us and pans round to him, in a single long take. After this is a number of short takes in which we see the two characters (revealed to be Dicky and Micky Ward) pretend to box, these takes give it a sense of pace and gives it a very fun feel, parodying a boxing match.

 

After this, a camera crew is revealed and there is a shot behind the camera crew, then behind the two brothers again. There is then a reverse zoom down a very long street, to give us an idea of the area they are living in, which seems to be a somewhat poor, run down area. Meanwhile, the non-diagetic soundtrack comes in, a very upbeat, jazz sounding song, to set the mood of the opening, a very happy, exciting time, as Dicky announced his return to boxing.

Joe's moodboard

To give a better idea of some of our ideas, we made a mood board each, and from there, got a better idea of what kind of things we were both thinking about, here is mine:

My moodboard is quite a mess, it's a lot of different images that reflect the kind of things going on in my head when it comes to our film intro, Jake and I both agreed that comedy would play to our strengths the most, and we also felt from the beginning we could have even more fun by incorporating gaming into it all, so I put a lot of things relating to that on there.

1 thing I quite like is Scott Pilgrim, as the set of comics incorporates lots of video game references and mixes it in to the story, and the movie adaption of it is styled in a very comic book-esque fashion, which is something we could possibly use in our opening scene, here is an example, in which "Levelling up" is used in the Movie:

It's definitely a style I enjoy and would like to encorporate into our opening sequence.

Jake's moodboard

Both Joe and I have similar moodboards, but this is because from the start we both had similar ideas on what sort of production we wanted to create. We both have also discussed and researched some interesting ideas for our opening sequence and production intro.

The moodboard includes some things we want to include, games and rage, and some influential actors Joe and I both admire. The colour purple is a relaxing colour, and I would personally like our opening sequence to be relaxed, funny and childish.

Influences for our Opening Sequence

At the moment, we are aiming to produce a comedy-style intro, as it is a generally favoured genre for the both of us, and we believe it would play to our strengths.

We decided that we should research Will Ferrell films, as his films are generally witty and clever, using irony and satire.

The first film we looked at was the Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly film, Step Brothers.
The film starts with a humorous, relevant, quote from George W. Bush

This quote shows us that this is not only a comedy film, as they say "actual quote from George W. Bush" implying his lack of intelligence and talking about families, a focus of the film.

The titles for the film use a childlike, hand drawn font, to give us the idea that it is a somewhat child-like film, yet it is revealed they are both older men within the opening sequence.

 The simple black and white colours don't reveal much about the genre of film, because the font is already quite child-like and more is revealed in the opening sequence that follows.

We quite liked this particular shot as it singled out one of the main characters, perhaps we may use a similar concept or shot.

Whilst the opening sequence is running, 'A-Punk' by Vampire Weekend starts playing, this song again reflects the childlike nature of the characters in the film.

A-Punk by Vampire Weekend

Will Ferrell films are very influential for us both. Another Will Ferrell film we are influence by is The Other Guys, also starring Mark Wahlberg. The opening sequence is a typical action opening, with a high speed car chase between a pair of cops and some drug runners.

In the beginning we are lead to believe that the two characters in this scene are the main characters, Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson, but in fact they are the stereotypical American cop. 

The two main characters are actually met rather comically, they are standing on their own at the back of the police station and are introduced with the title 'The Other Guys'. This opening is very interesting as it implies that the film isn't the typical American, action cop film.

Also, former rapper 'Ice-T' provides a comedic voice over for the opening sequence. The voice over techinque is used very well in this opening scene and in some comedy films, comedic voice-overs and usually featured.

The Hangover and Hangover II are good examples of opening sequences as well. Both show 3 of the main characters, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis, after the events of the night before. 

In both cases, they are both interesting opening sequences as they reveal the end of the film before we know what happens, but at the same time it doesn't reveal anything from the plot line. This technique is especially effective in the first Hangover, because this is the first time we see this technique used and we are not sure how to interpret this opening sequence, when it is used in the second Hangover it is still effective but fans of the brace know how this technique works.