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.

Influence: The King of Kong: A fistful of quarters

Jake and I came to the conlcusion we are going to make a "Mockumentary" film based around the reuniting of a Call of Duty clan, so we went and researched some documentaries, to see how real ones were done, and then we could parody them. We found the most influential one to be "The King of Kon: a fistful of quarters" as this film was not only based around video games, it was the exact kind of documentary we wanted, one that involved simply talking to people about a topic one by one.

The first title that comes up is the production company's, it is very big and nice looking, with the name in bright lights, before repeating the title again in a simple white on black title, we will most likely do something like this, as we feel it will work very well, as it works well in this case.

After this, is the first person that is interviewed, Billy Mitchell, it initially starts from fading out from the black and white titles, with the background noise of the interview, before going straight into the interview, when after a few seconds, his name comes in the bottom left of the screen. This is once again a technique that we would like to use, as we have seen this done by numerous documentaries, so it's definitely something we would like to add.

After Billy has done some talking, it cuts straight to the next person, Steve Wiebe, who once again starts talking before his name comes in, this establishes him as one of the main people in the film, as the opening scene immediately shows these two people.

 After this is a quote from William S Burroughs, saying

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games.

This is a somewhat relevant quote, although it was not intended for this context, it did fit in nicely, we will possibly do something like this, but in a more humerous way, to fit with the rest of our genre. As this quote comes in, so does some simple western sounding music, as if to imply there is a battle going on.

As the next interviewee starts talking, the music cuts off as he talks more about games, he is not named at this point, possibly to keep the focus on Mitchell and Wiebe.

After this part, it then cuts to a shot of the insides of an arcade machine, with the names of the producers, as the music starts up again. I quite like this, as it shows more titles and it breaks up the interviews a bit, I have some possible ideas on how to emulate this in our own way.

The music then goes on to the next interviewee, as we hear more about video games, he is also not named at this point, before it cuts to another relevant shot, this time of an arcade machine's buttons, with another title over it.

After this, it cuts to a shot of another person, this time he is named (As the World's Video Game Referee) this shows his relevance to the documentary and a short backstory, as he is talking, the music fades out subtle.

It then cuts to another clip of Billy Mitchell, as he talks about an analogy about being the greatest, after this, it cuts to black very briefly and the title of the film comes in, on top of an arcade machine, a simple title.

Opening Sequences

Opening sequences are a vital part of a film, it introduces the audience to an aspect of the film, usually giving us a feel to the genre and atmosphere. To do this, films can use a number of techniques, firstly, they alter the font to represent the feel of the film, for example; in Office Space, the opening credits use a bubbly, light blue font to portray the comedic nature of the film.

The music for this opening is quite upbeat, and reflects the comedy genre of the film, and actions that occur in the film are synchronised with music.

Also within this opening sequence, we are introduced to four main characters. Although this is not essential in opening sequences, it is usually a feature for comedy films.

While researching opening sequences, we also watched 'Trainspotting' and 'Sweeney Todd'. 

Trainspotting

'Trainspotting' had a slight comical yet serious opening sequence. The opening sequence opens with a simple black and white screen with 'Channel Four Films Presents' which doesn't present the genre of the film. 

The music then kicks in and is in some ways similar to the music in 'Office Space'. The song is upbeat and catchy, which portrays the genre of the film to perhaps be a comedy.

The introduction of characters in the opening sequence of Trainspotting is rather simple. A still picture of the character and their name in white next to them.

The genre of Trainspotting isn't revealed until the end of the opening sequence when the main character mentions drugs. It wasn't until that point, that we eventually have an incite into the genre of the film.

Sweeney Todd

Finally is the opening sequence to Sweeney Todd. Once again this opening sequence is quite unique and interesting. Throughout the whole opening sequence, we do not see or receive mention of any characters, the whole sequence is an animation.

Sweeney Todd is a horror film and the opening sequence portrays this. The animation is of a stream of blood running through the barber shop that Sweeney Todd conducts their work from. 

Although this is a well presented opening sequence, our initial ideas have been to produce a comedy film rather then a horror film so this opening sequence hasn't influenced our ideas as much as the other two may have.

Our Opinions

Together we will now discuss our opinions of these three opening sequences.

Office Space

Jake: Office Space is probably the most helpful opening sequence for us to form ideas from. It is of same genre that we wish to produce and presents typical features of comedy opening scenes.

Joe: I found the opening to Office Space very funny, the use of sound was very good in this and it gave us a very good idea as to what kind of people the characters were in a simple traffic scene.

Trainspotting

Jake: This opening scene made the genre of the film very hard to understand from early on. In my opinion, this isn't what we are looking for in the production. The introduction to the characters with the continous voice-over was very interesting through.

Joe: I felt this opening was very good, it was slick and worked very well, introducing characters and the story, creating a somewhat funny intro, despite the subject matter of heroin. 

Sweeney Todd

Jake: Sweeney Todd isn't really an opening sequence I would like ours to relate to, as it doesn't relate to any of ours themes, such as gaming and humour, and in my personal opinion it is hard to show humour through animation as it is harder to create body language and facial expressions.

Joe: I thought this was also a good film opening, it was different to the other two we looked at as no characters were scene in this but it gives us a very good idea as to what genre it is, as there is a trail of blood going around, and very dark lighting, as well as evil imagery such as fire.