Intro

The evaluation of our title sequence. (INTRO)

 We got given the task as a brief, to firstly create a film idea. Then after put into groups we had to pick an idea then go forth and create a title sequence for that film idea. We researched in class about all different types of title sequences beforehand and practiced filming in groups as part of our research and class work all to help us about cinematography. In addition, we created a continuity sequence has a production help on how to edit and not breach the 180 degree rule. These all class tasks played a benefit in making our title sequence, as the skills we learnt helped us use them in our title sequence. For example , the workshops on final cut pro helped us to edit cuts and fade ins and out. And the filming helped us learn and practice shots such a extreme close up and high angle.

Our film name was ‘Apartment 6’  and genre would be a supernatural horror. Which we had to study the codes and conventions for beforehand but here is a brief  into our a film idea.

Typography

After our typography lesson , our next task to do was to start looking into typography designs for out title sequence. What we wanted to look for was a font to look 'Distorted ' to go along with the genre of our film and possibly handwritten effect to link in with the 'Mothers Diary'. And bellow are the designs we have liked and was founded on 'www.dafont.com' This font is bold and stands out. It has distorted effects , with the font fading color in places but also , has very slight white gaps which give of a effect its like being scratched and the font is old as the ink is ruined suggesting the horror genre of our film. In addition , the font gives off the idea that it his hand written and the way its been written in a messy looking font , gives off a negative effect about who has written it and that 'Apartment 6' is possibly haunted or something bad has happened as the font gives off a negative thought it about the apartment before you even seen it. hOwever , the downside was the number '6' it never had the number in the same font. So this totally ruined the font. On the otherhand, if this was the chosen font , we could use a similar 6 from a different font just for the number. in this font , it look handwritten , which can help with the link to the mother diary , however , we feel the font is too think and doesn't give off a good scary / creepy effect which we are looking for. in this font in this font in this font in this font

Title Sequence

Media from Dan Kelly

Blog Feedback

Dan - E Sort out the width of the banner! You’re behind – missing typography designs, sound research, audience research, storyboards… Good recording of production process. Appearance of blog needs tidying up & some posts very hard to read – audience profile especially. I have took the feedback on board and up my game and got up to date with the blogging.

Ruff Cut Opening of Apartment 6 Title Sequence + Feedback

Firstly , this is the ruff cut of the title sequence that we done  so far that we presented to our class for the first title sequence screening.

These our the feedback results sheets that our  class and teacher gave us after seeing the first screening of our films title sequence. Overall we got : one - 3 star and three - 2stars. Which is what we are very pleased with seeing as we have not finished and still got loads more to added in such as , few more shots , title shots ect. 

What went well ? 

Overall , the feedback sheet show that what went well was:

• 'The whole idea! ' 
• The close up of the door number
•  The music
• The cuts to the  diary flicking pages
• Camerawork
• Misensce 
• Enigma 
• Lighting
• The tension created throughout 

What needs improving:

• The editing doesn't communicate the pace
• Repetitive 
• Steady Camera

What doesn't work / needs to be done:

• Titles 
• Try to comunicate the genre more.
• Finnish the tittle sequence.  

From these feedback , we are overall impressed and thought we have done tremendously well with all the set backs , such as the filming issues to begin with and being behind to make up a whole new film idea , we feel that our hard work has payed off to have such good feedback with a unfinished piece. 

Whats next? 

We will take into consideration and as the leader of the group , the positive are obviously going to stay in the title sequnce as that what the audience  feedback said worked well of course . But in addition , for the feedback that needs 'improving' we will go through the editing once we finished adding the final clips in to communicate the pace more ( Preferably a fast pace build up ) 

However , the steady camera idea is decided that we cant do nothing about as we cant re film everything again in this amount of time but for the shots that are needed to be added , we will make sure they are steady. 

From the feedback that doesn't work : to communicate the genre more , we are going to added a paranormal shot of a door rapidly closing to suggest that their is a ghost in the house to build suspense to the audience at the end of the title sequence. This can show there  is 'now way out' and he is  possibly going to die in the film. In addition , to communicate the horror genre more we will add a overlap of  a more ' horror/spooky ' type  music over the heartbeat to give off a more scary  atmosphere for the audience. As well , we spoke about the idea of when the title come into place , that paranormal sounds like slams and bangs will appear with it to make the audience feel scared ect to suggest about the haunted apartment. And the verbal feedback from the audience hearing this , once said after hearing the feedback about lack of genre communicate , said that the idea '  will work ' . Finally we are going to be putting in the same work and from the next free lesson , shall be making sure we achieve these targets and when we show our second screening the audience will be happy and we will get more positive feedback from taking in to consideration their feedback. 

                                          

Title Opening Example

This is the title 'Apartment 6 ' entrance for our film title sequence. We used the idea from our research from youtube at this example someone done . ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6rrkYPaG4A&safe=active ) . When the actors names and ect come up on this clip , we liked the effect of the names moving around and flashing.We took this idea for when our title appears for our title sequence itself and this our example shown above.

How we done it ?
I opened final cut pro and made blank clip and added a  text box and added 'Apartment 6 ' as our text and so far the chosen font ........ Next I copied and pasted that clip a number of times next to each other , and moved the text' Apartment 6' in different locations so the title moves around after each clip ends. But still keeping the font and size the same. In addition , I overlapped two clips to make the font more bold but give off a  scary and possessed effect ect just like the mothers handwriting in the diary.

- This is a print screen of two of the titles to show example of overlapping the same text to make it look bold ect. Like mentioned above.

In addition , after playing the footage , we decided with the music that the titles should move around 5 times and in the last shot , it will appear in a larger font across the screen and fade away into the darkness , before the actual title sequence appears. Also , for one of the titles when it moves around for the 2nd and 3rd time , we changed the color of the background font to red to suggest to audience that 'Death' has happened in this apartment wether in the past or for what is going to happen in the film.

 - Example of the idea of the text in the red font to suggest  'Death'. 

For this title opening scene , we just used the cut effect tool to make it more sharp and fast paced for the audience to build up suspense for the audience  .


Finally , we decided to use the same music that going to played throughout the title sequence 'Awareness 2 ' but for now we used the example of the youtube video we got this idea from music by converting the video to MP3. Over the top , so we have two piece of music playing to sound more scary and so the sounds effect go with the movement of the text. We used the youtube MP3 for the moment to get a ruff idea what it will look like once we found the piece of music to go over the top , however we feel like this works perfect and shall be looking out to find a sound effect just like that for when the texts move in the opening title scene.


The whole footage completed  to show what it looks like ,  just for the opening of our title in final cut pro. 

MAN DOWN!

Our group has now gone down to just me and Conor as James Barker (shown above) has dropped Media Studies. Now our fellow groups in our class are in groups of 4 and now we have a disadvantage as our group is now just a double. Being group leader , i mentioned to Conor that me and him need to step up our game and need to work twice as hard as we both need to share James Barkers roles which he had to do and I hope that we both are capable of stepping to the task and producing a good title sequence .

Typography - Audience Research

The overall results from our audience were as follow:

Font number one - 1 vote
Font number two - 6 votes
Font number three - 5 votes 
Font number four - 4 votes
Font number five - 10 votes
Font number six - 1 vote

As you can see from our live recording of our results the overall outcome showed that Font number 5 was the favorite. Font number five was called 'True Lies' and we found the font on ' www.dafont.com ' as well as the others.
Before hand we handed out copies of our slide show on 'Apartment 6' so the audience knows what the film is about. We then entered the common room and asked the audience which font looks best for our film idea. Once the results were collected in , we decided to use 'True Lies' the winner as our font of our film.

How we done it?
We hired a flip camera from our media department as well as a tri-pod.
Conor filmed whilst i went around asking the audience on there opinions collecting the results
We handed out copies of our slide show on apartment 6 so the audience know what the film is about and can decide.
Once the first lesson was over , we headed back in and collected the results of these individuals live.
We focused on our target audience which was around our age group however ,we wanted to have a idea of a older audience so we tried to find a teacher to ask but asked the 6form cafe workers.
Overall we are pleased on how this turned out and believed the best font was the winner.
Whats next?
We shall be  putting it into our title sequence and shall be seeing what it looks like if it suits our meaning of our film 'Apartment 6 '.

Typography

We all looked on www.dafont.com ,  and chose a font we all liked each. Then we are going to share them to each other and decide our top 3 fonts. We then going start a questionnaire  for the public and record this through video and find out  what  the public think will suit our film idea , and get some audience feedback. By the end of these results we will use the favorite one to decide it for our Title but also , for our tittle scene shot of the cast and ect.
 As a group , we want our title sequence to look handwritten and look messy like the handwriting in the Diary , which is a constant  main scene throughout our title sequence . It obviously can not be neat handwriting as that takes way the genre of our film straight away , what we are looking for is a handwriting which implies our film is a horror before the title sequence begins. But in addition , we want a handwritten font , so when the title appears , the audience can suggest that there is some sort of reading or writing  that is taking place in our film.

My Examples

Editing

I put myself forward , to do all the editing for the title sequence.

What i done so far....

Firstly , I  had to convert all the video clips we wanted to use into  MPEG Stream clip , and export them into DV. Once all the clips have been converted , we used Final Cut Pro to make our title sequence. I imported  the DV clips into Final Cut Pro and then edited every clip one by one. We  cut down all the non needed seconds of the clips , so the tittle sequence is not too long and boring and so they go with our background music , for example each shot changing with the  heartbeat.
Once all the clips have been cut down , I used the effects option , to added in the fade in and out black shots between the clips, which was a chosen effect we wanted to use. Once , the shots fade in and out black into the next shot , this is when the title shots of the Actors and ect. Come into place in our title sequence. And the foley sounds of 'Bangs' of the door will come into place , to suggest the paranormal theme running through.

Currently the title sequence is not finished editing  and still needs more progress .However, you can see all the editing and footage so far from  our upload of the  'Ruff Cut' video. And there are some print screens below to show the options , what i used to make this piece so far.

Title Sequence music

What we done?
During our free lessons and coursework lessons , Jams and Conor were both set to find a their favorite soundtracks and report them back to me. Once done this , from their chosen three , they both put down 'Awareness 2 ' by Dvorkin / Pittock. From these 6 soundtracks , we all agreed and narrowed it down to a final 3. And from their we set up a tally chart and video to get the feedback from people.
Once the feedback was complete , the final and most popular choice was ' Awareness 2 '. Which become our final sound track.

About 'Awareness 2'
We wanted the music to build up a tense , dark and scary atmosphere for the audience and we believed that this sound track suits perfect. The music has a heartbeat throughout coming in at just under every 3 seconds. The music that flows along with the heartbeat is describe as 'evolving drones and textures'. This music, creates a slight spooky and very dark atmosphere for the audience and with the heartbeat flowing over the top , builds up the tension and the dark atmosphere even more as it suggest that something scary is going to happen. In addition , the timing of the heartbeat fits in perfect with the cuts and fades in and outs in our title sequence which is something we wanted it do as its a good way to flow with the effects we added in for the change of shots. It just gives our title sequence that little more extra , which we feel works perfectly.

Problems or what we are going to do next?


We think the song choice is perfect . However , we feel like we need to layer another sound track over this one to make it sound less like a thriller , which many people suggested.
We are currently on the look out with a more spooky sounds track to go along with this to make sure the title sequence clearly shows its a Horror.

Have a listen of the 'Awareness 2 ' on this link bellow


https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk/show-production-results.aspx?stype=4&keywords=awareness+2+Igor+Dvorkin

Print Screens Of footage of the title sequence.

 These are Print Screens of the Fith Shot ,

As you can see , these are clear  shots and the lighting is not too dark , which was a problem we kept on in counting at the beginning of all our shoots. By doing this , we filmed in more daylight , and used more lights from other sources such as , lamps and phones ect.
We tried all sorts of angles which you can see from the photos. For example , birds eye view. And wanted to get as much footage as possible , even if we don't end up using it , its best to have more than less. But overall , we had around 40 shots for this scene , and around half went perfect. To get the pages to turn , we used a fan and turn t it on to get the pages to flick by itself as if there is some ghost reading through the diary. The ghost  and the dairy in the house is a main key aspect for our film , so we need to include some good shots for this whole title sequence to work. And as you can see , the print screen show the footage went well.

Fifth Shot Review

Forth Shot Review

Finally we are nearly done and hopefully everything will be filmed this week!
From the three previous disasters , we took on board what happened and tried to prevent this from happening again. Therefore , we used lights from torches and phones. Also , opening doors and curtains to add in more light. Although we want are title sequence o look dark and scary , we thought it best not to slip up again by making it too dark , so we used as much light as possible. As you can tell from some of the example from these stills  , they look so much better and brighter.

Next time , we are going to finnish off the last bit which is filing the cut back shots to the dairy turning over then we shall be ready for filming.

Props

 Props using for out Title Sequence

•  Passports of Mr Michael Kelly , Ms Teresa Kelly and Mr Daniel Kelly
• Fans - The fans are used to help blow the pages over of the dairy
• Letters , Bills , Photos - Of the family
• Daniel Kelly - Actor and Clothing warn for the Title Sequence 
• Mothers Diary

Third Shot Review

Filming Progress 

Once again we made a mistake with the light situation from looking back on our video clips.  From the first shoot is was way too dark and we did attempt to make it more brighter by opening more doors ect. At the time we felt we got some good shots and the brightness seemed perfect so we never persumed there be anything wrong. To be honest , its such a shame as all our work has gone to waste again and now we need to re film it again and hopefully this will be perfect this time.
Next Time
To prevent this from happening , we are going to open more windows  curtains and doors . Possibly use a torch and lights on our phone to brighten up the apartment.

Audience Profile

Second Shot Review

Recording Session 2

The second session was a disaster!
Firstly we started working and after 5 minutes the battery had run out. Luckily we had spares with us too back us up. However , them batteries ran out within a short time too (around 2 minutes). After this we went to the shop to buy some more batteries. When got back and set up the camera , for some reason the batteries never fitted and was a waste of money. We called it a day and went back home as the day was a disaster and we only done 1 shot.

Next time , we shall hopefully use a different camera or hopefully ask the school to provide us with a load more batteries which will fit for the camera.

Apartment 6 Folder

Made this folder to show and keep all the files information and ect we need for Apartment 6.
At the moment the folder , holds the title sequence , diary , passports and letters, class notes and any other useful information and work which links within our films title sequence for Apartment 6. This helps to keep everything organized together and easy to carry about and show to my group.