Feedback from Tim

About my blog:

You have a very strong blog. You have clearly put a lot of time and effort into making it. The use of pictures and video helps by separating out all the text, which, while there is a lot, is all relevant and important to the subject. It is clearly set out and easy to read on a plain background, and is headed clearly stating what each paragraph is about, unlike osme people who may just put "homework".

Well done.

Key Frames and Film Stills

Today we drew up some Film stills. These were taken from or Key Frames sheet of paper.

The Key Frames sheet was drawn the day before. It consisted of nine of the most important shots that we would be having in our title sequence. It made us think more carefully about the more important features of our sequence by making us draw them out. This helps as it is easy for someone to say that an idea is 'in my head', however when you come to write it down it often becomes apparent how sketchy that idea was. Putting detail to your ideas is vital as it really lets you explore your own ideas as well as someone elses (if you're helping in their production).

Drawing key frames gets you to put your sequence in order and really work out when and where all these ideas are going.

The Film Stills asked us to take our three favourite stills from the Key Frames sheet, and draw them up bigger and in greater detail. Doing this was harder than I thought it would be as I had to pay close attention to matching what was on the Key Frames sheet to the Film Stills sheet. Buildings and scenery had to be in the right places, and to scale. The scale part was often difficult and making things look good is even harder. I makes you think a lot more about the detail of the scenery and what sort of atmosphere was set by your Mood Board that you should reflect in your introduction sequence.

Introduction Sequence Fonts

I have been looking at DVDs for similar films. I was looking to try and emulate the sort of style used in the film Children of Men, with an addition of the classic confusion and panic used in the opening scenes of Fight Club and Shoot 'em Up. I would be looking for fonts that resemble these sort of films.

Mood Board Pictures

Making Machinima and Using MovieStorm

Below is the short MovieStorm movie I made. It consists of an attempted murder (even though the theme isn't exactly original). It turned out rather well, however due to the computer slowing to almost a halt it made editing difficult. It became so slow that even the simplest of actions was made near impossible.

However, aside from the slowness the program was easy to use and nothing was made too complicated. The characters generally good at following commands and I only had to fix some mistakes that they made a couple of times. However, sometimes the characters would put their limbs through themselves and such glitches occured rather often. Others included people running through walls and limbs being stretches extensively.

The camera angle editor is very easy to master and efficient. It allowed to very easily get some good camera shots that looked proffesional. Along with the number of miniature animations available to control your characters with the film actually turned out rather well.

MovieStorm Machinima

Essentials

Eye catching and intriguing imagery.

Institutional detail (production company, distributors etc.)

Makes you want to watch rest of the film.

Good relevant soundtrack

Don't give away too much story.

Build up tension

Title of the film itself

General Credits

Professional Title Sequence Production

The below post is about a local home movie style title sequence company. However, many of the bigger companies can be found at 'Art of the Title' website. This contains hundreds of professionally made title sequences. These are often made with very complicated AfterEffects style programs.

The links through the website demonstrates a variety of professional companies that specialise in making film title sequences. Some of the websites for these companies are often too complicated for their own good.

Title Sequence Production

http://www.amberfilm.co.uk/title-sequence.htm

Above is a link to the website for 'Amber Film'. It is an introduction sequence design company. After the filming and editing process is complete, the film makers can go the them 'to create an eye catching title sequence.'

They can make animated sequences, and have a green screen for CGI and special effects. As well as introductory credits, they also do outro credits.

They have some very nice equipment such as a fully high-definition camera (with several HD add-ons) and a 'Super Range Optical Image Stabiliser'.

Order of titles:

Lord of War:

Nicolas Cage (Actor)
Lord of War (Name of film)
Jared Leto (Actor)
Bridget Moynahan (Actor)
Ian Holm (Actor)
Eamonn Walker (Actor)
Sammi Rotibi Eugene Lazarev (Two actors names)
Jean-Pierre Nshanian Shake Toukhmanian (Two actors names)
and Ethan Hawke (and Actor)
Casting by Mindy Marin C.S.A. (Casting)
Music by Antonio Pinto (Music)
Costume Designer Elisabetta Beraldo (Costume)
Edited by Zach Staenberg A.C.E. (Editing - Note, says 'Edited', not 'Editor')
Production Designer Jean Vincent Puzos (Production Design)
Director of Photography Amir Mokri (Photography Director)
Executive Producer Ronaldo Vasconcellos (Production)
Douglas E-Hansen Co-producer (Production - Note, name and job swap sides)
Executive Producers Fabrice Gianfermi Bradley Cramp Gary Hamilton (Production)
Exectutive Producers Christopher Eberts Andreas Schmid Michael Mendelsohn James D. Stern (Production)
Producers Nicolas Cage Norm Golightly (Prodution)
Producers Andy Grosch Chris Roberts (Production)
Produced by Philippe Rousselet Andrew Niccol (Production)

City of God:

Miramax Films Presents (Production company name)
A Film By Fernando Meirelles
Alexandre Rodrigues (Actor)
Leandro Firmino (Actor)
Phellipe Haagensen Sue Jorge Alice Braga (Three actors names)
City Of God (Film name - Note, far less credits)

Comparison between Lord of War and City of God titles.

Above is the intro to Lord of War. Below, due to embedding being disabled, is the link to City of God.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=u1zXXeQCBq4

The Lord of War intro follows the life of a bullet. From construction to finally being fired. Where as City of God concentrates more on a animated style of sequence. There is lots of CGI used in the making of the Lord of War intro. Which contrasts the entirely animated City of God sequence.

Both of the sequences have quite happy music as well, creating a sense of tension as the audience know that they are about to watch quite a violent film (which in the cases of both films, is true). They use the music to completely contradict the ethics and theme of the film. To make the audience think. Or to bring out the fact that what they are about to see is only for entertainment and is not real.

The titles from Lord of War are very simple in themselves. They are simply fading in and out white text. This is so the audience is not distracted by them too much so they can watch the sequence that is being played. The intricate sequence is always from the same perspective as well, almost as if the audience were the eyes of the bullet. This makes it all the more shocking when it is fired, and this innanimate object that has been the central role of the film so far is fired and kills someone.

That kind of introduction is very different to the unspecific classic title sequence that is in City of God. It is a series of images that have been strongly tinted orange (a generally happy colour) which correlates to the grey, depressing atmosphere in the Lord of War sequence. The ending is very similar however. As in Lord of War, the sequence and music ends on a gunshot. Suggesting that the music player has been killed. And to bring the audience back down to earth, involving them more in the film.

Feedback from Others

James:

-Dramatic

-Good plot idea

-Character name thought out well

-Heat style film - Has to make a choice

-Main character like character from fictional comic book

-Needs work and more thought

Tim:

-It is loved

Pitches

Film Brief 1 - Sebastian Fox is an undercover cop. When discovered, he is threatened and has choose between the woman he loves, and the fate of the city.

Film Brief 2 - Caroline Pearson is a single mother. When walking in the woods with her son, he is abducted by spirits. She fights to get him back.

Film Breif 3 - Michael Biffet witnesses a murder. He could indentify the killer, but threats have made him keep quiet. His honour is questioned when it happens again.

Film Breif 4 - In 1940, Richard Hawk is recruited into the army to fight. He suffers from extreme fear, and must fight his own battle with himself.

My Animated Long Road Sequence

Above is the sequence I made in After Effects. It is an animated logo that is usable at the beginning of the films I make. I have an effect on it where the words 'sixth form college' fly down quickly into the logo and when crashing down, they make the words 'LONG ROAD' shudder and jump (supposedly with the impact). I did this by changing the orientation and position of the words on the screen momentarily. They then fall back slightly out of position.

AS Thriller Opening Analysis

This is a student made AS thriller introduction.

The sequence starts with several tracking and panning shots revealing pipe-work and industry like equipment. The first shot is a track from right to left. This movement suggests that something bad is going to happen soon in the film. The shots are well though out and have nice locations, but are sometimes ruined by the camera being a bit shaky. However, they set the scene nicely.

It then cuts to a lower body shot of a man wearing a trench coat. The audience does not yet know whether this individual is a good or bad guy, he walks off to the left, must be bad. More credits start to appear on screen. It cuts to a nice slanted shot of him going up some stairs. However it breaks the 180 degree rule by spinning that far. It is possible that he had to walk that way to go up the stairs, but since the audience weren't show him turning, it is still broken.

The camera then tracks back down the stairs to reveal an injured man (obviously wounded by the trench coat wearing baddie). A slow motion shot follows of the bad guy walking away from the camera. The fact we haven't seen his face in this long suggests further that he is evil, and not to be trusted.

More slow motion shots (which by now have been over-used in my oppinion) of the injured man trying to run somewhere the audience isn't sure of yet. The music climaxes in nostalgia as he runs, creating a seemingly sad atmosphere. However the mistake they made is asking the audience to feel sorry for someone they have never seen before. Something that just doesn't happen. The audience have never heard this man speak, yet the music depicts it as being the saddest moment in the film. However, it still shows a man struggling for his life well.

Then it cuts to a nice shot (I'm assuming it's supposed to be first-person of the man walking) looking at the ceiling. The credit is in a nice, readable position.

The rest of the sequence goes on in much the same way, with utter over-use of slow motion, and repeated camera shots with not much happening, then finally ending with a very fake death at the front of the building.

In all the film was okay, and have some nice ideas. However, it was weighed down with repetition and not much happening, along with a copious use of slow motion.

T2-61

I was impressed with the amount of planning that was put in by the group. They had tried out different styles of giving the impression of CCTV footage, and had pasted these attempt onto their blog.

They had also done some location scouting for the area that they'd be filming in, and had a couple of ideas about different camera shots for some of the more complicated techniques they were trying to use for the film.

They wrote out a full props, costumes and locations list in great detail. It's good to see this amount of planning and it is clear that they took time to find the locations and decide how it would be filmed. They even also took a screen shot of the sound-track from Garage Band closer to the end of production.

They had a full animatic which gave a good idea of what the sequence would look like, and showed that they thought of several of the title ideas quite early on, making the planning more impressive.

They had analyzed a sequence from the film Panic Room (sound and camera-work), and had also analyzed the introduction sequence from Enemy of the State. The latter consists of a breif history and run through of the film with a very detailed essay on the sequence.

As for the sequence (and rough-cut), it wasn't really up to the standards set by the planning. They had planned to have a CCTV camera, but on filming they shot the scene to-be on standing level. It's things like this that can ruin immersion. How many CCTV cameras are at shoulder height?

Also there is a random addition of heavy base (in the finished sequence) at the start which just simply doesn't fit. It makes the sequence seem far more student-made. When the main theme comes in it seems more unrelated as well because of this.

Another immersion issue (which would only really be a problem to very pedantic people) is that when the over-the-shoulder camera is showing the CCTV footage, it is simply a video being played on Quicktime. This is not that important, but they could have found a way to simply blur the outside so it wasn't so obvious.

The camera shots, while okay, are not great. They seem to promote that it is a student made film and don't carry the complexity of real film camera shots. Also, in the planning stage of the scene, they had a shot directly on the characters phone. This was a better shot than the one they actually used in the sequence.

Aside from it's faults however, it is a good introduction sequence, and with a few tweaks could be made very good.

Metro Golden Mayer Logo

Due to the logo I showed in my last post being uncompromisingly simple, I have decided to write about this logo instead. Metro Golden Mayer have one of the most famous logos ever created. Shown below this iconic ident was used for many of the older James Bond films.

The logo may have been created by the lion being sat in front of a green screen. Then filmed for a long period of time. After this the footage would be put onto a computer and an editor would have selected the legendary snippet that you see in the finished logo. The editor would have then colour-keyed out the green background, replacing it with black.

Before all of this however the static part of the logo would have been designed (and most probably finished). The clearly virtual film reel may have been made my simply editing and manipulating shapes and colours to get the finished look of the reel. The first plan would have been sketched and copied of this design.

You can see a lot of pre-thought went into the making of this logo, as, just below the lion there is some sort of mask. Very unnoticeable but a very nice touch. It is not something that would have just been thrown in as an after-thought.

Around the top of the circle that contains the lion are words. They may have been placed on when making the film reel, or they could have been typed and curved around the dome afterwards.

Filmways logo Analysis

The Filmways logo can be found here:

There is no animation whatsoever. It simply flashes onto the screen, remains there for approximately four seconds, and then fades out. Its design is simple, but effective. Taking into account all the marvelous, but instantly forgettable trademark logos, this isn't one of them. 

It consists of several seemingly interlinked lines making a square shape with two rounded corners (a blue square, not easy to forget) with the name 'Filmways Home Video' underneath it. These words aren't exactly fancy, and the only difference is the 's' at the end of 'Filmways'. Similar to the 'f' in several flash drives.

The image above that logo (on my last post) is possibly a remade version of the logo to make it seem more modern. However, in my opinion it's too much  like the 'Universal' logo. I can't find a video of what that logo looked like when animated however.

Blade Runner Production

Blade Runner was seemingly produced by 'Filmways'. This production company was founded by Martin Ransohoff in 1960. Since then it has grown and purchased several other smaller companies, such as 'American International Pictures'.

Along with Bud Yorkin, Jerry Perenchio owns the rights to Blade Runner, as his bond completion company took ownership of the film when it went over its budget. The production company helped it become one of the first ever DVDs. Unfortunately, due to bad quality, the copies stopped selling. For many years, Perenchio refused to allow any new DVD edition of Blade Runner, including a planned 2001 Special Edition, to be issued.

There is very little information on the actual production companies that made it. I struggled to find much. Sorry, I'm not entirely positive the Filmways was the proper production company, but it is displayed as such on several websites. As for the actual company, there is very little.

Continuity Task

This is our first attempt at filming and editing a continuity video. Unfortunately, it didn't go so well. This turned out to be rather bad, and there were several mistakes. Hopefully we learned from the experience and will be able to improve the next one we make.

Inspiration Week Application

Unfortunately, moodle is not allowing me to log in. However I have completed the application form and will paste it here. Thanks.

I would love to have the opportunity to attend Inspiration Week. I see media as a definite future for me. I am taking a Creative and Media Diploma which covers three of my A-level slots. As a result I think that it is a sure thing that I will go into the media industry in later life. Which direction within media to go in, I myself am not to sure of yet. However I am looking for ways to learn more about technuiques to do with any kind of media. I see Inspiration Week as being a brilliant opportunity to learn more. I am taking a Creative and Media Diploma which covers three of my A-level slots. I think that it is a sure thing that I will go into the media industry in later life.

I am especially keen to learn about methods of directing, producing and scriptwriting. These two topics are in the industry I am looking to go towards already, such as film/television show production and filming. I am a fast and eager learner when it comes to topics I like (e.g. anything to do with media). I will pay attention and do what is asked of me to gain the maximum amount of benefit from the week. I am always looking for new ways to enter the media buisness and this seems like a good start.

I am eager to get as much work experience as I can in the media industry, every time getting more and more efficient. I attempted to go to an Advertising studio as my High-school, sadly, just when it seemed it was all sorted they withdrew due to complications. After this I am looking for more opportunities to get such experience as I would have done there. I find interest in every one of the topics studied on Media week and honestly think that I could make great progress and expand my knowledge of the areas considerably if I attend. Thank you.

Alexander Whitcombe

Blade Runner Introduction Sequence

The intro above is Blade Runner (Note, this is not the real Blade Runner introduction sequence, but a student made alternative version of it). The introduction to this film does well to set the scene of a bleak future. It uses several shots looking down at various pavements/roads. The weather if terrible, setting a bleak atmosphere for the film.

The audience is given an example of this being futuristic as the credits roll on. They are composed as LCD lights, such as the ones seen in Las Vegas. These are seen to be (especially when the film was released) very modernised. However when introduced with the setting they seem dark and depressing.

Adding to this, the credits leave sight by flickering and dying, demonstrating a breaking world. Which is to show that this dystopian world could very easily come to be like this dingy city we see in the film. This gives the audience another sence of depth and a connection to this future.

The music enters as the first credit reaches almost centre screen. It is dark music, adding to the depressing nature of the sequence. A low drum beat, to, yeat again create tension.

Movie Introduction Sequence task

I start the first few shots by trying to give the audience of a feeling of a living breathing city. I recreate the hustle and bustle of a city by having the first shot showing a busy street with several people walking in it. This immediately sets the scene of the film.

I decided very near the beginning of the production that I was going to use this music as I was looking to have a classic cop show type look to it. Which I think turned out quite well. The music fits nicely.

Using the beat of the music as a timing indication (to keep with by busy theme) I cut to several high shots of the city, setting the location. I didn't want to use the Statue of Liberty as a setting as I felt that this was a little too obvious, and for that reason, a bit tacky.

As the music starts to heat up I return to the first shot (A bit further down the time-line) and lower in the words 'AnarchyFlow Presents'. AnarchyFlow being the name of my made up company. It comes down from the top of the shot in a classic (slightly cheesy) old cop style film. To add some variety, the words then shoot off to the left.

I then move to one of my favourie shots of the intro. It is a shot between two buildings with the sun creating a glow on the camera lense. This is the only point that I change the colour of the text. It turns black, so it can be more easily read by the viewer against the light backdrop. I used James and Dave's company names as my production company names. As the sunlight comes in it illuminates the words more adding a nice effect.

Then as the music reaches a short break, I snap to a long shot again, there are no credits in this, to create tension. The camera pans just passed a sky-scraper in a very cliché way.

Then just as the music reaches its most dramatic, it cuts to a shot on street level looking up at the sky and a building. I chose this shot so as it looks like the audience is looking up at the text which then comes onto the screen. The text is the title of the film, so it creates the effect of the people looking up in awe at the film.

I add to the dramatic effect by having that swept away by the name of my leading role, which seemingly pushes the title off the screen (in an ever so dramatic fasion).

It then cuts back to a different shot, also on ground level, inside a building. It shows people opening a rotating door, adding to the business and hastey atmosphere that I've tried to create. The second name of my actors is in the bottom left corner moving erratically then finally sliding into place to the left of the screen.

Then, possibly my favourite shot, is of a city street (consisting of mainly cars). It pans to the left revealing more of the buildings and street. As it pans, the credit stays in generally the same position on the screen.

Then it cuts to a simple pan shot with static text. This was to lower the hype again, as most films don't start to dramatically, the credits usually slow down before they end if the have been as dramatic as so they need to do so. So when the film starts (slowly) they aren't let down by the build up of tension failing them.

The final shot is a slanted shot of a skyscraper. I placed the credits slanted as well, so it seems that they are sitting on the building, again, they remain still. The music ends and the image fades out.

Movie Introduction Scene

This is a recreated introduction sequence using stock footage to make and introduction sequence to a film.