G321 - Mindmap of ideas for our Romantic Comedy

Katie Pridige
 Here are 3 of the ideas we came up with for our romantic-comedy. One of which we chose as our final idea (On the right hand side). We decided no to go with either of the other two ideas (On the left hand side).

G321 - Initial Film Opening Ideas

Mia Norton

G321 - Our chosen institution

As a group we have chosen to be an independent institution that targets mainstream audiences like Lionsgate or Working Title. Working Title is the most successful independent British film institution and has produced and distributed many films to the standard of a mainstream company which is what we hope to achieve.

As an independent company we wont have to use expensive, elaborate marketing techniques to target our audience, however we will have to be creative in our strategies as the audience will be mainstream.

Also, as our target audience is mainstream, the genre for our film opening will be easier to choose as we aren't to targeting an independent audience that is looking for a specific genre. For example Donnie Darko was made by an independent company but the genre is drama therefore the film is opened up to a wider audience.

Most independent Romantic Comedies are targeted towards females like 'Juno' and 'Dirty Dancing' so we have a challenge by targeting males to produce a film that attracts as many people and is just as high standards.













By Charlotte Hester

G321- Film Opening Research

"The most important thing that the opening of a film must accomplish is to establish a tone so that the audience fall into the same mood as the film they are watching. It doesn’t have to be a big budget explosive opening in order to grab the audience’s attention and sometimes an over the top opening like this risks upending the structure of the film with a sense of where do we go from here?"  -http://whatculture.com/film/the-importance-of-film-openings.php

A title sequence is expected to:

• set the atmosphere/tone 
• introduce the main characters 
• show the film title
• classify the genre
• use appropriate sound

Types of Title Sequence


Narrative

follows a short story of events which are related to the rest of the film.

e.g The Shining

Discrete Title Sequence 

gives out very little information but relevant to the story and gives a few clues 

for the audience to figure out themselves.

e.g Se7en


Heavily Stylised Editing

lots of effects used to make it interesting and grab the audiences attention.

e.g The taking of Pelham 123



Credits over screen

titles appearing straight over the image

e.g Arlington Road

Mia Norton

G321 - Se7en Remake

We remade the opening of the film Se7en. We did this to help us when making our own opening titles. We could see how many titles there were and the order they went in. We learnt what atmosphere different types of shots created and we also had practice working with the film equipment and the editing software.

By Katie Pridige and Mia Norton

G321 - Editing

We then began editing our remake. It took around 5 hours as we had to remove the sound from every clip, change the colouring and trim the shots to the appropriate length. Our most difficult challenge was to include all the shorter clips that would flash on the screen at strange times. Keeping the timing similar to the original in this respect was extremely difficult. The music is largely involved in creating the atmosphere for this opening, so to get just the right sound for our work we had someone create a piece of music that was similar to the original opening - but not so similar that there would be copyright issues.

Katie Pridige

G321 - Initial ideas for recreating the opening of Se7en

After making our timeline, shot list and storyboard we must prepare even further to prepare for the filming or our remake. For example we need to make a prop list as the opening of Se7en is mostly made up of shots of props. There is only one character involved and all that is seen is how their hands are interacting with the props. When filming we can refer to the original opening itself so as to keep the shots as similar as possible. Throughout editing we will be referring to our timeline and shot list to keep the timings of shot changes and title appearances the same as the original.

Katie Pridige

G321 - Shot list

This is a shot list of our re-make. This was necessary because as you can see there are many shots and each one have to have the same amount of detail and planning in them.

 

By Charlotte Hester

G321 - Storyboard of Our Se7en Remake

Here is our storyboard for our remake of the Se7en opening:

Charlotte Hester and Mia Norton

G321 - Timeline of the original Se7en opening (titles, shots and music/sound)

Katie Pridige

G321 - Why are we re-making the opening of Se7en?

 Se7en

 

We chose to remake the opening of the film Se7en. We chose this film opening because even though it looks incredibly complicated we decided it would be a challenge for us to complete and if we could remake this opening well it should help us further when making our own final project. Our group decided that recreating a film opening which included as many elements as this one would require a lot of good planning which would make the filming and editing simpler and quicker as everything is mapped out for us already.

The fact that there are not any actors used in this opening (can only see a persons hands and inanimate objects) was also appealing to us as we would not have to worry about finding time to work with/include others and could just work on it whenever our group members are ready to do so. We spent a lot of time on the shot list and time line so as to have our remake as close to the original as possible. Focusing so much on planning means that we have had a lot of practise and experience which we believe will help us when making our own opening. We also as a group knew that we did not want to make a psychological thriller for our final project so they would not be similar.

Katie Pridige

G321 - Why a re-make?

We are doing a re-make to get a better understanding into how to film and edit a film opening effectively so we get practise for next film opening that we do. This will enable us to focus on time management so we know how much time to spend planning, filming and editing hopefully making the opening the best possible opening we can. We will also get a better idea into what editing techniques we can use and what works well depending on the genre of the film openings. For example, what transitions work for comedies/ action/ drama and what transitions work for horrors/ thrillers.

Charlotte Hester

G321 - Names and Candidate numbers.

Charlotte Hester- 7431
Mia Norton- 7551
Katie Pridige- 7566