Soundtrack for movie opening

I am thinking of using the instrumental to the song Waves by Joey Badass for the opening sequence theme, I think it will go really well as it starts slow and has a calm feel to it which gradually gets more upbeat as it continues however enough that it never becomes an actually intense song. I feel it can possible help capture emotion within the opening which is what I want to be able to do, the drama genre requires I try to capture emotions. I will be looking at other songs before filming and then will try several out to see which I think go best with the opening but for the moment I am thinking Waves instrumental will be able to do the job.

Audience profile

Target audience: My target audience for my video will be for ages 14-40 since I feel the video would be most appropriate for those ages, I don't feel like their is any gender bias with the video so I think both males and females would enjoy it equally. Since the main focus of my video will be on a 16 year old boy my main target audience will be teenagers around that age and early adults around the age of 20 but I would still think older audiences could enjoy it. My main characters ethnicity shouldn't add any sort of biased factor to the audience as the main factor is he is lower class and thats what makes him struggle nothing to do with his ethnicity so should appeal to all people regardless of their ethnicity.

Opening sequence conventions

1. List of generic conventions of opening sequences

2. Conventions of your specific genre

3. Conventions you will choose to stick to

4. Conventions you will deliberately subvert (change slightly/turn on their head)

     
       1.

•     The purpose of a film opening is to entice the audience to continue watching the film, it should usually establish the characters and the genre and this can be done in many ways.
•       Establishing shot, it is often used in an opening sequence to show the audience where the film is set, what location.
•      Sometimes there can be a narration which will inform the audience on minor details that will give them an understanding of perhaps backstory, what is going on, who the characters are etc.
•       Often in action movies there will be an opening with an action scene, which will be fast paced to get the audience interested straight away.
•      Another thing that would usually be used in action movies would be a chase scene this also attracts audiences to watch as they become interested.
•      Productions logos shown before the actual film, if the film is high budget the logo will be adapted to reflect the genre and story line of the film.
•      Title sequences can be used, sometimes showing the cast and production teams, the titles can also be used to build up tension and suspense and possibly show the genre of the film.
•      Animation can be used to portray the beginning of the film in a creative way and visibly show the difference between the film itself and the opening sequence.
•       A compilation of photographs can be used for example in romantic films, it shows the audience the theme and relationships within the film.
•      Narrative content, this includes the context as well as the pace of the narrative increases as level of engagement increases.
•      Soundtrack, the tone, volume and tempo, which will generically start, quiet and slow-paced.

2. I am choosing drama for my opening sequence so the conventions for that are:

•  Exhibits real life situations with realistic characters, settings and stories.
•  Portrays journeys of the characters development. 
•  Intense social interaction.
• Purpose of a dramatic story line is to move the audience emotionally.
• Heart of drama is the conflict.
• Conflicts include inner/outer realistic struggles depicting hardships, difficulty, and pain.
•  Audience can relate to the characters (preferred reading - Halls Theory)
•  Structure with climaxes and anti climaxes to keep the audience emotionally attached and the tension on-going
• A form of realisation at the end/happily ending.

3. The conventions I will try to stick with are:

• Exhibits real life situations with realistic characters, settings and stories.
• Portrays journeys of the character development.
• Purpose of a dramatic story line is to move the audience dramatically.
• Conflicts include inner/outer realistic struggles depicting hardships, difficulty, and pain.

4. Conventions I will change will be:

• Heart of drama is conflict
• Audience can relate to characters
• Intense social interaction

What impact does media ownership have upon the range of products available to audiences in the media area you have studied?

Media ownership has very positive impacts on the range of products available to audiences

analysis of 3 movies

1 . How is the character established through misé-en-scene, actions, body language, camerawork?

2 . How is the plot established through a variety of means?

3 . How is setting/context created?

4 . Which genre does this belong to? How do we know?

5 . Which questions are the audience left with?

6 . Is this an effective opening sequence?

Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope

1. Darth Vader/Princess Leia: When Darth Vader appears it is instantly clear he is high up in the hierarchy with the storm troopers. They stand to attention when he enters and from his body language of looking at the deceased soldiers of both his and the rebel men on the floor with his hands on his hips he shows no care for his own men neither the rebels, he knows his importance and power above the rest as it is a very then proceeds to walk leading the other soldiers. The camera is at a long shot when Vader enters to show the audience his full attire of full black body armour and his cape, it all adds to make him look more menacing and threatening, also another thing that tells the audience he is the enemy and more important than the rest is that the music becomes very dramatic as he enters the scene. Later in the scene his strength is shown holding a man off the ground by his neck with one hand, he interrogates the man in an almost non aggressive tone but while slowly crushing his neck, this manages to make Vader seem powerful but cold hearted and merciless and when the man denies Vader they have done anything and that they are innocent Vader simply crushes his neck and throws the man down as if it meant nothing increasing his menacing image, he then commands his troops to find what they are looking for fully showing the audience he is the one in charge. Leia's attire makes her instantly seem the opposite of Vader, while Vader wears black body armour and a black cape which adds to make him seem more threatening, Leia has simple plain white robes which try to tell the audience she is one of the good characters through her clothing's colour compared to Vaders. She appears to be the damsel in distress having the rebels try to protect her following the stereotype,

2. At the opening there is a long credit scene in which through writing the audience is narrated on recent events, we are shown who the bad guys and good guys from the attires they wear. Apart from this the only narration we are given in the opening is the opening credits.

3.  We can tell the context/ setting from the location of the scene. The establishing shot is of space and two spaceships chasing one another, the rest of the scene we see is from the inside of the rebel ship and we can tell this as it is the one that gets capture and of course full of rebel soldiers inside.

4. We know it is from the sci-fi and action genre from the scenes in space the futuristic weapons and spaceships and the fact there are machines such as R2D2 and C3PO. It is shown it is of the action genre also with the shootout scene that comes very early, also the first scene after the establishing shot is the two spaceships shooting at each over while one pursues the other.

5. What are on the plans? Who is Darth Vader and Princess Leia? Where have R2D2 and C3PO fled?

6. Yes because it grips the audience almost instantly with the choice of soundtrack as the narration comes in then straight into the action scene, it makes the audience want to continue watching to see what is going to happen next.

Children of men

1. The main protagonist is shown first when he enters a cafe called "caf fine" while there news on the TV of the youngest person alive who has been killed, he is shown to be uncompassionate as all people around him look on in sadness and while he shows no care about it, he also slightly nudges a woman out his way in order to get a coffee. The fact he remains emotionless standing out from the rest makes him be represented as a cruel person. After exiting the cafe he is then shown pouring some alcohol into his coffee telling us he could be alcoholic.

2. We are given no narration at all in the opening except that the date is London, 16th November 2027

3. We can tell the setting from the scene telling us it is London, 16th November 2027. We can also see some iconic London features such a red busses and taxis

4. We can assume this is from the drama genre as it opens with a tragedy of a celebrity being murdered then shortly after a bomb is set off in the cafe the protagonist was just in.

5. What has happened, how is the youngest man 18? What happened to the world? Who is the man? Why was a bomb set off in the cafe?

6. I think it is an effective opening as it manages to make the audience curious and want to find out more about what is supposed to be going on, also the bomb at the end also grips the audience effectively making them want to see more.

Kes

1. The protagonist is established as young at first we can easily tell from the high pitch of his voice when we only see the room in dark, his home is not well kept so the audience can assume he is middle class to low class, he is however shown to be enthusiastic about things as unlike stereotypes of lazy children he actually gets himself up and gets dressed after of course going back to sleep for a while and then proceeds to run into the garden.

2. We don't actually learn much of the plot at all in the opening scene only we have found their is a bad relationship between the boy and the man through the verbal and in end physical violence they have for each over, after running into the garden and discovering his bike is no longer there the audience is shown Kes running through town clearly trying to get to somewhere or someone as fast as he can.

3. The setting is created when we can see Kes as he runs through his home town, it looks all rather poor and not well kept but also old which wouldn't be that surprising given the movie is too very old.

4. It is of the drama genre and we can maybe pick this out by having a convention like conflict between family members between Kes and whoever the man was but other than that in the opening there is not anything that really shows what genre it is.

5. Who was the man? Where are Kes's parents? What is he running to?

6. I personally find the start of the opening a bit slow and dull but after Kes actually gets up it is a pretty good opening having him run to something unknown to the audience with the theme song in the background makes the audience want to continue watching to see what it is, so I like the opening but just find the start of it a bit boring.

London spy opening analysis

 When we first see the protagonist on his way to the club we get a close up to see physical features and emotions he shows, it is unusual as usually the opening shot would be an establishing shot however we first get a close up of the protagonist putting in his earphones and proceeding to walk to a club, we also see he is a smoker as the close up features him with a cigarette in his mouth, he then proceeds to begin bopping his head to the song he is listening too and the close up becomes a medium tracking shot and we see his confident, funky style of walking, this is used to show he feels relaxed and comfortable, the next extreme close up has his face showing no emotion, no anger, sadness or happiness just simple calmness , we then get a shot of his jeans and white trainers showing us the rest of his attire. There is a few shots of slow motion on the character making the clips more dramatic and showing the audience he is clearly the main character to have this much focus on him simply walking. we see from another wide shot in slow motion his feminine way that gives off a possible stereotype of homosexuals. There is a shaky POV shot of him walking to the entrance of the club and we see from this most of the people in line are male suggesting it is a gay club.

We don't learn much about the protagonist from any narration or dialogue but we can make several accurate assumptions from what goes on in the opening, the fact he enters and leaves the club alone can show he probably doesn't have many friends and is not that sociable, he does call people after leaving to see if they are "still up" again showing his feelings of loneliness, the fact he wanders aimlessly on drugs show he is not very happy in life as we see from him sitting on the bridge in an aggravated manor and then he breaks his phone. His line to the second man informs the audience he has probably things like this in the past as he says "You don't know me but if you did you'd know I'm always fine" this can give the audience reason to believe he gets himself into bad situations before but usually ends the way he started and could be going round in circles. We can tell the other man is quite the opposite, he is clearly fit and healthy jogging very early in the morning. The audience can also see the man is kind and caring as he stops to help pick up the pieces of the phone for the protagonist and asks him if he is alright then leaves him his own drink. These acts of compassion spell out the jogging man is one of the good characters.

The editing is mostly simple in the opening, various long cuts and lots of slow motion shots. There are however quite a few examples of camera angels such as edu, ms, ls, POV, high angel shot and tracking shot which are all used in the right places for the correct effects. There is one point where the cuts become faster to help show frustration and stress the protagonist feels after leaving the club where it keeps cutting in the same place just him failing to light a cigarette, fails to get his friends out and simply looking around his surroundings.

 The camera does move and always follows the action of the characters. It also follows in different ways depending on the characters and their states for example in the beginning following the main character the camera is bouncy in the same motion as the characters walk but once he leaves the club clearly in worsened state clearly on drugs and the camera is rather shaky, this goes with the probable mental state of the protagonist during this time. The various use of slow motion in certain shots makes each one more dramatic like when we first see the second man jogging along the river or the protagonist walking towards the club, it allows focus to centre in on the characters which the directors want us to be focusing on; the protagonist and the second jogger man. 

 At first the main character walks in a very confident, carefree relaxed way but after leaving the club he walks in a slightly disorientated manner. His confident walk at the beginning represents him as clearly not being shy or afraid, he does walk alone although so perhaps shows he does not have many friends. His face shows no real interest before entering the club, he looks simply calm no fear or anger or happiness. Once he leaves the club his whole actions and facial expression shows high levels of stress, his repeated attempts to light his cigarette show his growing annoyance and then his call to his friends to see "if they are still up" his face shows simple desperation as if he does not want the night to have ended or to be alone. When walking across the bridge we again see his odd way of walking, possibly more awkward from his drug consumption, he looks out from the bridge again with no emotion in his face. We see him also throw his phone awkwardly in frustration which then results in him breaking it as he slowly proceeds to pick it up looking very regretful. When the second man helps him pick up they have a strange moment of both staring at each over in a rather awkward way with the second man clearly a bit confused as to whether the protagonist is okay, after seeing some sweat on him he realises the man must be on drugs and gives him a concerned look before leaving.

 During opening there is diegetic sound of the music that the main character is listening too but the audience hears it much clearer than other characters, when he enters the club there is the diegetic sound of other people talking in line to get into the club. Also once left the club there is a short while with only ambient and diegetic sound of the surroundings and the very little dialogue the entire opening has. Having him enter the club with non diegetic sound and then a quick cut to him leaving without it creates a slightly more dramatic exit and almost manages to grip the audience and let them know he is not in the same state he was when he left. There is hardly any dialogue in the opening, the protagonist speaks to his friends on the phone asking if they were still up and then later he and the second jogging man share a few words as he is questioned if he is alright. I think the lack of dialogue doesn't badly affect the opening but makes it almost more interesting as we mainly just see the characters actions and emotions. Non diegetic comes again when we first see the second man jogging on the bridge in slow motion, it also helps make the rest of the opening more dramatic and less boring for example it is still going during the awkward stare the two characters share which if was done in silence would actually make the scene seem much more awkward to the audience. The editors manage to put diegetic music in the right places and not in others to add extra effect to each of those scenes and makes them much better and keeps the audience keen, if it was used in the entire opening or not at all it would become too simple and become much more uninteresting.

The genre of the series is drama and we can tell that from what happens in the opening it could be nothing else except at the end where it could have an element of romance. It has no horror, action or comedy conventions within but has shuttle pieces of tension and dramatic effects telling us it could only be a drama series.

It is set in London where we can see some very miserable weather, something usually expected in London, we also get shots of the River Thames and some other London features which helps to confirm the setting of the opening.

I personally think it is a very good opening and makes the audience interested and keen to watch further to see what unfolds later in the episode and possibly rest of the series.

Preliminary task evaluation questions

1. What have you learnt by doing this exercise?

I have learnt I really do need to get better organized with planning for these things as twice now I have had to push back filming due to my actors becoming unavailable this happened twice but eventually on a Wednesday the second choices finally had a free period for us to film, I need to make sure that in future I plan better as this has made me very stressed about the work and was arguably putting me behind the rest. I also learnt more and more about editing on Final Cut Pro and now I am better on it, I also learnt more about directing, many times I would have to show the actors exactly what I wanted them to do, how to stand, how to talk and what emotion to show, they had both seen there character representation video and short summary of the story so they were not completely clueless about what they were doing. I also know if I had had more time spent on this video and editing it I am sure it could be better, I also have been given an idea on how much harder doing a final project will be and how much time one should have and spend on their video as due to difficult circumstances which led me to having not as much time as I would have liked to have spent editing and filming my own video.

2. What skills have you developed?

I think my director skills have definitely improved because several times I would have to get the actors to redo a shot because it just wasn’t what I wanted and I would act out exactly what I wanted. I want what is on film to look like how I pictured how it would look when I picture it in my head so if it is not I want to redo the shot a few more times to get as close as we can too my goal for the shot and in whole the film. I feel my editing skills on using Final Cut Pro have also improved. I started turning down the sound on the non-diegetic sound and turning up sound on scenes with dialogue in order to make it easier to hear the speakers. My editing skills also improved after I had to start editing down clips of the journey as from feedback I got it went on for a bit long so I was advised to trim some of the longer ones down. When doing this the music and cut parts when the non diegetic sound was quitter than the diegetic sound became messed up and in different places so I would have to work around this and move parts back together, at some point I even decided just to delete the non diegetic music proceed to edit all the longer clips and only once done that put the music back in and re-edit it around the newly edited clips.

3. What feedback have you received?

 I was advised to cut the music up so that in certain clips when there is dialogue I should lower the music and turn up the clips volume thus making it easier to hear the speakers but while still having the music in the background. I showed my other classmates and they told me they thought it was good or “very nice” by Stuart, they however only saw my final version in which I had edited down the journey clips but there was no more mention to them from my classmates so i assumed they had therefore been trimmed down enough I also showed my parents who said the same thing which is just to shorten some of the longer shots during the traveling scenes but other than that they said they also felt it was good. Other than this I have not actually gotten any other feedback, I have been told and do understand myself it is not brilliant for a final project but for a preliminary task project I am happy with it, I do feel there are things that could improve it however. My own feedback to myself would simply be the same as the rest of the feedback I got, edit down the longer travelling shots.

4. How would you improve your Preliminary Task?
Overall I am pleased with my preliminary task however there are some things I feel I could improve with it. These include things such as I would redo a few of the shots I took as several of them were not very high quality and also in several shots the acting was not that great like at the end when I did redo the shot a few times as I wanted character 1 to change the way she spoke and said "umm I think I might just wing it." While I preferred the one I put in the video to the rest I still feel if I had taken a few more there is a chance I could have gotten a better shot. In future I would also manage to improve tasks like this with better pre planning as I have said filming was postponed and also new actors had to be found which then also having changed genders made me need to change around a few character representations and parts of the story. If my original plan had gone to plan perhaps it would have been more relaxed and I could have spent more time on filming and editing which has a high chance my video could have been better.