Magazine Cover Annotations

Preliminary Task

Shooting Schedule 5

We could not shoot on the 12th, as it was too cloudy and we forgot the battery for our camera. We now know to check the camera before going to the location. Wednesday 13th seems like a good day to shoot, but we will recast the role of Eva as Lailah is busy during the time we must shoot. Instead we'll use Francesca.

Shooting Schedule 4

During the 8th-10th weekend, it was too rainy/snowy to be able to film outside and complete our filming. Therefore, as we would like to finnish our filming before 1/2 term, we will be finishing out filming on Tuesday 12th February. The weather seems to be good in comparison to the rest of the week. Hopefully the partly-sunny conditions will allow us to effectively film our opening sequence with lighting we need.

Shooting Schedule 3

We are now filming the dream sequence on Sunday the 10th February, weather permitting. We will all be there including Kathy and  Lailah. Meet at 12:30/1:00 at Wandsworth common.

Ident (EA)

Segment Productions Ident:

This is the ident I have decided to use to represent our film company. I very much liked the idea of cubes and squares because they are easy shapes to be creative with. Because I was interested in those kind of shapes I tried to think of a decant name, segment was all that came to mind because it represents the shapes we will be using and also it can be interpreted to a slightly deeper level as it shows the how when you cut up film its in segments or the many different stages of production in a film. The addition of the word Productions was just because we could not leave it at just segment, also with productions it makes the audience know its definitely a film production company. Another point is that the animation of the sequence was very difficult to make. The animation we have is not the same as the one I wished to have but I have tuned this one to my liking. The original idea was that the white letters above would just slide into place with the black letters and make a word. I found this much too hard on final cut pro so instead I managed to just make them appear in different ways, almost as if they were being stuck on page in little chunks. This now leads me onto sound, because of the sudden and quite "segmented" appearance of each letter I tested different sounds with the animation, I found a large 40second clip of typing and split it up into just a key for each letter and using the end of the clip to represent the Production part with a satisfying little ping. Colour was a big decision but in my research i found that minimal colour worked best because it stopped the audience having to focus too much and they could concentrate on the ident and movements. This meant that I chose a black and white scheme which works well, my intent was to make this ident as minimalistic as possible because when I see large international film companies trying to overdo their ident hoping that it will make the audience appreciate it more it frustrates me. The ident must be a simple short representation of your company and as we are going to be a small indie company our ident should be very student style.

Shooting Schedule 2

We could not film last weekend, as it was snowing in London and impossible to go anywhere during the weekend, especially as we could not film the dream sequence in the snow due to possible errors in continuity if we did reshoots.

Saturday 26th:

• Diegetic sound recording (Me)
• Inside shooting (Sasha, Eliot + Kathy)

Sunday 27:

• Dream sequence shoot (Me, Eliot, Sasha + Lailah)

Shooting Schedule

Saturday 19th: Sound (Me)
Sunday 20th: Inside filming (Me, Eliot, Sasha, Kathy)
Saturday 26th: Dream sequence outside ( Me, Eliot, Sasha, Lailah)
Sunday 27th: Outside travelling (Me, Eliot, Sasha, Kathy)

Shot List (EA+SL)

Shot list of morning sequence:

Shot list of Travel Sequence: 

Ident Research (EA)

I have been researching different idents to get a feel for the ident I would like to use. I will discuss the sound/movement/image/name of the idents and decide wether I like them.
My first example is an ident from the company Perceptireel Pictures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLg5NzRYLQs

This ident is interesting because of its feeling of "ruggidness". The grainy effect and the images being quite smudged make the ident seem rather gritty. Moreover the rubix cube idea is great because it makes alot of action which is surprisingly simple to concentrate on, the images which play on the rubix cube relate to the company which is about images and films hence the eye and the reel being the main focus of the images on the rubix cube. Also the colour scheme is black and white, this makes the image simpler and the audience are more receptive to it. The music for this ident is good because it is powerful but low key keeping the viewer interested in the actions. Finally i like the name because it is a play on words, the word perceptireel is a mixture of perception, real and reel which I find clever and I quite like in an Ident name.

Next i would like to discuss The Weinstein Company ident.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRVh_8y2CAQ

This ident is shorter than the Perceptireel pictures ident, I prefer the ident being shorter as people might get bored looking at an ident. However the weinstein company is not only shorter but much simpler, it starts by making three downward shaped triangles appearing in descending order. Then the name of the company appears, the simple colour scheme is great because it means the audience is not going to have to concentrate too hard. The sound is gentle and uplifting which promotes the weinstein company in a positive way and gradually crescendos till the end of the animation. 

An ident that I dislike is the Island Pictures animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iGbu-x1qJ0

I do  not like the island picutres animation because it does not seem to have any correlation with the title name. Admittedly it is abstract and I do quite like that aspect of it but i feel it should be abstract within boundaries, however the randomness  i find there is too much colour and you have to strain to watch the ident. A positive aspect of this ident is the music, it is slow and melodic which has a nice ambience and makes the audience relax. 



In conclusion, I would like my ident to be simple and short. This is because i don't want to overdo the atmosphere and the ident should be memorable but not too imposing. Moreover I would like to make minimal movement so the viewers do not need to focus too hard. 

To achieve this I would like to make my ident in black and white, an example of this would be the Weinstein company's ident. I like the simplicity in colour as opposed to that of the Island Pictures, there is a large contrast between the two idents and I would be worried that I go too overboard with an ident similar to Island Pictures animation. For Movement, I think that movement is key but it must be subtle and slow. The rubix cube is a smart idea however it is too powerful or bold. I would like to use a some shapes and maybe just move them, maybe create a tessellating pattern like - 

This will be simple and inspiring, for the name of the company I like to have a clever play on words much like the first example of perceptireel pictures another good example of this is an independent company called layZeye, this type of idea is interesting and engaging. Music wise I firmly believe that the music should be empowering of sort,  the weinstein company have very uplifting and motivational music which i believe promotes the ident greatly. However the island pictures music is soft and quiet which can possibly be used to their advantage. 

Graphics Research (EA)

Graphics Research

The opening credits are crucial and must be exactly as we want them. There are a variety of different ways in which they can be displayed and I would like to show a few examples of opening credits to give light on a couple of ideas I would like to use.

Dexter:

The opening to the series Dexter is intense, it is very ambiguous and suggests multiple different meanings. However I would like to focus on the written graphics of this introductory sequence and highlight its strengths and weaknesses.

The idea of using a simple text is good because we need the audience to not be overloaded by the text and the video at the same time. This is important because if the audience is taking in to much information then they will find it hard to understand or follow the introduction. This means that using simple text such as Arial will be good because it will give the viewer a clear text which is easy to read. The text is in red which is a good idea because it is obvious symbolism for blood, however there is a lot of red in the video which means that the audience may not be able to focus on both at the same time. For this reason I think i would like to use a more standard colour such as black or white because it makes the text easier to read.

Skyfall:

The credits for skyfall are very strong because they are so simple and have such a high contrast to the film. This is desperately needed because there is so much going on in the video that if the text was not very visible or too powerful then a lot of effect could be lost. The text is in a simple format; white colour and a simple font. The text is sometimes displayed at angles to suit the artistic side of the video, the titles are still very central because they do need attention. Even though they are very central it does not steal the attention as the video and titles work in tandem, the video tends to tone itself down when there is something to read. This is a good technique as it guide the viewers on what to focus on. I would like to use the video contrast between the colour in the video and the text to our advantage during our piece as it is a good way of presenting the titles. 

Sound Research (EA)

Everything in its Right Place by Radiohead:

I think that the the song everything in its right place is an iconic song and it would add tremendous value to the opening sequence, the dream sequence. This kind of music would be ideal as it is surreal and the dream sequence is supposed to be all about the "unreal" and the abnormalities that we don't really notice much in real life.

Storyboard (EA)

Storyboard (GP + SL)

Non-Diegetic Sound

Both Black Swan and Shame use string music over scenes to create ambience. I couldn't find specific scenes on youtube, but the trailers feature the same music. This could be used to create tension in the sequence when Margot goes outside, still including diegetic sound but them music will be emphasised. The music is also used in the films for characters that have a certain obsession or mental problems, which would work well highlighting Margot's obsession with Eva and her mental issues.

Foley Sound

The opening to collateral effectively shows what i want to do with the sound during the scenes in the house and the street. There is still some atmospheric sound of the airport, but the sound of the footsteps has been amplified so you can hear them above the other diegetic sound. This creates a good effect as it highlights the character Tom Cruise is playing and draws the audience attention to him and what he is doing. If we were to use this in our opening, it could highlight the importance of Margot's character and sound good.

Sound for Dream Sequence (1)

The sound of musical glasses could fit really well into the dream sequence. It has really god ethereal tones that could emphasise the dream for the audience. This mixed with diegetic sound of animals or wind could produce a nice mixture of sound which shows the break in reality during the dream, and increase the ambience of the sequence. It would be unlikely that we could find a track that suited our scene, so will will probably have to record our own track to play during the dream.

Shot List

Shot No.	Cut	Shot	Visual	Sound	Lighting/Colour	Character	Time (secs)
1			Idents	Mix of diegetic sound in the park and quiet music.			7
2	Straight	ES	Park and Trees in early morning	Soft music continuing	Cold, natural lighting (early morning dull colour)		4
3	Straight	LS	Pond w/ ducks floating by	‘’	‘’		4
4	Straight	LS	Eva standing by the trees looking at the camera	‘’	‘’	Eva	3
5	‘’	CU	Skirt trailing on the grass	‘’	‘’	Eva	3
6	‘’	Extreme CU	Eva’s face lying on the grass, smiles and looks up (side shot)	‘’	‘’	Eva	4/5
7	‘’	Extreme Wide	Birds flying in the sky	‘’	‘’		3
8	‘’	MS	Eva walking away from camera, looks behind her (camera following)	Music starts to speed up	‘’	Eva	4/5
9	‘’	Extreme CU	Eva’s eyes directly at the camera	‘’	‘’	Eva	2
10	‘’	Wide	Birds in sky	‘’	‘’	Eva	2
11	‘’	CU	Eva Smiling	‘’	‘’		2
12	‘’	CU/MS	Eva walking away from camera	‘’	‘’	Eva	2
13	‘’	LS	Eva in the distance by the trees again	Some contrapuntal diagetic sound (from Margot’s room)	‘’	Eva	2
14	‘’	Wide	Birds in the sky or some other animal type shot	Short, loud noise (alarm?)	‘’		1
	Straight	CU	Side shot of Margot immediately opening her eyes in bed	Diegetic sound only (street noise?)	Cold light, but less than the dream sequence	Margot	3