Feedback for Rough Cut

In class we all watched each others rough cut Film Openings and gave feedback for the
- Strengths
- Weaknesses

We were also asked to decide/plan
- What you intend to change?
- What is still to be done? e.g. titles, sound, visuals
Before submitting the final cut of the film opening project.

The feedback received for 'Something Wicked' in class was:
- very atmospheric
- need to re-shoot or re-edit the end shots of book so the cut/fade isn't jumpy
- mysterious
- should try to use the same effects on the titles as on the footage to see how it adds to the atmosphere

Then each group paired up to give feedback for each other. The feedback received from group 4 - Max Rob and Elliott was

Strengths:
- The soundtrack rounds off the atmosphere and creates a almost creepy uncertain of what is going to happen feeling.
- I think the shaky affect on the titles at the beginning (production company ect) makes the text a little hard to focus on.
- The way the sequence is shot makes the viewer almost in awe of every little detail, for example the bolt on the door.
- Establishing shots are well placed
- Good use of natural light to give an eerie feel
- Text effects are impressive, the way they jitter in gives the viewer the sense of a horror or maybe supernatural film
- Font used also gives of supernatural feel
- Placement of props (drills, blocks of wood) describe a gritty, workshop environment
- Doesn't give away too much of the story and not too little
- I like the darkness in the video, how everything isn't quite explained, it adds to the mystery of the scene.
- The close ups work well, I like the detail in the scene


Weaknesses:
- Music is good at the beginning but loses dramatic effect when the strings come in
- Shot after the title "something wicked" doesn't seem to have a lot going on or anything interested to catch the eye compared to the other shots
- Some shots fade in and then the camera starts moving, it makes it look a little strange to see things start and stop.

Recommened changes:
- The only think i think could be improved on this is the text at the beginning
- The fade from the close up book shots at the end.
- Replace shot after main title with new establishing shot or remove the shot
- Keep the music nice and simple without the need for strings or find a way to make the strings fit more with the overall loop (i'm not sure whether you guys made it with garageband or not)
- Maybe more shots of the protagonist entering the room (more foot shots?)

Things I plan to do:
- Make and then edit the rest of the titles, which shouldn't take long as i've already started making them
- Re-edit the last few shots
- Help Angelica with her comic book opening

Film Opening - Rough cut

Re-shooting

This morning Angelica and I went on location to re-shoot the last few shots of our film opening. These shots were mostly of hands rummaging and finding the significant object (the book).

However when we got back to Coleridge we noticed how light the footage was compared to the other footage I shot last week. So using video effects we made the footage darker.
I did this by going to
- Effects
- Video Filters
- Colour Correction
- and then Colour Correction again.

Once the effect had been selected I began to edit the lightness and saturation levels untill satisfied with the colours.

Although the last few shots that are on the rough cut look better then the old shots, there is still a problem with the way they fade and so need to be re-edited.

Reflection

Nick asked us all to draw a shot that we thought worked well during filming.

Nothing came to mind so I decided to draw something that I thought went well during Editing.

This picture represents myself and Angelica sitting at our Mac, editing a shot that fades to black and then into another shot really well, thus making us happy.

During shooting I tried to make most of the shots in the shed to go to black, which was pretty easy seeing as it was so dark in there, and it really payed off in editing, as when a shot fades to black it allows another shot to fade in from black which looks effective.

Film Title

Although I had started to think about film title idea's, nothing had really stuck out to me.
However I did have the idea of using the 'WS' letters on the book in the film opening as the letters for the main title.
Thats when Angelica came up with 'Something Wicked', even though the letters are the other way round, it still works and we are using it for the project.

Editing

I began to edit on Friday morning dropping the footage I shoot on Wednesday into the timeline on Final Cut Express. I began to build my opening up, placing the footage in the right order, cutting and cropping down shots where needed, with input from Angelica. I then began to look at where I wanted the main title to be and how I wanted it to look (etc).
Luckily Angelica and I found a font last week called Kingjola on Dafont.com which we both thought would work well.



Using the font I started to create my own titles step by step.

Firstly I opened the font, taken from the website, in Photoshop CS4


I then used the Magic wand tool to make the colours invert (so the font colour is white and the background colour is black).
I then made the text and the decorative part of the font into two different layers so that in Final Cut Express the two layers could move individually.


This is what I was left with


Then opening it in Final Cut Express I added video effects. The effects I used were
- Gaussian Blur
- Earthquake
- Directional
I like the way the effects make the font look old and distressed, which help towards the supernatural thriller aspect.

Screen grab of the filter effects used:

Next I placed in the music from the online game I posted on my blog. The music works really well and I think I may keep it for my final piece. My only concern is that I did not create the music, so I may open the track in garage band to modify it to make it my own.

At the begining of next week, Angelica plans to start to create her comic book opening using still-frames from my footage, which I shall help her with, like shes been helping me with my opening. I am also aware that she is going to take photo's of a main character as she wants an introduction to a character in her opening, unlike me.

Rough cut of the opening to come soon.

Filming

On Wednesday I took a camera home so that I could start to shoot my film opening.
I shot my footage at around 6:30pm, so that is was not too dark but not too light as to get the right lighting for the right effect.
I stuck to the storyboard pretty well, however I changed the shot of the characters legs walking from the side view, instead I set the camera up in my green house and shot the legs from behind walking away from the camera.

Planned shot:


Shot I changed too:


I think this looks more effective as it adds to the mysterious atmosphere I was trying to create.

At the time I thought I managed to get all the footage I needed, however during editing I discovered that the two end shots of hands rummaging around items and then finding the book arent framed very well, so I shall be re-shooting that on Tuesday.

Aprt from that, I am quite pleased with my footage.

Location

I took these photo's of our location, so that I could show Angelica what I had in mind for the location.

I think it would be useful for Angelica to have them as she might be able to edit them on Comic Life or Photoshop to use in her comic book effect opening.


I think the washing line kind of ruins this photo.

Taken from inside my green house.

Angelica's influences

The film openings Angelica has been looking at to help her with her comic book effect, are

- Sin City

- Repo: The Genetic Opera

- American Splendor

Sin City (Frank Miller 2005) uses colour themes throughout the film, these colours are mainly black, white and red. In the opening titles the audience is given an introduction to the character's in cartoon form and how they look in the comic.

The plot summary from IMDB;

"Sin City" is four stories inter-weaved telling tales of corruption in Basin City. The first story (The Customer is always right) is short, and is based on the depression of women that they need to pay a man to feel loved when they commit suicide. The next story is Part 1 of "That Yellow Bastard" about a cop who needs to save a young girl from being raped. The third story (The Hard Goodbye) features a man taking revenge on a heartless killer who murdered his one-night stand. The fourth story (The Big, Fat Kill) stars a man who must dispatch a cop's body, but it will be a tough ride to do it. Following that are two conclusions to Sin City, the ending of "That Yellow Bastard" which is set 8 years later, and a short story that ends Sin City.

Repo: The Genetic Opera (Darren Lynn Bousman 2008) has a variety of different scenes in a comic book as the opening.

Repo! The Genetic Opera - First 5 Minutes Movies & TV SPIKE.com

The plot summary of the film, from IMDB;
In the year 2056 - the not so distant future - an epidemic of organ failures devastates the planet. Out of the tragedy, a savior emerges: GeneCo, a biotech company that offers organ transplants, for a price. Those who miss their payments are scheduled for repossession and hunted by villainous Repo Men. In a world where surgery addicts are hooked on painkilling drugs and murder is sanctioned by law, a sheltered young girl searches for the cure to her own rare disease as well as information about her family's mysterious history. After being sucked into the haunting world of GeneCo, she is unable to turn back, as all of her questions will be answered at the wildly anticipated spectacular event: The Genetic Opera.

American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, 2004)

The plot summary of the film from IMDB;
Harvey Pekar is file clerk at the local VA hospital. His interactions with his co-workers offer some relief from the monotony, and their discussions encompass everything from music to the decline of American culture to new flavors of jellybeans and life itself. At home, Harvey fills his days with reading, writing and listening to jazz. His apartment is filled with thousands of books and LPs, and he regularly scours Cleveland's thrift stores and garage sales for more, savoring the rare joy of a 25-cent find. It is at one of these junk sales that Harvey meets Robert Crumb, a greeting card artist and music enthusiast. When, years later, Crumb finds international success for his underground comics, the idea that comic books can be a valid art form for adults inspires Harvey to write his own brand of comic book. An admirer of naturalist writers like Theodore Dreiser, Harvey makes his American Splendor a truthful, unsentimental record of his working-class life, a warts-and-all self portrait. First published in 1976, the comic earns Harvey cult fame throughout the 1980s and eventually leads him to the sardonic Joyce Barber, a partner in a Delaware comic book store who end ups being Harvey's true soul mate as they experience the bizarre byproducts of Harvey's cult celebrity stature.

Fonts for titles

Here are a few fonts Angelica and I considered for the titles in my film opening.

All of these fonts can be found on dafont.com

We looked in the categories

Gothic - Medieval




Fancy - Decorative












Fancy - Distorted

Feedback

Some excellent work here!

Music

We have started to look at possible music we might use in our film openings.
The music on our animtic is from an online game called William an Sly which can be played here.



The music is not copyrighted so there are no issues there if we wanted to use the music in our final film opening, however we must give credit to the artist.



The music can played (with out the game) here

I think this music could work well in my film opening because it has a supernatural feel to it, and is quite mysterious, which would keep the audience interested.

Rosemary's Baby

The opening to Rosemary's Baby (Polanski, 1968) is a film opening I watched in class. The opening sequence is tracking shots of buildings in a specific location of the film. It uses pink decorative font for the titles, which is where I got the inspiration for my titles and has very sinister music.

The music is actually what attracted me to create a supernatural thriller for my opening and I wanted to use music similar to the music used in this opening. The music is of a woman singing in a lullaby mannor, with slow/gentle but creepy instruments underneath the vocals.

Plot summary from IMDB
Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into an apartment in a building with a bad reputation. They discover that their neighbours are a very friendly elderly couple named Roman and Minnie Castevet, and Guy begins to spend a lot of time with them. Strange things start to happen: a woman Rosemary meets in the washroom dies a mysterious death, Rosemary has strange dreams and hears strange noises and Guy becomes remote and distant. Then Rosemary falls pregnant and begins to suspect that her neighbours have special plans for her child.

Comic Life

The plan is that Angelica is going to take still frames from my footage and edit them on Photoshop and a program called Comic life. This is because she wants to create a comic book film opening.



So we downloaded the 30 day free trial and began to edit some photo's of people we know to test out styles and and speech boxes/text boxes.
Here is a screengrab from Comic Life


Descripton from the Comic Life website
Comic Life lets you create astounding comics, beautiful picture albums, how-tos... and more!
The easy-to-use interface integrates seamlessly with your photo collection. Drag in your pictures, captions, Lettering text (‘ka-blam!') and speech balloons and your work is done!
Comic Life gives you fun and professional templates for instant, impressive, photo layouts.
Tweak your creations to your hearts desire!

To Kill a Mockingbird

I looked at the opening of To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962) on Art of the Title for inspiration for my own film opening.

The sequence consists of a variety of shots, manily close ups of objects in a box. It is quite abstract which is why I was interested in it to begin with.
I also think the little girl humming works well and adds to the atmosphere.




Film plot from imdb:
Based on Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning book of 1960. Atticus Finch is a lawyer in a racially divided Alabama town in the 1930s. He agrees to defend a young black man who is accused of raping a white woman. Many of the townspeople try to get Atticus to pull out of the trial, but he decides to go ahead.

Animatic

Angelica and I took photo's of our storyboard today and then opened them in Final Cut Express to create an animatic. An animatic is a moving storyboard.
We then put in music we both liked, found from a online game, in our animatic. The game is called William and Sly and can be played here.

Here is a draft version of our animatic (without titles)

Cronos

After talking to Barney about my film opening idea, he suggested that I watched Cronos (Guillermo del Toro, 1993)



Film plot:
In 1535, an alchemist builds an extraordinary mechanism encapsulated into a small golden device. The invention, designed to convey eternal life to its owner, survives its maker until 1997 when it shows up to an antiquarian. Fascinated with the strange device, Gris (Luppi) doesn't note that there's more than one person looking for it. The promise of eternal life has become an obsession to old and sick Mr. De la Guardia (Brook). He and his nephew (Perlman) will do anything to get the "Chronos Invention".

He thought it may help me with my idea as the opening is set in a antiques shop where the owner finds a significant object which is important to the rest of the film (a small golden device that gives its owner eternal life)

Which is roughly what I want to try and acheive in my opening.

Storyboard

Today I began to storyborad and timeline my opening sequence
The storyboard consisted of intials ideas/rough blocking on post-it notes
The timeline was to see how the order of the sequence would go, where titles would appear and how long the sequence is going to last.

Here are the photo's from this session
Storyboard:

Shot list

Just a rough outline

Shot 1 - Establishing shot of the location

Shot 2 - Low close up of characters legs and feet (front view)

Shot 3 - Low close up of character walking (side view)

Shot 4 - Mid shot of shed

Shot 5 - Mid close up of Shed door

Shot 6 - Extreme close up of door handle (with pad lock and such)

Shot 7-10 - Tracking shots of camera walking through door frame and looking round the dark shed (from characters view)

Shot 11 - Close up of hands looking through things

Shot 12 - Extreme close up of significant object character finds

This doesnt include titles, as I havn't decided if the titles will appear ontop of the footage or cut to a black background and appear.

Film Opening Idea

Here are a few notes on my film opening idea for a supernatural thriller

- Begins with establishing shots of a location (Garden/shed at the bottom of the garden)
- Close ups of significant object (undecided yet, but along the lines of a book)
- Music to create a supernatural atmosphere (like Rosemary's baby opening music)
- Shots of character holding the significant object (hand shots) and walking (leg shots - low close ups)
- No introduction to character(s)
- Titles to start on a solid black background
- Young actor used (costume ideas - school gitl outfit such as skirt and knee high socks)
- Film during dusky hours (first thing in the morning or around 6 o'clock in the evening)

I want to keep my film opening simple but effective in creating the atmosphere, I also want it to look quite abstract.

Edward Scissorhands

The title sequence I looked at on Art of the Title was Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands.
Here is the 9 frame grid of the film's title sequence:



The sequence is 1minute and 45seconds long.
The use of dark black/grey colours and the use of images is effective as it sets the atmosphere of the film.
It is also something i'd expect from a Tim Burton film.
You can watch the opening of the film on Art of the Title website or here on youtube.

Whilst watching the video I created a timeline to note down what titles appear, e.g. Cast, Director, Producer, Cinematography by (etc) and in what order they appear. As well as the times they appear, e.g. how long the time period is between each title.

This task allowed to me to understand title sequences better which will help me a lot when producing my own film opening.

Here is a photo of my timeline:

full size image here

9 Frames - Opening titles

The task set was to create 9 frames that display titles for a film opening.
Angelica and I chose random pictures off of the interent and pasted them into Photoshop, and then added in titles.

Here is our 9 frame title squence


The point of this exercise was to see what titles are used in openings of films and how they are positioned (etc)

This task was inspired by Art of the Title a website about title sequences.

UNDERWATER COW Ident

L3 CHRISTINA-IDENT_FINAL from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

This is the production logo I made (my ident)

I first made an image of my ident on photoshop, creating new layers so that i could animate it later on in Final Cut Express.

I got my font from dafont.com and decided to have 'Under water cow' and 'productions' in the same font because it seemed to work.

In Final Cut Express I used fades and key frame points to create the right animated effect.

I then went into Garage Band and found a noise of a cow mooing and dropped it into Final Cut Express.

It seem's quite random, but it's based on an animation project I have been working on at home.

Feedback

Very good posts- we need to get your video embedded when we are at Coleridge

Pitches

To help us think about film opening ideas we were given examples of 25 word pitches so we can then come up with our own 25 pitches.

The examples I found on bbc news and liked were:

Egomania by Paul Alexander and Simon Braithwaite - Hotshot young lawyer Michael Stark becomes so successful, so arrogant and so full of himself that his ego decided to go solo - with disastrous consequences.

The Cleaner by Peter Michael Rosenberg - When a crime scene cleaner haunted by his past uncovers evidence that suggets LAPD cops are working as assassins, he becomes their next target.

Shoeless Joe by Andrew Clyde - A holiday of a lifetime across desolate heart of Australian outback turns into a living nightmare for five friends.

Storage by Chris Denne and Mat Winn - Terror stalks a storage facility. Survival for those trapped inside depends on the secrets in those endless units. But some doors are better left locked.

Here are my own 25 word pithes based on my two film opening ideas.

My first pitch is based around brief one (A mainstream action film that will appeal to 15-25yr old males)
Man wakes up not remembering anything, beautiful woman finds and looks after him. Both soon find out man has powers. Villians out to destroy him.

My second pitch is based around brief two (A supernatural thriller that will appeal to female audiences)
After death of a close family member, female character begins to have dreams/visions about supernatural disasters, that begin to come true.

Perliminary Task

What is continuity editing?

- Continuity editing is the arangment of a squence of shots that suggest a progession of events.

In the task we did on Tuesday (29th) we followed three rules that tie into continuity editing. These rules were:
1. The 180 degree rule
2. Match on match action
3. Shot/reverse shot

Using these three rules we planned, filmed and edited a short sequence where a character is seen walking along a corridor (establishing shot) followed by a close up of the character opening a door. it is important that in this task that you see the character before they open the door so that the audience has already already been introduced to the character and are not confussed by the second shot of someones hand opening a door.

The next shot in the sequence is a long shot from the other side of the door, this is to allow the audience to see the character enter through the door.

The second and third shots are where rule number two, match on action, comes in. it is important that the door opening from the outside and the door and the door opening on the inside match up so the video has a constant flow.

The next shot is a close up of the second character reacting to the enterance of the first character, this shot is followd by a long shot if both characters together (in the same room).

The next few shots that take place use rules one and threee. Shot/reverse shot is used to show one character (often off-screen) looking at another character and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Most commonly used to show a conversation between two characters. This connects in with the 180 degree rule.

This rule states that two characters in a scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. The shots then continue using the shot/reverse shot and 180 degree rule to show the first and second characters in conversation.

I worked on this tak with Liam, Zven and Charna. We allocated roles for the task which were
Character one - Liam
Character two - Zven
Camera operator - Charna
Director - Myself.

Charna and I then edited the footage together whilst Zven and Liam edited their own verison using the same footage. Here is our final video from this task

I think my group did well in the task and stuck to the rules well, particularly the match on action shot where in editing we managed to keep the video flowing throughout. One thing we did have a problem with when editing was speech. The dialogue was a bit too early with some shots however it was a problem easily solved.

Credits list

An UNDER WATRER COW Production

A Long Road Film

Cast

Costume Design by

Art Director by

Production Design by

Casting by

Film Editing by

Cinematography by

Original Music by

Produced by

Directed by

Main Title:

Moodboards

Angelica and I came up with two moodboards relating to brief one, a mainstream action film that will appeal to 15-25yr old males.

The first moodboard we created were for images that reminded us of comic books.


The second moodboard we created were for fonts that reminded us of comic books.

Feedback

excellent work on both Juno and SuperBad ! well done!

Green Screen Exercise

After having re-created the Juno openig sequence we were shown how to use a green screen to try and create a Juno Effect from the film opening.
I did this by firstly opening a picture of the front of college in photoshop and editing it using tools such as the pen tool to create paths and then fill and stroke them until I was left with this

After this our class took a visit to our gym where a green screen had been set up behind a treadmil with a camera and lights positioned, which looked like this

As a class we all got to have a go at either operating the camera or the lights or the treadmil (speed and such). We also had 4 different volunteers who had a go at walkig on the treadmil whist being filmed.

Back in the class room I captured the footage onto Final Cut Express and began to edit away.
My final video is on youtube, here is a screen grab of it

Cristina's greenscreen exercise from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Case Study of a Film Opening

The film opening I decided to analyze is Super Bad (Greg Mottola, 2007)



I chose this film because I like the use of green/blue screen effect. I also like how the dancing and the non-diegetic soundtrack work well together to give a comical feel. This sets the atmosphere of the film so you know it’s going to be funny. The song used is called Too Hot To Stop by The Bar-Kays, which is a funk soul band.

The sequence begins with the studio logo, (Sony Pictures Entertainment company). As the camera zooms in the picture changes to the production/distribution company (Columbia Pictures) and then silhouetted figures appear on screen, you don't know who they are, but you can assume they are main characters in the film. As they begin to dance titles continue on.



The titles used aren’t very focal in the sense that the kind of just blend in to the background and don’t stand out very much, no special font or colour has been used and the name of the film is no different to the rest of the titles, expect maybe it’s a bit larger. The titles used include (in order of apperence)
Main Characters
Casting by
Costume designer
Co-producer
Music Supervision
Music by
Edited by
Production Designer
Director of photography
Executive producers
Produced by
Written by
Directed by



I think the use of colours fit in with the song. The kind of relaxed greens, blues, oranges/browns that you would associate with funk music.

There isn't any action as such, nothing that gives away the storyline. However I don't think this film opening needs action to caputure the audience for the following reasons. Firstly the cast drew my attention in first, if you have heard of hese actors before (which i'm sure everyone has) you'll know they have starred in comedy films before. Secondly the music and dancing work so well in creating a comical atmosphere, for example at 1:13 on the video, where it looks like the two silhouetted figures get a bit too carried away with their dancing and end up dacing over each other.

JUNO Film Opening Sequence

We have been looking at film openings for the buid up to our own film opening project.
As part of this we had to look at and re-create the opening sequence to Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007)

You can also watch this video on the shadowplay website.

Here is a screenshot of the opening to Juno

Before we began to film we planned what we were going to need (props, costumes, etc) and then we started to storyboard each scene to shoot. We looked at camera angles, character positioning, camera movement, locations, props and costumes used, we also looked at titling.

My group consisted of myself, Jahmal, Emma and Max.

We allocated roles so we knew who was doing what on the day of filming. We decided Max was going to be our Juno and myself, Jahmal and Emma would all have a go at filming different shots, as well as acting as the joggers (or any other extra needed). This way we all got to take part.

The footage I ended up editing (with Elliott) was from Chloe, Elliott, Liam and Sophie’s group.

Here is our take on the opening sequence of Juno

We used video transitions such as slide to re-create the sequence as close to the original as possible. We also used the key frame tool to pin point the places we wanted the footage to move. Such as this shot (I placed the same Juno shot underneath so you can see what we were trying to do)

Where we wanted the camera to start on the feet and then move upward to a head shot (like it does in the original). This was all one shot so we zoomed in and used key frame to create this effect. It needs to be trimmed at the top and bottom of the clip as it’s larger than the rest of the footage.

If we had had more time to edit, I think it would have come out a lot better, and we would have included titles. There also wouldn’t be a blank screen for the last 20seconds of the song.

Feedback

This blog will be the evidence of your research and planning for the AS coursework, so there needs to be lots on it and lots of detail to it. All the tasks set will help build up this evidence, so if you don't complete them you will not be able to access the higher marks/grades.

You haven't done the student film task and you need to talk about the Final cut tools that you used- even though you are familiar with the program, it doesn't hurt to say what it can do.

Your points on the film opening are good but could do with some expansion.

Pete

Film Openings

The task given was to watch three film openings and then write about one.
The three film openings I watched on youtube were
1. Mean Girls
2. Kill Bill Vol.1
3. Napoleon Dynamite

The film opening that had the biggest impact on me was Kill Bill Vol.1. (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)

The plot summary of the action/thriller Kill Bill on IMDB is
The lead character, called 'The Bride,' was a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, lead by her lover 'Bill.' Upon realizing she was pregnant with Bill's child, 'The Bride' decided to escape her life as a killer. She fled to Texas, met a young man, and on the day of their wedding was gunned down by an angry and jealous Bill (with the assistance of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad). Four years later, 'The Bride' wakes from a coma, and discovers her baby is gone. She, then, decides to seek revenge upon the five people who destroyed her life and killed her baby. The saga of Kill Bill Volume I begins

The film starts with a black screen. Titles then begin to fade in and out, as these titles appear on screen, audio of a woman struggling for breathe is played. The film then continues and the black screen quickly changes to a close up of a beaten woman lying on the floor, with blood dripping from her face. This creates the whole atmosphere of the film which draws the audience in at a very early stage. The camera changes once to a low close up of a man walking along wooden floor boards, this may be used to introduce the character. No location is given away yet, and the plot is unclear but interesting. The whole opening scene is in black and white, which I think is used to make everything seem more intense. The camera focuses on this distressed beaten woman and her emotions. As a gun is shot you see blood splatter, and the screen fades to black and titles continue, this time with contrasting calm music in comparison to the visuals just seen.

The second task was to look at a Student film opening on youtube.

The Student film opening I found is called Virtual Paradigm Situation and can be found here.

The description on the video info says

in this scene Kafka (co-lead character)
runs away from home taking a gun and his father's money - and then there is the crazy dancing titles for introducing each character.
Expect guns, funny dancing, jamiroquai music, bikes, black and white stills and some titles for the awesome hour long film Virtual Paradigm Situation

The Strengths of this video are:

- Good variety of shots

- Nice introduction to characters

- Music works well

- Main title at the end looks good

The Weaknesses of this video are:

- Drags on a bit for a film opening, lasting 3:22

- Too many shots of the character on a bike

- Shaky camera

- Titles don't start till 2 minutes into the opening

- Titles are hard to read

Creative Media Postcard

The task given was to create a postcard design for the Creative and Media course.
To do this we used Flickr to gather two images of our choice and manipulate them using Photoshop to come up with a whole new graphic.

This is the postcard design i came up with

I don't like my final postcard, particularly the font. It just doesn't stand out enough and looks too dull for something that is mean't to be creative.

I wasn't too sure how i wanted my postcard to look, however i thought it should represent the course in some way, i guess thats where the film reel and coloured lights come in to the design.
The first image i found was of lights on an iPhone, this became my background image. The second image i found was a photo of a film reel. I cut this image in half and took the background out, using the magic wand tool, to place in the curve of the lights. I then faded the image and added text.

This image along with the other Creative and Media postcards can be found here.

Induction to Final Cut Express

We all had an induction to Final Cut Express yesterday morning.
In Final Cut Express we edited audio and visuals together using different techniques such as cutting, fading, and titling.
We then looked at the opening of Matchstick Men where we looked in detail at the titles used, we were then asked to try and use interesting titles in our editing.
 I've already used Final Cut Express before, so i didn't really learn anything new.

This is the video Rob and I made

This video along with everyone else's videos from the induction can be found on youtube.

SHIFTY

On Friday the class made mood boards for the film Shifty
Here is one of the mood boards they made

They used colours and images they thought would suit one of the scenes they had a script copy of best. Just by looking at this moodboard I can tell they thought the scene was gritty and quite dark.

welcome