Rough Cut of Film Opening

This is the rough cut for our film opening sequence, it's obviously far from finished. We need to film some more footage of birds flying, atmospheric fen skies etc and some more stuff at the end.
We also need to put the song we're going to use on for the final cut and shoot some close ups of me and james dialogue so it's audible and you can see our expressions etc.

The two minutes or so of blackness at the end is not meant to be there, ignore it

Titles :)

Below are the list of titles that we will be using in our film opening:

• James Heath
  
• Joshua Lucas

Both these will be put on a black background and faded in.

• 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere'
• 'Produced by Jamie Murray'
• 'Artistic Director Ashley Simpson'
• 'Directed by Joshua Lucas'

All these will fade in on the video in different positions on the video

Progress report

Editing is coming along well, we've ordered all our footage we've shot into order we want it to be and cut down the clips to the lengths we want.

Next lesson we'll be putting the titles in so we've got that done.

Our major problem is that we don't have all the footage we need and have some gaps, so some time this or next week we need to shoot the rest of the stuff we need.

then we'll be able to finish all our editing for the final cut deadline

Opening Title Fonts

Above are three fonts which could possibly be used to display our opening titles. In descending order the fonts are STFangsong, Century Gothic and Euphemia UCAS. We felt that the fonts Century Gothic and Euphemia UCAS were two similar but both still would have been appropriate for use in our film opening. This is because they are simple, clear fonts. We have decided to use STFangsong as the font used in our opening titles. A space has be made between each letters to make the writing clear and easier to read. This font is simplistic and doesn't look flashy or expensive. We wanted to achieve this effect as our opening is for a brtish socialist drama and not some hugely edited hollywood movie.

Editing

We are now in the process of editing our footage. Ashley is working on the text for titles which will be up soon and once we have that we can start working systematically through the sequence in chronological order.

Shoot Foiled

Unfortunately I was unable to do the filming I was intending to do this morning. The weather foiledour plans, I was inteneding to do it at home during our first free and then moped in later. But my father deemed the roads too icy for me to go in on the moped so I had to go in early meaning I wasn't able to do the shoot.

We'll have the re-schedule the shoot for during half term.

Extra footage needed

We've decided that we need some extra shots during the dialogue on the top of the bank.This is because really for dialogue you need some form of close up and also the sound recorded during the long shot wasn't really good enough, you could barely hear my half of the dialogue.

Filming some close ups of this dialogue will solve both these problems.
We will probably do this thursday morning during our free first thing (me, Jamie and James all have this free). This will mean that I'll have to make sure I do all the filming at home as fast as I can and then get into school to do these closeups.

Second Day of Shooting(?)

Due to the fact that we didn't quite manage to get all the shooting we needed done last Saturday we need to do some more shooting.

I asked to take the camera out this evening, but then realised that there would be no point due to the fact that by the time we got home I wouldn't be able to shoot because it would be dark so I didn't bother picking up the camera. Instead we'll see if we can borrow it overnight tomorrow so I can shoot the stuff we need in my free first thing Thursday, hopefully this won't be a problem.
We will have to see if this is possible if not we might have to improvise.

On Shoot Pictures

Below are some of the excellent pictures our friend Liv took during our shoot, which give a real insight into the working process-really slippery muddy banks included.

Shoot Report

On Saturday we had our first day of primary shooting. The group plus our friends Liv (photographer) and James (actor for the day), gathered at mine and then headed out into the Fens to shoot the majority of our opening sequence.

The day was pretty much a success, despite a few hiccoughs. The primary one being Jamie's bike (one of the two bikes we were using in the filming) completely died on us halfway through the shoot. So we had to improvise and wrote into the script on the spot that the bike belonging to the character James was playing broke, and then subsequently they had to walk the rest of the way home. This was annoying as it meant the shot of the boys cycling down the main street and turning into one of the side roads is considerably longer and slower, and therefore sorts of destroys the pacing/interesting of the opening. We may have to cut this shot, or at the least just use a chunk out of it.
It was also quite tiring because we had to walk quite long distances between several different shots, so 20 seconds on the camera could take 15 minutes to shoot simply because of distance walked.

Despite these things overall the shoot went pretty well, despite REALLY slippery grassy banks, snowy ground that was insanely hard work to cycle (and having to do it three time) and every getting a bit tired and cold.


We managed to shoot all of the shots of the two boys out in the fens and then coming into village, but by the time we had done this it was getting on and we were starting to lose the light. So the final shots of one of the boys going home alone to his house I'll shoot on my own (not a problem as I'm the 'actor' playing that one of the boys), sometime this week. I'll have to do it before all the snow melts however, because otherwise we'll have continuity problems, hopefully I'll be able to do it tomorrow maybe, or early Thursday morning. We will see. After I've done this all shooting should be done, apart from the stuff inside the house which I can do at the same time.

Quick update on the actors

Should have mentioned this earlier but unfortunately the person I had in mind for the the role of one of the teenagers couldn't do it on the date we had to shoot, so we decided that I would take his place as Jamie is (in)famous for corpsing. This shouldn't be a problem though because Jamie will still be able to operate the camera with me directing from in front of it as well as behind.

In terms of 'extras'-the old people on the street we'll just use Jamie and my friend Liv who is coming along and kindly agreed to take pictures of our shoot

pictures which should consequently be up tomorrow evening

Shooting Schedule

After some effort over being able to co-ordinate the right people to be in the right places (lots of thanks to Liv and her parents for their help with that), and we now know when are where we will be shooting.


Saturday 7th of January- Principal Shooting


We'll be shooting from about 11:30, 12:00 til some point in the afternoon depending how long it will take. It will also mean we'll have the whole afternoon to film, which barring any enormous hiccoughs should be plenty of time.

This filming will include all of the scenes in the fen and coming into the village on the bikes, however we might not be able to film the shots of one of the characters going into the house, because this shoot has come sooner than we expected and we've yet to see if it's possible to shoot there, we will see tomorrow.
However if we're not able to shoot this bit tomorrow it not be a huge problem because this part only has me as one of the actors in it so I can shoot it either on Sunday or a later date.

Research into British Socialist Drama Opening Credits

As well as filming our opening to a British socialist drama we also need to create opening credits. In order to do this I looked at the opening sequences of films by British directors Shane Meadows and Ken Loach. I decided to analyse the opening credits of 'This is England' and 'Raining Stones.'

The opening credits used in Ken Loach's 'Raining Stones' are very simple and not very artistic. The font colour is white and the text is centred in the frame. These credits are made simple as it helps set the mood of british drama and not try and make it appear like some big Hollywood production. The names of the actors and team involved with the film are in large where as the title of thier role in the film appears small abve their name. The titles also appear still and do not having any transtions or effects.

In Shane Meadows' 'This is England' again a white coloured font is used for the credits, however, the font type appears slightly more artistic. It appears like torn paper. This ties in with the narrative of the film which involves destruction and conflicts between two different nationalities. Again this socialist drama does not use flashy effects or transitions with its opening titles.

In general 'Raining Stones' uses simpler credits than 'This is England', however the credits in 'This is England' have a font style that ties in with the narrative.

I think we will probably use very simple lettering similar to that in Raining Stones opening, plain white, although probably a little thinner, which will fit within the conventions of the genre whilst being striking and fitting with the feel and mise en scene of the opening.

Shot list

The opening starts in the fens near a large grassy bank, the shots then follow the two characters home, then one of them to his home. It will then follow him inside his house and up to his room.

- Medium, long shot of grassy bank/sky (two thirds/one third), this then holds as characters climb into shot, as they climb higher it then tracks up behind them and over the top so now we can see over the top of the grassy bank and it's now 2 thirds sky and 1 third grass. This shot then holds for a long time as the two characters have some dialogue.

-Long shot of farm buildings, cows in background,bikes in foreground. Boys enter shot from right, exchange brief dialogue, they pick up there bikes and cycle off, camera pans to the left to follow them and holds as they ride off.

-Long shot of boys cycling towards the camera across rough ground, they then pass the camera and the camera pans to the left again to follow them as they cycle away down the road.
-Possible footage of birds flying in fen sky, or fen landscapes.
-Medium, long shot of road and bridge, cyclists cycle past and then pan to the right as they cycle across the bridge.
- More possible footage of birds flying in fen sky, or fen landscapes.
Medium long shot of boys approaching junction, pan to the right as they cycle past, finishing on a shift of focus to road sign saying 'Witcham'.
-Medium long shot of road and houses on far side in background, pair of people in foreground on near pavements. Static shot: bikes cycle pass in then out of shot, people in foreground react to there passing.
- Medium long shot of village cross roads. Static shot: bikes come down far road and turn right into road on the left of the shot.
- Medium long shot of more village roads-t-junction visible, before this a turn to the right. One of the teens turns down this road and the other continues down and left at the t-junction, they wave each other bye.
-Medium shot of pavement with roads on one side, cars on other bikes cycles down it towards camera and then past it.
-Medium long shot of terraced houses with gardens and then garden fences in front, bikes come down path in front from the right of shot. pulls up in front of one of the houses opens gate goes in garden up to front door. Knocks and waits till door is opening and enters.

Film opening animatic

(arrows indicate the movement of the camera within the shot.)

This is our film opening animatic. Alot of it seems quite bare, just random shots of places, this is because we didn't (apart from in one shot) draw in the peoples/bikes. So in all of the scenes of bits of road and countryside/village there will be bikes traveling through the frame. Also at the start with the long held shot there will be the sound of people climbing, and then subsequently climbing into view. The camera will then follow these people (indicated by the zoom in the animatic) tracking from behind, til they arrive on top of the grassy knoll, at which point we will have a long held shot of the landscape with them in the foreground having some dialogue, this is what the second long shot is (it seems rather boring in the animatic due to this lack of dialogue). They will then turn and go back down the hill and the title will appear, something vaguely like shown in the animatic, although this obviously only a rough version.

Despite these rather large holes, the animatic still serves its main purpose to give some idea of the structure of the final thing and what it will look like. We have this clearly shown in the first section empty of non-diagetic sound then contrasted with the boys journey home with the song playing over the top. This will be the structure of the opening for the final thing. The song I chose is 'Everybody Knows This is Nowhere' by Neil Young, I mainly chose it due to the lyrics covering similar themes to ones we might explore in the film, plus borrowing the films own title from it. However the style of music perhaps is a little incongrous with a british social realist drama so before we put music to the final film, we'll carry out some research into the use (or non use) of non-diagetic music (mostly songs) in the openings of british social realist dramas. This will then at least give us some idea whether the music is appropriate on top of our own feelings about it, it might turn we like it because it's more (possibly) happy mood juxtaposes the harsh realities of the boys lives, a technique I'm sure I've seen used in films before. We will see.