Finished Opening.

Here is mine and Christina's finished abstract film opening.

L3 OPENING SEQUENCE - GROUP 1 - FINAL VIDEO from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Creative Risk.

Mine and Christina's risk would be the fact we are doing two openings, one abstract, the other comic.
We are still using the same story and they do link to each other.
So far this idea is working well and I think both openings will be equally as good.

The benefits of doing this are we can both do what we want and also help each other out with each opening- because we are both doing two film openings, I think this might give us both a better mark in our overall grade.

Although, what may of happened is that we do not complete the sequences in time because it's just too much or one overshadows the other. Christina may of said she wouldn't join me in this so we would both me doing our openings separately, but fortunately we both agreed to doing two and helping one another out with our projects.

Rough Cut.

This is the rough cut of our Abstract film opening for 'Something Wicked'.
Because it is uploaded under youtube settings, the video has lost its HD sharpness and also isn't as clear, however when it came to giving feedback the audience felt like it added a good effect to our final piece.

Re-shooting

Christina and I both felt that we really needed to re-shoot the ending hand sequence where the character is searching for the significant object(The Book) because the original camera work wasn't very clear and steady and didn't really show that the book is meant to be important- also the mise en scene wasn't well prepared.

We went out to film in the middle of the day- however when we got back to Coleridge we both realized the footage we had just filmed was too light and we had to tone down the contrast and saturation. The footage colour's also did not match the same as the earlier footage Christina filmed last week.
We had to correct this by using;
Effects
Video Filters
Colour Correction x2

With colour correction we had to lower the light and saturation levels until we were both satisfied with the sequence and also so it matched the colours of the other shots filmed a week ago.

I feel these shots work much better than the previous, although one of the fades is a bit jumpy and we both need to work on that again to get it flowing correctly.

Creating the titles.

Final Result.

It took a while for Christina and I to think of a title for our pretend film.
It took until we had finally found the significant object to be used in our sequence. On the cover of the book it says 'WS' from this, I got Something Wicked, a quote which has been used to represent witches for centuries- made famous by William Shakespeare's Weird Sister's in the play Macbeth. Earlier on Christina and I both decided that our film was going to be based on witchcraft and it could possibly be a potions book or full of spells.

At first, both Christina and I weren't too sure what type of font we wanted- we started off going through all the 'Gothic' fonts available on Final Cut Express, but we could not find one suitable.
We decided to go on Dafont.com and searched through the Gothic; Medieval fonts in search for something decorative yet sinister at the same time.
We both then discovered a font named Kingjola which we both felt would work really well, since it has swirls underneath as well.



Christina then opened the title into Adobe Photoshop. Firstly, she deleted the background using the Magic Wand Tool then replaced it with a bright, vibrant colour so it was easier to see what else needed to be erased. Christina changed the colour of text to white and then the background to black.


She then saved the text and the decorative under 2 different layers compatible with Final Cut Express so the titles would be able to move freely on the video.


I suggested to Christina that the swirls underneath should either fade in, or look like they're being drawn on with the titles- unfortunately this effect is over complicated for the equipment we're provided with.
Instead, both Christina and I decided on using the following tools;
Gaussian Blur
Earthquake
Directional



Both Christina and I are very pleased with the way our main titles have come out- it gives off an old, grainy Victorian style feel to the film opening.
We have both decided to carry on using this technique for all of the titles, however we feel they shouldn't be as decorative because the title of our film will not be able to stand out as well.

Film Openings so far.

Christina and I haven't started the comic book sequence yet, however Christina and I have been working together on the Abstract opening all this week.
Christina went out to do the filming in her Grandfather's Wine Shed and brought it in for us to both edit together.

A film opening which is similar to our abstract sequence is 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' which is posted earlier on in my both mine and Christina's blogs.

We have completed the rough cut of our opening, however we both need to go and re-shoot certain scenes where the wrong props are placed which look distracting in our opening. We may also add humming to the end of our soundtrack(like To Kill a Mocking Bird/Rosemary's Baby) but we're not too sure yet.
For our font, both Christina and I have spent a lot of time on photoshop creating the look.

For the comic book sequence, I have got a model to take a few pictures of in location for the strip- in costume and also I can take screengrabs of Christina's footage or take some photos on location.
I will be able to do this on Monday, since the model is free then.
Hopefully the comic opening won't take too long to create so both Christina and I have time to complete both our sequences on time.

Animatic

Here is the completed animatic Christina and I produced using final cut express.

We didn't know we were supposed to add titles to the sequence so they seem a bit rushed, but of course when it comes to the real video they will be spot on and placed in the right places.

L3 Group 1: CHRISTINA & ANGELICA - OPENING SEQUENCE ANIMATIC from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Christina's influences

Christina's idea for her film opening is an abstract sequence, the genre being a supernatural thriller, the same as mine.
We are both using the same storyline and storyboard for our openings.

The opening is of a person walking in to a shed, where they'll search through the props to find a specific object at the end.

Barney suggested that she should watch the opening sequence of Cronos(Del Toro 1993)
The opening is based in an Antiques Pawn Shop in Mexico where the owner finds a specific item- like in our film openings.

The plot summary from IMDB;
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".

I also suggested that she should watch the opening sequence of To Kill a Mocking Bird(Mulligan 1962)
The opening credits is of extreme close-ups of significant objects this little girl is going through, she is also humming a tune(like Rosemary's Baby's opening titles)

The plot summary 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. How will the trial turn out - and will it change any of the racial tension in the town?



Another is one we looked at in a Media Studies class with Barney was Rosemary's Baby(Polanski 1968)
The opening is of a camera tracking buildings in the specific location of the film, with a pretty pink font for the titles with sinister music.
The music at the beginning is possibly the real reason we are referring to this- it consists of a slow score with a woman singing a 'lullaby' over the top- often having a creepy yet effective instrument at the end of each line.

The plot summary on 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.

Music we might use

Christina and I put the music we were looking at on our animatic to see how it would work.

Obviously this video is just a draft of what we completed, which also had the titles on.

here is an image of Christina creating the storyboard and timeline for the opening.

William and Sly- Kajenx

Christina and I quite like the music used for an online game William and Sly

The soundtrack isn't copyrighted, so there will be no issue as long as we credit the creator.


The audio can be played (with out the game) here

We think it would work well in both of our opening sequences because it has a supernatural feel and a suspicious sound- really gets the audience in to it.


A screengrab of the game action.

Nine Frames

We were given the task to create a practice 9-frames opening titles on photoshop for a random film.

For this, we were given a layout to paste our images on to and also example text which we could also paste on, but change the names of the people used.

Mine and Tina's idea was a highschool thriller which starts off about the school being empty, then a mysterious figure is seen, whilst some drunk students walk past.
The figure approaches them and offers free candy, then transforms in to a fox.

Moodboard Ideas

These moodboards are both for a comic based film. I worked with Christina on this task, we used a variety of different images which remind us of the comic book.

The first moodboard is suitable font to be used in the opening sequence.