Construction: Music

We chose the song Ramona, sung by Beck in Scott Pilgrim VS The World.
Scott Pilgrim was one of our main reference points.
We chose this song to emphasise his sad mood as he just got dumped. The desired effect on the audience is to make them feel sympathetic towards Michael because he is sad.
We recorded an acoustic version ourselves, which made it copyright-free material.

 Gavin recording himself playing Ramona for the shoot

Construction: Editing Techniques

This is how we integrated some of our titles into the sequence. It was done within After Effects.

 

First, we had to open the clip within After Effects. To do this, we placed the clip in our timeline in Premiere, cut it down so that it was the right length and then right-clicked the clip on the timeline and selected ' Replace with After Effects composition'. This is quicker and easier than editing the clip withing After Effects and then exporting it to Premiere because we only had to edit the sections that we were using.

 

We positioned the title where we wanted it to be within the shot to begin with. Then we used a subtract mask, keyframing the mask path frame by frame, to hide the words as the actors walked past them and interacted with them. To make the effect seem more realistic, we feathered out the mask by a couple of pixels so that there wouldn't be such a harsh edge where the text was being cut off.

 

This effect worked quite well and made the titles much more interesting for the viewer. It took a very long time to do. We used the technique for 7 of our titles and for each one we had to go through the clip frame by frame and readjust the mask path. However, we definitely feel it was worth the effort as it greatly improves the sequence and makes it more interesting.

 

Research and Planning: Font Styles

These are some film references, of which fonts we took influence from:

Submarine (2010)

Scott Pilgrim VS The World (2010)

We chose these films because they take a simple Sans Serif font. However, these titles have coloured backgrounds, rather than integrated titles which we will be using.

We want our titles to be overlayed on and, in some cases, integrated within the shots. We will also be using a simple Sans Serif font like the above sequences. Overall, we want the style of our titles to be quite simplistic so that they don't draw attention away from what is happening within the shots. The titles will all be black and white and they will mostly be stationary. We will place them somewhere in the frame that does not get in the way of what's happening in the shot.

Construction: Storyboard And Shootboard For Main Shoot

This is our storyboard for our main shoot.

We included how many shots there were, actors, setting, props and shot type.

The shot type was indicated by the colours of the shot where we used a key:

The shootboard was useful for us, as it allowed us to plan ahead and work out any errors in our narrative, prior to shooting.

While storyboarding, each shot type had its own colour post-it note so we were able to identify where we had too many of one shot type or if there weren't enough shots of a certain type. Using post-it notes was also useful because it was very easy to rearrange shots if we felt that some shots didn't belong where we had put them and we could easily add or remove them as needed. Because we were using post-it notes, not a lot of detail was needed when drawing the shots. We were able to draw each shot very basically and we could then see each one at a glance and easily know which shot was being represented.

Main Shoot Reflections

What went well:

• We avoided the issues we had on the test shoot, for example we covered the windows with bin bags to block out sunlight.
• We worked much more efficiently as we already knew how to get the shots and were familiar with the equipment.
• We got all of our shots, all of which are usable.
• For the most part we were in a controlled environment so keeping continuity was easier.

Issues:

• The lights made the small room extremely hot
• When shooting outside the mic picked up the wind
• We have some continuity issues as we used two different cameras, this can be fixed in grading.

Setting up the lights

Shooting outside on location

Clapperboard

Overall

The group believed that this was our best shoot so far and we thought that we achieved the style that we set out for.
However, we felt that some of the shot in there were not the best they could be, for example some of the dolly shots were too not smooth enough, and the outdoor shots were too loud due to the harsh wind blowing on the microphone.
As a result of this we decided to have one more shoot to perfect some of the shots, we would keep the rest of the footage that was useable and grade them to fit in.

Representation: Setting

To dress the setting according to representation of the genre and mood of the scene we must take props and lighting into account.

Firstly, we wanted to dress the room to show that it belongs to a teenage boy. This was made quite easy for us because the room we are filming in is already a teenage boy's room.

Conventions of the teenage boy's room which were already fulfilled:

• Band posters
• Instruments: Electric guitar, drum kit, amps
• Boy's clothes thrown around the room
• Unmade bed
• Laptop
• Desk with school books and stationary for work

Therefore, we did not have much dressing of the set to do inside, apart from moving iconic props, like band posters, into shot when they are not. We got inspiration from Kick-
Ass for this aspect of our representation.

Opening of Shaun of the Dead

Secondly, we tried to fulfil regional identity by showing that it is set in Britain. In our first set of inside the bedroom, we showed the nationality through English band posters and through the British accents of the actors. In our second location, we film in the street outside the house, showcasing the traditionally British terraced and semi-detached housing which is typical of London houses. Our film reference for this representation of setting is Shaun of the Dead.