CONSTRUCTION: The Final Film Opening

Our Final Film Opening:

This is our finished film opening. There are still a few things that we would have liked to change, but overall, it isn't too bad.

Hope you guys enjoy it,

Audrey and Brandon

CONSTRUCTION: Music References

CONSTRUCTION: Music References

The music we used is very upbeat and string-instrument based, i.e. banjo, acoustic guitar, ukulele. We drew inspiration for this from films such as 'It's Kind of A Funny Story' and 'Struck By Lightning', 'Struck by Lightning' in particular being a big influence for our music choice.

(this clip is the whole movie since the opening is not on youtube - just watch the first couple of minutes)

The song we used, "Building Blocks", is here: http://freeplaymusic.com/search.aspx?q=building%20blocks

It connotes our genre since it is light-hearted but not too upbeat and energetic, the right balance of the drama and comedy aspects of our film.

The main inspiration we drew from Struck by Lightning was the guitar/string melody, as it was also present in Adam's soundtrack, so we knew it was conventional for the genre and would help the audience to recognise it as a rom-com drama.

MAIN SHOOT: Grading

We edited our opening, as with the test shoot, using Adobe Premiere Pro.

We wanted our grading to create a bright yet realistic look :
- to show the time of day (morning)
- to reflect the mood (light-hearted atmosphere)
- to connote the genre (romantic comedy/drama) - bright look suggests that the film has a comedic aspect but also deals with realistic issues (drama aspect)

We found inspiration from other rom-com/dramas, such as:

50/50

About Time

Struck By Lightning

Silver Lining's Playbook

It's Kind of A Funny Story

We graded our shots using Procamp and Three-way colour corrector.

We had used Procamp before when we did our preliminary task a few months ago, but it was more difficult this time. It was hard to get each shot to look more or less the same and because of this it took a lot of time.

Three-way colour corrector was confusing because if the shot looked too yellow, we had to drag it towards blue, but almost every time we did this it ended up looking too blue. It took a lot of effort to make sure that the colour was exactly right.

Once it was right, however, our shots looked a lot better than they previously had done. It also became easier with each shot.

Before grading

After grading

MAIN SHOOT: Action shots

Here are some photos of us on set:

Brandon checking the shoot board

Brandon setting up the lighting kit

Audrey filming

MAIN SHOOT: Integrating titles

We planned from the start that our titles would be simplistic (white/black) and not interact particularly with the sequence, as with Struck By Lightning:

Since our opening includes a voiceover, interaction between two characters and specific shots of what the character is doing, we don't want our titles to be too distracting. They are simply for conventional purposes: to let the audience know who made the film and who is in it. 

Films of our genre usually have these kinds of titles. Because the titles are simple, they reflect the fact that the film is about someone's ordinary life, set in the real world. We are using a sans serif font to show that the film isn't too serious, and positioning them mostly in the corners of the shots.

Here are some screenshots of our edit to show how our titles ended up:

MAIN SHOOT: Actor contract

This  actors could then understand that they must attend the shoot

Although the actors knew that it was important for them to attend the shoot, the actor contract emphasised this importance. However, one of the actors was in our group anyway, so it was unlikely that this really made a difference.

Map of where we'll be filming

Crouch End

MAIN SHOOT: Cast list/headshots

CAST LIST:

Brandon Poonwasie (Christopher):

Eliza King Lassman (Naomi):

MAIN SHOOT: Naomi's costume

We decided that Naomi's costume was perfect in the test shoot and we won't need to change it.

The white of her jacket creates a sense that she is an innocent, open character, and the bright pink jeans reflects her eccentric personality. 

We took inspiration for her outfit from Noelle in It's Kind of A Funny Story: 

pink + white colours

MAIN SHOOT: Props list

PROPS LIST


- Alarm clock

- Clothes (Brandon)

- Manga book (Brandon)

- Pyjamas (Brandon)

the same ones he wore for the test shoot - these were fine

- Cereal (Audrey)

- Flask (Audrey)

- Coffee (Audrey)

- Toothbrush (Brandon) (we may not use this)


Having a props list was helpful because we knew exactly what we needed and who would be responsible for this. We could make sure that nothing we needed would be forgotten.

MAIN SHOOT: Floor plans

Floor plans gave us a better idea of where we would be position the camera, lighting etc.

(highlighted in orange = shown on camera)

When we were filming our project, we found didn't really need to use the floor plans. It was fine to look just at our shoot board and the camera, and we knew mostly where the camera would be because we had done it before in the test shoot. 



MAIN SHOOT: Location reccie

We knew we would be filming in Crouch End, but we wanted to go on a location reccie to have a clearer idea of where exactly we would be filming our shots.

This was quite useful when we were filming because since we knew where our shots would take place, it made the process quicker. 

MAIN SHOOT: Adjustments to storyboard and shoot board

Because we decided to change our location and cut out/add in some shots, we had to make adjustments to our storyboard:

Here we added a shot of Christopher washing his roommate's dishes/making tea -
although we're not sure if we'll definitely use the tea shot in the final edit… it depends how long the rest of the opening is

We then slightly changed our shoot board:

We had to use photos of the storyboard shots because it wasn't worth the time to take more photos - we just needed to make it clear to us that these new shots would be needed/old ones taken out so we could refer to it when filming and know what we would film, when, how long it should take, etc. 

Research And Planning: Adapting the script

Research and Planning: Adapting the script

With our original script, we realised that there were parts that needed to be changed for the sake of realism and character relatability, for example, "we're in a bit of a tizz" was changed to "well this is a bit embarrassing".

<--- first draft / final draft --->

We also changed bits such as the interaction with the barista, upon review by the teacher, to just Christopher bumping into Naomi on his way to uni, because it is very unlikely that we would have gotten permission from a barista to be in our film, and even if we did, it would have been difficult to film and disrupting for other people in the coffee shop/coffee stall. This also made the script more audience-friendly and focused on only on the essential parts of the story.

FINAL FULL SCRIPT