A2 Media Coursework Blog

26th October 2009

Today was a challenge. I shot all the shots of the main character and the key locations at the beginnning. Regarding shot no.5 on the storyboard, instead of having the character coming out of the ground, he proposed an easier method which was him falling out of a tree. This provided the same effect and saved a lot more time. This turned out to be more effective.

For shots no.2+3 i have decided to utilise a handheld camera in order to distort the viewer and help follow along with the tempo of the soundtrack.

For the running scene (shot9), i found the method of handheld tracking to be highly challenging. This was obviously due to the clarity of the motion. This took a while to establish, yet i am still not satisfied with it as the clarity is ok but i was hoping that the tracking would have gone smoother.

25th October 2009

Today I endeavoured to film during the dark hours so that my artificial lighting was viable to the actress. The artificial lighting source was a flood lamp in my actresses garden. This proved to be very useful as there was a blockage thus causing a shadow on the lower half of my actresses face, which meant that the light was focused on her eyes. This gave a highly striking impression on camera which will help to establish the character of this person as being mysterious. Although, I am slighlty concerned that the audience may not be able to see enough of her. I will look into this problem and see how i can resolve it on the coming ILP days.

This is the before and after of Shot 14 or the "innocence" shot:

Before




After:



THE PROCESS!!

Friday 23rd October 2009

Today could not have gone any better. The weather was ideal for my filming today as it was sunny and partially windy. I filmed shot 14 on my storyboard. The actress I had chosen was brilliant in conveying the emotion of innocence which is what I required as she will be the protagonist. I feel that I am progressing more and more confident with how to use the motion camera.

I plan on converting this shot into a black a white tone colour, this will help keep the convention of the colour palette black white and red. Also, I feel it would be the right colour scheme to adapt to the final shot of the opening sequence in order to give it a striking effect.

Friday 16th October 2009

Today I did some shooting of the insignificant shots such as the morgue book (shot8) and the lip licking (shot 10). I had to do the shooting at night, roughly around 10pm, when there was no daylight so that I could effectively use artificial lighting in order to create a moody atmosphere to the set.

The preparation for the set was extremely difficult as I wanted all the props to be in a certain position and also the lighting was the hardest element because it helped to establish the focal point within the framing of the shot. Therefore, I built a DIY reflector out of a child's drum and some tin foil in order to help soften the light around the props, which gave the lighting a more smoother appearance.

The lip licking scene was particularly hard as the make-up was essential and the actress I had chosen had spots around her mouth, therefore, in the post production I will see if I will be able to blur the shot slightly to give the make up a more smoother appearance. However, I will not
blur it too much as i still want the audience to see the action going on in the shot.

Shooting by myself is quite hard in comparison to my AS coursework as I had nobody to rely on. This was due to me not having enough time with the camera at that point. Due to lesson cross-overs and travel issues, I was unable to make it to all the shootings which deprived me of learning how to use the camera effectively. However, having done these insignificant shots, I feel that I am much more comfortable filming independently as it is more easier to envision the shots by myself, thus allowing me to create an effective children's TV drama opening.

This is my animatic which has been improved via the critique provided in the previous blog.
NB- Youtube has cut out the lip licking scene (shot 10 on the storyboard). This will still be in the final piece!!!

This is my draft animatic for my teen tv drama opening:



CRITIQUE!

Today I presented my animatic to my class and obtained feedback on the positive and negative aspects of my piece. (The positives are in green and the negatives are in red).

A good soundtrack was awarded to my animatic. My classmates proposed that the musical score was appropriate and that it helped to establish not only the genre of horror but the atmosphere of the narrative, which helped to make the “content” of the show more apparent. I personally agree with this because after watching the animatic repeatedly to ensure that each component was viable I felt that the music was the most prominent feature and that it didn’t fail to engage me. This meant that the musical editing was appropriate in terms of engaging my audience and establishing a cohesive opening.

Furthermore the sketching was a good quality which made it easier for the audience to understand the narrative of my opening sequence. This, in comparison to my AS media coursework animatic, is different as I previously used photographs to provide a realistic approach to the narrative for my group’s thriller opening. However, this year I have chosen to draw my storyboard out as this was the best option in order to portray the narrative for my storyline. It was also easier for me to envision the shots and the sort of pace I intended my audience to watch it at. One of the responses towards my animatic that I received was that the animatic was already a clear image of what my final product was going to be like. This means that there is more potential for me to adhere to my animatic, whereas in AS there were slight variations from the animatic.

Another positive response that I received is that of my transitions being effective. They helped to create continuity, coherency and engaging the audience throughout the opening. This means that the editing pace is good and it makes it easier for the audience to follow the text. However, there was a critique of when the main characters were being shown at the end that the pace should have been slowed down. I disagree with this as the pace of the editing has been constructed to synchronise with the soundtrack, therefore, it wouldn’t be right for there to be out of synch titles with such a powerful musical score. This would only disrupt the coherency of the opening. However, this can be achieved by slowing down the fading so that there is enough time for the audience to absorb the content on the screen.

Moreover, there was a critique for ambient sounds to be included. However, regarding my research into various openings, it is apparent that there is hardly any use of ambient sounds, therefore it would be inappropriate for me to subvert the one convention that justifies an opening sequence for a children’s TV drama.

Another critique was that the choices of character shots were good; however shot number 5, when the man comes out of the grave, was proposed to have the character facing the camera instead of his back towards the camera as this is an opportunity to present the characters to the audience. Therefore, this shot will be altered in the re-making of my animatic. Furthermore, resting on the subject of characters it was also critiqued that the characters names should be inserted when they are being shown at the ending so that the audience are more comfortable and not left in suspense.

Having made my initial animatic in Windows Movie Maker, due to technological difficulties with the Macbook I took out not having Adobe Premier Pro on it, I was unable to create a motion effect on my animatic to enhance the visual stimulus of what the shots will actually look like. Thus, I will re-construct my re-make animatic on Adobe Premiere Pro in order to achieve this effect and help guide me along my process of filming. The motion effect will be used at shot number 4, the hand coming out of the ground. The impact this will have is to presume as if the character has immense strength and establish his dominance within the title sequence. Also, another motion effect will be placed on shot number 9, when the character is running. This will help to invoke a sense of tracking as well as the characters movement.

An issue was raised about the hand coming out of the ground like so. It was anticipated that since this is a Children’s TV drama opening the hand coming out of the ground may have been too gruesome for young children. However, I argue that this opening title sequence is aimed at 11-15 yr olds, therefore, this will be a minor contributor to the “horror factor” as I intend to not show it to younger children aged such as 5-9. On the other hand, since I am planning to show this programme during the peak of children’s TV hours, it can be argued that maybe this may disturb young children, therefore, when coming down to filming I do not intend to paint the hand “green” as such to create a zombie-like image, however I would like to keep it realistic in order to draw away from the gruesomeness of the concept of the “dead coming back to life”.

This is the story boarding for my Children's TV Drama opening sequence.

Woodlands


Church & graveyard.

My final idea will be a live action title sequence with some animation where i feel is appropriate. it will be based around a church and graveyard. I have decided to follow along with the social trends of vampires as that will possibly prove to be successful with teens aged 11-15. There will be random clips to fill the sequence and keep the audience engaged and to finish there will be slow fades in and out of the main characters and then the initial title will be shown.

As a conclusion for my research it’s evident that the concept of stereotyping in children’s TV drama is prominent. For example, in M.I.High, there is the good looking male character and his two female sidekicks, thus placing the stereotype of men being dominant than women. It begins to employ a sort of James Bond theme towards to the show, which makes it engaging for the audience to watch. Furthermore, it was also apparent that an engaging soundtrack is central to the entire opening in order to establish the tone of the show. For example, in The Sarah Jane Adventures the soundtrack dominates the opening. Therefore I will need to incorporate an engaging soundtrack for my opening title sequence in order to keep my audience watching and not lose interest.

Another commonality I found amongst children’s TV drama openings is that the predominant colour palette is black white and red. The black and white together may suggest reality. However, separately black may suggest darkness; white may connote purity and red, being an alerting colour helps to engage the audience and it also connotes danger. Young Dracula depicts this in its opening sequence. This colour palette is similar to that of my AS media coursework where the predominant colours were also red, black and white. This could be seen in openings such as Sin City (Frank Miller, 2005).

Whilst Young Dracula was the only animated opening I have investigated, most shows openings are live action ones which I find would be more appealing to my target audience of 11-15yr old boys. I plan on following this convention to in order to be relative to my target audience.

In terms of camera the predominant shot choices were LS’s and CU’s. The editing is usually in synch with the soundtrack which helps to provide a cohesive opening, therefore, allowing the audience to settle into the programme and grabbing their interest at the same time. There is always a wide range of mise en scene within the opening titles. “The worst witch” uses a variety of props such as the broomsticks, a witch’s wardrobe including the pointed hat and cloak. In terms of diegetic sounds and ambience, there is little or none included in title sequences of children’s TV drama.

Regarding the current impact that Twilight (Catherine Hardwicke, 2008) has on children explains the genre that was most voted for by my target audience. This will help me establish my opening for my children’s TV drama as I will know what they’re expecting to see. The concept of vampires and other creatures will help me to structure the narrative for my opening.

I intend to contradict Tzevetan Todorov’s- (http://misbournemedia.com/mediatheorists.htm) theory of the narrative at the beginning is always at equilibrium by setting my opening in a more paced momentum in order to keep the audience engaged with the text.

I questioned a total of 20 people in order to get concrete evidence for the planning of my children’s TV drama opening. 16 boys and 4 girls were interviewed and they were all in between the age ranges of 11-15. This means that my children’s TV drama must be relative to the teenage market. Surprisingly, the two genders didn’t vote for the typical comedy or romance genres. Instead the genres of Horror and Action were opted. This may have derived from the current vampire trends of “twilight”. The two most watched TV shows that were circled were Young Dracula and Sarah Jane Adventures. These sorts of shows tend to have cliff hangers at the end in order to keep the audience returning. My audience tends to come at 4pm in the afternoon when the children’s TV shows are at their peak in the day. They tend to watch television for at least 1hour to 2hours.

This is the questionnaire I intend to propose to my audience. Ihave kept the language simple so that they can understand it easily.

M.I.High
Richard Elson (2007-current)

NB- 2.25-2.52 ONLY !!

The camera mainly adheres to CU’s., MS and LS of the characters. All the characters are positioned in the centre in order to make them the focal point of the sequence. The post production has included split screens in order to show the sort of things these characters do. Also, wipes have been used in order to show a change in character, time and place. The Big Ben is an iconic signifier of the city London, this helps to establish where the location of the show is. The colour palette of this sequence is black to connote evil, white to connote goodness and red to connote danger. The soundtrack is quite fast paced and quite like mission impossible. There is a voice over that helps to guide the audience through the title sequence.