Week 3 - Editing

We started editing the film today, we decided to start our film with the the classroom scene we originally thought to do. So we looked through our clips and watched them back and picked out certain parts to use for the opening. However we came across a problem which was that in the doodle we filmed chloe drawing, her real mane is on the top of the paper, causing us to try and find ways to remove it.
We ended up having to through all our clips of that scene and picking out ones where her name is covered by the hand and not the flower. I think we handled this problem well because we did it as a group.

This is a shot where her hand is covering the name at the top.

I began to do the credits, I looked through different types of fonts and found one that suited our film well, it was called 'garden_type_ demo'. As a group we thought this font fitted well with the film as it was stems with words for the flowers, as shown below:

On photoshop, I managed to change the colour of the credits as well as the size. I got stuck when trying to save them to the computer, once I had finished, so I asked the teacher for help. He showed me how to save the layers properly and advised me that I do them induvidually so that we could insert them properly. I took this on board and followed his instructions. I managed to save them successfully and send them to Sarah and Chloe's computer via a hard-drive provided by the teacher. An exmaple of the credits are shown below, they are on a pink background because they looked bland when inserted on a black canvas, so we changed it to pink on the final cut express software after adding them to the sequence:

 We managed to finish the editing of the scene we got stuck with and we hope that next lesson we can finish it as a whole and insert the credits. If we can do this we will get to insert the music as well as get ahead in the editing and go over the editing throughly.

Week 3 - Editing

I started to transfer the credits from my computer to the other computer that had all of our film on it, so that we could insert it into the film on the Final Cut software. I did this via the college email however it didnt work successfully so I had to find another way to get it on the computer. Whilst I did this Chloe and Sarah where picking the footage to instert into the film. I borrowed Daves hardrive and transfered the credits without any problems.

After I did this, we talked, as a group, about the sound track and voice over we still needed to do. It was our last lesson of editing so we needed to do it get the sound done and up on the final cut so we could imcorporate it into the film. We decided to split the work up so I would go and write a script and record the voice over, using my voice. We decided to use my voice because Sarah and Chloe both agreed I had a soothing storytelling voice.

First to get an idea of what I needed to wirte I looked at a video off youtube from a film called 'Enchanted'  which has a narrative for a beginning. This is shown below  ( up to 1:19 seconds):

This helped me a little by giving me the basic idea of how to start my narrative, with that fresh in my mind I began my narrative.
Below is What I chose to say:
Me: Once Upon a time
There was an ordinary young girl
Who was unaware of the powers bestowed upon her by the magical creatures of the land she wished she was in;

3seconds wait
Her name was Fluer
When the girl grew tired of the world she lived in

2seconds wait
Her heritage would call to her...

1second wait
Fluer *Whisphering* - repeat 3 times

Wake up Fluer *Whispher*

Everything in her world shone like the sun, the golden leaves dazzled and danced in the wind
And she knew she was no longer in her world

The water fairies blessedher as she awoke

Water fairies:  
"Fluer"
"Do not be afriad"
"You must be suprised"
"You are our princess"
"Explore your world princess"

Me: And so, she did.

I think the voice over script is good until it reaches the 'water fairy' voices. I feel that it drags on a bit and I feel this would make the viewer loose interest in the story or get bored. I think that we should try to avoid this when editing and cut some of the voice over out.
End Narrative

I think this narrative goes well with the footage because it explains the main characters actions, thoughts and feelings without having the main character say anything. The timing was important as we had to save time by getting the spacing between what I say and the actions in the film correct and in sync. I feel we did this well because we accoplished this and managed to focus more on our music.

Towards the end of the lesson our chances of getting finished by the end of the lesson got tighter and tighter, by 2 o'clock we had completed the editing of our footage and inserting the voice over. We now only had the credits and music to import to be finished. By 2:15pm we had manged to successfully import our credits however they where too small to fit the screen so we stretched them to make them visible on the final cut software. Once we did this we had to ask help for importing the music as we didn't know how to do it, after it was imported we had 10 minutes until the end of the lesson so we put the music with our credits and put an underlay of soft mystical music under the narrative to remind the viewer that it is the beginning before the credits.

Week 2 - Filming - Thursday 20th October 2011

 

It's our second lesson of filming today and seeing as we have film half of our media product already; we debated over wether or not to film the other half or begin doing the stop motion credits. If we did do the stop motion credits it wouldn't leave enough time to film the other half of our media product, but it would add to the effect of our film. However because we needed to film the other half, as it was the opening part of our film, we decided to film today and if we had time time left over, quickly do some stop motion credits.

After this we gathered our equipment, so the camera and tripod and went to find a classroom preferably in the G block, which is where our media classroom is; as well as we didn't want to go all over campus looking for a classroom to film in.

We found a room to film in on the top floor at the back. It was ideal as it was empty and had a horseshoe table layout facing the whiteboard at the front. We set up the camera and then positioned Fleur (our main character) on a table in the middle of the horseshoe it also was directly opposite the board which helped with the Gaussian Blur effect we included when editing the film as it helped with the effect of making the character seem tired and portrayed that she wasn't focusing on what was around her. This would effect the viewer as it would make them focus on what was going to happen to the main character after she fell asleep.  A screen grab of the Gaussian effect taken from our media product is shown:

Deciding what shots to film when we got to the classroom was tricky as we needed to show what chloe was doodling. This brought an over the shoulder shot to play so we experimented with different angles shot from different sides of the main character. An example of these are shown below:

We also wanted to show she was in a classroom so we needed to include so mid shots of the main character. These shots would establish where she is at that point in time and what she is doing, this would help the viewer understand what the voice over is talking about. However, we didnt have any extras to help film the entire classroom and so we had to make the classroom seem like there was by only shooting at a certain angle; to do this we had to improvise by spreading notebooks, pencil cases and anything school like we could find/ had on hand, to make it seem she was working with people around her. An example of this is below:

We kept the camera at this angle to help to make the transition from this scene to the next smooth when editing; However we needed to shoot an extreme close up of 'Fleur'. We did this by zooming into her face as she pretended to sleep:

As you can see we needed to insert the fade because in the next scene she's laying down, as shown below:

The fade we inserted when editing helped distort the picture so that it made it look as though she had actually been transported which helped alot in the finished product. 

We managed to finish the filming with a wide range of camera angles that we uploaded onto the Apple Mac's once we had finished in the classroom. When we had uploaded them we watched them back to make sure we hadn't missed any shots out or whether we needed to go back to include somemore. I thought the shots where good and varied and when we begin to edit them next week they should fit the storyline well as well as match the voice over.

Week 2 - Filming - Tuesday 18th October 2011

Today we started filming our two minute seuence. Each group was given a Samsung camera to use to film our media products. We enjoyed using the camera because it allowed us to watch back our clips and see what needed redoing and what didn't. We also liked the fact it was a tounch screen because we didn't have to keep pressing buttons to find out what they did, it gave us directions on the screen. The camera itself was pretty easy to use in my opinion. We also used the tripod that was supplied to us to help keep the shots steady however some shots where hand held for more effect.

Before we started filming we had to decide what part of our film we would shoot. We discussed the fact the weather was good enough to shoot our 'other world scene' as well as the the fact we had all our props on hand; such as the dresses, crown and make-up. We thougth this would be the better option, compared to filming our 'classroom scene'  which needs to be indoors. As we can do that in any weather, as well as we reqiured specific props such as extra people (extras) and the right dress, which needs to be posh/casual, for Chloe who is the main character. This portrays to the viewers that she is fairly 'well of'f' and that she also 'stands-out-from-the-crowd'.

After our discussion we went to our 'pond' location and began filming. Me and Sarah shared the filming we used various shots such as, extreme close up, of the main characters face.

We did this because it was our link to her world and the new one. It also kept the viewer wanting to watch more because they didn't no what was happening. We included mid shots, and long distance shots that where included in our shots plan, however we did not stick to the plan. We tried to use it as a guideline rather than a set rule to follow. We found by doing this it gave us more freedom to film different angles,  such as over the shoulder and POV shots, that may not have been included into the plan. We tried to use shots that the enchanted film had used for instance the mid shot which was used in the opening and the rest of the film as shown below:

To make the shots interesting we used props such as bubbles and glitter that I supplied to make the new world seem more mystical. I though the bubbles worked well with the overall camera shots however I felt the glitter didn't work as well because it didnt show up that well on the camera and in the scenes. However the overall mise-en-scene worked well because of the way the sun was shining it gave a nice glow to the location, which helped alot.



This is also an example of one of our long shots that we took.

Week 1 Planning & Research - Tuesday 11th October 2011

The story for our Children’s Film Project is called Fleur. It is about a 16 year old, secondary school girl; and how she is transported to another world to find out that she is the Princess of the Flowers, hence the film name being Fleur. We generated this idea through looking at various Walt Disney film trailers such as: 

‘Princess and the frog’,  

This film is U rated and produced by Walt Disney Animation studios, made for a family audience. It's a continuation of the story about the princess who kisses the frog and how it's not all a happy ending at first so a mild adventure occurs with her in frog form, then there is a happy resolution. We took from this the way they presented the difference between the two worlds. We found this trailer very useful.  

‘Cinderella’, 

We watched the credits to cinderella however we didn't find it very useful because they weren't interesting, because of the way they didn't make them special or incorporate them into the cartoon. 

‘Bridge to Terabithia’ 

We found this film very useful, the two minute sequence is however quite interesting but further on in the film it gets to be more like the type of initial idea our film is based on. 

and ‘Alice in Wonderland’. 

We also looked at other films such as ‘Ink heart’:

 
We looked at the way they presented their credits as well as what they presented in the first two minutes. We tried to look at films that had a similar story line to ours, such as well known children films such as 'Monsters Inc.', or films where a person went from their world to another as well as having looked at how they presented this.





I found the above video on YouTube and showed Chloe and Sarah. They both thought the credits where good and we all thought they represented the film they where for well, however because our film is a cartoon we decided not to take anything from them; except the fact we have to make our credits interesting and relevant to our film. 

After watching these trailers and openings, we thought about what way would be best to put the credits and deliberated on putting the title first or having it shown last at the end of the two minutes. We decided it would be easier to put the title first and spring the credits from that. We would do this by, showing the title credit ‘FLUER’ on a pink background then, use the ‘Fade in from black’ effect, when editing, to begin the credits. Following having looked at the ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ opening credit sequence, which is written in food presented in the mise-en-scene, we thought it would make our credits more interesting to make them apart of our mise-en-scene also. So we came to the conclusion that we could incorporate the credit into the doodles the actress will be doing for the opening shot.   

Week 1 - Planning & Research - Soundtrack Ideas

As part of our research and planning we took some time to look at music videos for our soundtrack as we have to develop our own. We discussed as a group what type of music we would prefer as well as looked at films such as Shrek and Enchanted which opened with voice overs to sample the type of music they use. Examples of these can be found in earlier blog posts such as; the shrek video can be found in Week 1- Planning and Research credit sequence. We discussed the option of piano, but thought it may be a bit too boring by itself; so we then looked at making an acoustic piece of music. We then sampled some acoustic music on the GarageBand software we would be using (we did this for the piano aswell) and decided that we liked what we heard.

We then went to the YouTube website and searched for some acoustic music that we already had knowledge of. Here is a youtube playlist that is full of soundtrack ideas, references and inspiration in relation to our children's film opening soundtrack:

Above is a video from the maccabees called toothpaste kisses it has a similar atmospheric feel to what we are aiming for.

Above is another video called gregory and the Hawk Boats and Birds which is again similiar to what we feel our soundtrack should be like however, as a group we felt the music was too gloomy and for a childrens fairytale film we need something up beat. Sarah and Chloe then suggested we look at Mumford & Son's Little Lion Man as it is upbeat and has a good acoustic guitar solo opening:

Overall, we would like our soundtrack to have an acoustic, melodic feel, as well as music that works in an everyday scenario as well as in more fantastical scenes.

Week 1 Planning & Research - Friday 14th October 2011

We needed to plan our storyboard, shot list, as well as do location, props and ideas research. To help us do this we looked at films openings such as Shrek, as shown below: 

We examined the credits sequence and how the 'Dreamworks' company went about presenting them.


We found they put their trademark first, then introduced the basic story of a princess, then the main character. We took from this, how to present our story book idea.

However we wanted more on the credits so we then looked at Napoleon Dynamite. Unfortunately we couldn't find the actual footage but found work done by another student from a different school, which has the same fundamental idea as we do for our title credits:


Storyboard:


Sarah designed the storyboard as we worked together as a group to discuss the story and produce initial ideas on a piece of paper, then put them into the story board.

We decided to do the credits first and incorporate them into our film, so they are physically part of the mise-en-scene. We think this will engage the audience more and draw them in. We also decided to then move on to an establishing shot of the class room, which will show the audience that she is an ordinary school girl; which will then be contrasted against the fact she's gone to another world and has changed, in appearance.
We have inserted effects such as Fade in from black and Fade out to white to introduce the film, and to show that she has gone from her world to another.

Props:

We arranged to bring props to the first filming lesson, in which we aim to film the first sequence of credits; we hope to do this by being organised and efficient with our time limit.

We split up the props by who is doing what, for instance, since Chloe is playing the main character, she will have to bring her own costumes, so a flowy, flowery dress and shoes, along with make-up. Sarah will be bringing the jewellery, flowers for the background to make it look more like a different world, as long with a few dresses to use for the first scene. Hannah is bringing the make-up, notebook so we can film the doodles, the crown (possibly made from flowers) as the story is about a princess.

The location is easy to do as we will be using the 'pond space' behind the school, which is quite secluded and looks like a dream world, which we will be using to film the other scenes in, when she gets transported. We discussed how we would go from the credits to the other world; ideas such as having her be a normal secondary school girl being taught in class and closing her eyes and waking up in the other world. However Hannah said this didn't include the credits so Sarah showed us an opening sequence from a film called 'Napoleon Dynamite' where the credits are actual part of the mise-en-scene (look at the video of the note pad above). So we all agreed on having the initial idea of the main character in the class room but she would be doodling the credits and we would have a voice over of her, explaining the beginning of the story and then she would close her eyes and be in the other world.
We thought this was the most effective way of incorporating the credits in to our mise-en-scene. Here is an example of the doodled 'Fleur' title: