Music Changes

After trying out our music options with the filming we had done we decided that a more fast paced, as the music we had reflected a film that was more sad than dramatic so we thought a tense piece of music would work better in building tension and suspense to start the film off. We did some research into some more music and found the following;

I suggested this piece of music as it has a heavy beat behind it which automatically builds suspense which is what we wanted to create through the music. However we can't use this music as it too well known. 

Our next song choice is an instrumental version of John Legends song Made to love. Similar to our first option is has a heavy beat that builds suspense. There is also a change in the music which suits our film opening as we want a different kind of music when the memories of Daisy begin to play.

Our final choice is a song that none of us had heard before, I found it whilst searching for some songs using youtube. I came across it and immediately thought it would suit our film. 

Titles

In our film opening we currently have 9 titles. in the following order:

-Libby Collins
-Runner productions
-Frankie Edwards
-Katie Harragan
-Amnesia (film title)
-Directed by Simon Hull
-Executive Producer Andrew Lavin
-Sound Effects by Debbie Ellis

From our feedback we found that we need to added 4 more titles:

-Music by Philip Round
-Casting by Jacob Odd
-Production designer Melanie Smith
-Costume designer Leanna Clark

More feedback

We edited our final opening scene using the feedback we recieved fromoir draft. We then asked our teacher to watch it, she gave us the following things to change before giving in our final cut-

We need to look at pur titles research and pit the titles in the right order

They need to be 2-3 seconds each

Part of the coice over doesnt make sense so we will delete the part saying she want to 'achieving my memories'

More photographic effects- freeze frames before they play

Sort music out- they change to quickly so it doesnt make sense 

Bowling alley and ice hockey shots are too long so we need to delete a few seconds off each

Script Changes

During receiving our feedback we had a lot of people said the script wasn't long enough so the story line was unclear. They also suggested that it came further back in the film and we rerecorded it to make the voice slower and more meaningful.

From this feed back we made the following changes to the script.

Originally the voice over said-

'The doctor said brain activity should be maintained, he said looking at old pictures and going through my everyday routine would help. 

It is now-

'I'm on my way back from the neurology unit at the specialist hospital in London. There was only a single thought running through my head that afternoon. The doctors that brain activity should be maintained. He said that looking through old pictures and going through my everyday routine would help. This was my first therapy to help with the retrieval of my memory and i was determined to make it work'

Things that went well

From our first draft we were able to see things that went well as well as things that didn't, from our feedback and personal opinion we found that these things went well:

- The footage is southend fits well with our genre and looks good.
-The idea of the film is original and creative

- Putting some of the effects to go with the music was good

- People thought the final shot in front of the sunset was good.
-The parts that fit with the beat of the music work well.
-We included various camera shots.
-People likes the production logo
-The titles that are pushed by the train look good.
-We had many comments saying the editing was good.
-Most of our shots were steady.

Feedback

Various classes watch our film opening and gave us constructive criticism and advice on what would make our film better and more successful. We received the following feedback:

This person gave us what we considered quite harsh criticism. 

This person gave us some criticism as they didn't think the genre was obvious and they thought we should use dialogue to help make it obvious. 

This was one of the best marks our of 60 that we received. Their only criticism was that the voice over should be further back in the film. 

This person gave us an average mark out of 60 and gave some good advice on how we could make the genre more evident. 

Overall we received both good and bad feedback and on average we received around 37-47 out of 60 for our first draft. We are pleased with this mark as we know it will improve with our final cut. The main things that were brought to our attention that we need to change are:

-There are to many black outs

-Some of the shots are shaky 

-The audience are unsure of the genre in some places

-The audience weren't sure if the black and white parts were in past or not. 

-The voice over is good but should come further back in the film. 

-Needs more dialogue to make the story line more clear. 

First Draft

This is our first draft for our film opening. For our final draft there are various things we need to add and improve on:

-We need to film some more footage of the scrapbook and add it in where there are black spaces.
-The music needs cutting at the end and at one point it jumps so we need to change that.
-Some of the footage is wobbly so we will need to re film and add that in.
-One title is missing from this draft which needs to be in the final draft
-We need to move the voice over further back in the film opening as it comes to early on.
-The footage looking over libbys shoulder into the scrapbook jumps so we need to change or re-film that footage.

I am pleased with our first draft but it does need losts of improvements before we hand in our final draft. Overall I think we did well with the time we had to plan, film and edit.

Draft Feedback

After watching out film opening draft for the first time, our teacher re-watched it and gave us some feedback on what was good and what we needed to improve on.

First of all she said what was good about our film:

-The first shot of the lift was good. 

-The titles that are pushed by the train look 

She then gave us feedback on what we needed to improve on for our final draft;

-The voice over came to early on the film, if people were just sitting down to watch the film they might miss it. It should come slightly later and should be slower and more serious, we will rerecord this. 

-The shot of her walking along the platform at the train station is too wobbly, we need to re-film this or find a way to make the image still. 

-The flashing to black is good as it builds tension but it happens to much so it begins to get annoying. 

-The shot of Libby sitting look out the window holding her scrapbook is a nice shot so it should be longer. 

-To fill more time we need to include 2 or 3 still shots of the scrapbook as it is so significant in the film. 

-The sound effects title needs to be moved as it may be cut off once we export it. 

-The effect on the tea cups looks to dark compared to the rest. We will change the saturation to make it lighter. 

-The last title needs to come earlier as only trailers finish with the film title. 

-The film is too short so we need to film some ore footage to make it to the required 2 minutes. 

Reflection

Throughout planning our film opening we have had to make changes to suit the amount of time we had, how things would look on camera and the facilities we have.
-The first change was to the script. We originally planned to have a doctor giving the character (Daisy) her diagnosis however we found this would come to early on within the film. It also meant that the audience would have no idea as to why Daisy was travelling on the train looking at a scrapbook of her old memories. So we decided to change it to having Libby record a voice over Daisy explaining the treatment subscribed by her Doctor.

-We also had to change the amount of flashbacks to memories we would have due to timing issues. We originally planned to to have two or three pictures with each one having a pictures in the scrapbook we would zoom into before the memory played. However we found once we began editing  we had more time to fill so we added in some more memories. This wasn't a problem as we shot as much footage as we could on the day we traveled to Southend so we didn't had to spend another day filming unless necessary. We now have just one picture in the scrapbook which triggers the other memories being played.

- When filming our title sequences we found that filming them letter by letter wouldn't work, the rest of the page looked to boring and blank. So we decided we would create some interesting titles using premier pro when we begun editing.

Genre Changes

When looking at our overall films we found that the genre was not obvious and us ourselves couldn't identify the exact genre we wanted to portray. We had different parts showing different genres, the titles were very quirky so they created the feel of a teen drama, the music did the same however the events occurring were more mysterious. Mystery was the original genre we wanted. We have done a lot of research into mystery and drama films that have similar events to ours but they are all very clearly within the mystery genre, we can tell from the lighting, the music, the camera angles, the titles and the acting. So far in our planning and filming only the events are mysterious.

So we have decided to change our genre, we came to the conclusion ours was more of a teen drama than a mystery, the titles are quirky, the music is sad and the events are dramatic so it all fits within this genre.

Blog Reflection