Final Cut

There are few changes made with our final cut since the second cut. The main one is the repositioning of the title. We put the ‘About a Girl’ title to appear after you meet the character Stacey, connoting she is the ‘girl’ in the title. We also added in the scratch of the record when the music cuts out for Stuart so it doesn’t seem amateur and unplanned. We added the sound in for both silences originally but this didn’t seem to work as well as just having it the first time.  

 Feedback
* The film could be mistaken as a professional production.
* The silence for Stuart has improved thanks to the record scratch.
* The new location of the title makes the film easier to follow.
* The split screen (despite no changes) is brilliant.
* The music (despite no changes) is also good.
* Everyone said they would watch our film.

Rough cut 2

This rough cut was more a tester for the title position within the opening. We put it at the end of the opening which as a result challenged comedy conventions. However, audience feedback suggested we moved the title to appear after the character Stacey leaves her bed. This would connote that the girl from the title, ‘About a Girl’, is Stacey and as a result made the film easier to follow.

Also, the feedback led to the adding of a sound effect of a record cutting out when the character Stuart appears. The audience suggested that this would make it more apparent that the silence was not a mistake but instead a planned technique.   

Rough Cut 1

This is our first rough cut. It is the basic layout in which our opening shall run. The main changes that will be made following this rough cut is the introduction of music, names, titles and the correction of some minor errors. For example, the split screen does not run smoothly as the character Tom jumps from the middle to the left side. The logo for 'wise crack studios' is also slanted so we will have to straighten this out. Also, we are debating whether the title should appear at the start (sticking to conventional routes) or putting it at the end (joining a small minority).

Monday 14 March 2011

Location Changes
Today we filmed the scene of all three boys meeting down the street and also Tom's montage. No location changes were made. This was due to the fact of it fitting perfectly.

Blocking Changes
Also no blocking changes were made, this was also due to the fact they fitted.

Prop Changes
There were no changes of props for any of Tom's scene as they all seemed to fit once again perfectly.

Lighting Changes
The naturalistic lighting was much better today than it was yesterday. This made it ideal to film the shots of the boys meeting up today as we wouldn't need to create the lighting for ourselves. Also, the rooms we filmed Tom in had naturally high key lighting, making it ideal to film Tom in our planned locations.

Sunday 13 March 2011

Today we filmed Stacey’s, Bobs and Stuarts individual scenes. This includes all their montage shots of them preparing for the day and each shot of them exiting their homes. Many things were changed during filming due to us realising things can be kept simple or changes that made our film opening visual element better.

Location Changes
We kept the original location for Stacey and Stuart’s as there weren't any faults with the chosen choices. Both settings were spatious which was a benefit for our crew. Also, both locations looked the part and were believable to fit their characters. However, Bob’s final location had the worse possible lighting despite the main light in the room being turned on. This was due to the weather being dull providing little natural high key lighting. We quickly assessed the situation and changed location to the nearest available and suitable one. The second choice location was also with low key lighting but was better than the last. It was also more spatious but not have the required desk for Bob's scene. However, due to pressure we has to proceed to the best of our ability. The pan which should have been across a large desk showing his messy environment had to be done over his bed littered in clothes. The desk itself was tiny and was shoved into the corner and made it hard to get a good shot. Despite this, we still got the scenes we intended to have.

Blocking Changes
A few little details were changed as far as blocking is concerned. Stacey’s alarm clock was supposed to be in the centre of the frame, however, due to the position of the desk wherre it laid, we had it in the left side of the frame. This still worked however but removed the professional, clever feel. Due to the location change for the character Bob, he was also moved from the centre of the frame to the left side. This, too, made the film feel unprofessional. All other framing kept the same blocking layout. A personal favourite was the way in which we established an aerial shot of Stuart reading. It required carefully placing the tripod onto a tall lamp as the camera was still running, due to the button being too high to reach.

Prop Changes
So far each prop we listed to be used during the making of our film has been placed within each location, though not always visible within the frame. Though it isn’t always visible in the frame these props are still important as it helps keep the atmosphere of each character present. We also added several more props to each scene such as an Egyptian poster for Stacey’s scene stuck to the centre of her far wall. These little touches we fed to the audience through the enigma code to connote information regarding each character.

Lighting Changes
Today, bad luck was upon us as it was a dull, gloomy day creating little natural lighting. We intended for high key natural lighting for several scenes as in the morning it is not always common to have a lamp on but instead curtains drawn open. We had to make do trying to create high key lighting that looked natural. The one bit of luck that struck us, however, was that the new location for Bob had movable ceiling lights. Allowing us to aim the lighting in the direction necessary to get the best possible result.

Tomorrow we are filming the scene of all three boys together and the character Tom's montage. If the natural lighting is higher key we will also re-film any possibly scenes improving the quality of our film.



Wednesday 23rd March 2011
Due to the dull lighting of Sunday 13th March, we re-filmed Bob’s scenes. The naturalistic lighting helped improve the lighting of Bob's scenes drastically. Bob’s scene originally had an orange glow but not having to create the high key lighting, the orange glow faded away making the scene seem believable.

How sound can make or break an opening

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdPWrAMXGGo
(Sorry i could not embed this clip)

This is 'Dawn of the dead' (2004) and it may be one of the greatest openings ever aurally. It creates the perfect atmosphere for the rest of the film and this is achieved by many overlapping audio sounds. The dialogue itself sets the viewer up for the plot of the film, feeding the audience much of the narrative. ‘We don’t know?’ is said twice connoting this is the end for humanity. The song itself is considerably cheerful and upbeat what juxpositions the visual images on screen. However, it doesn’t juxtapose this film as the overlapping creepy sound effects of roars, other dialogue, gunshots, screams and fuzzy television static sound all maintain the required and wanted eerie atmosphere that the director would have intended on producing. Much of these sound effects are non-diegetic allowing questions to be made by the audience without them even realising. Also, not seeing where the sound is coming from is more frightening than diegetic sound, once again creating the desired atmosphere.

Toy Story Two opening (1999)

Toy Story 2: Opening Sequence from Twenty One Inc on Vimeo.

Toy Story Two opening sound test




This is a great example of how sound should be played around with. The crew who did this test has an  youtube account being called ‘cws815’. Though personally, I feel their version isn’t as good as the original, it is still amazing. Both are very similar which highlights that the tiniest detail makes all the difference. The bit that stood out for me was when ‘Buzz’ jumps on the hovering platforms and originally the iconic sound is humourous to the audience. The replaced tester sound just highlights how sound effects can change the atmosphere and set how a different tone can can be set for the audience via sound affetcs.



This is ‘Kiwi’ a PIXAR shot film that on youtube alone has nearly thirty million views. Though it hasn’t really got an opening, as it’s only several minutes long the music may be one of the most amazing atmosphere producing pieces I have ever experienced. As the little critter sets up its master plan there is playful music, connoting it’s a bit devilish and child like. However, the contrast from this to the sad music what sounds like a child lullaby tune is devastating to the audience as it produces such an impact. This piece shows me the power of contrast, a valuable technique that if doing the right type of film I will consider using.

Music for our film opening

A website called Incompetech has thousands of royalty free songs that could be used for our film openings. As we need a royalty free song and this website has so many it is most likely one of these songs will be used for our opening.

After looking at the royalty website Incompetech it quickly came apparent that this site has great range of music but not for our chosen genre. Luckily for us we know several bands who will create music for our film. As long as they get mentioned in the credits they agreed to create a song for our film, as it will not just benefit our film but their publicity.

One band we took interest in and whom took interest in us was 'EPIVERSE'. The three member band (with many other guests) makes comical videos about their band practices called 'Random Jams'. However, they don't create their own songs but instead re-create already existing ones such as 'Starwars' with a rocky feel. The fact we need a royalty free song ruled these guys out.

The band set the task of creating our rocky cool song is called 'Forgetten the Fallen'. I won’t embed one of their videos as their songs are heavy metal and will serve no purpose to our film. Their talent however will. We have asked them to try a new genre of music and for one song alone, they abandoned their heavy metal and try to create a light rocky comical tune. They have great respect locally and have gigs with up to 600 people.

Audition process

Today we did the auditions for our film as seen on our group blog. This was fun to do and we wanted the actors trying out for the roles to feel relaxed. We explained each character to them and the story before starting, so they could have better understanding of each character and allow them to perform them in ways they see fit. Their friends came to watch which isn't necessarily professonal but it seemed to help them relax. Two actors, however, didn't wish to be watched so we got the audience to leave so they could act to their best potential. We did a short script and had at least two people try out for each part. The three geeks we selected called Bob, Stu and Harry (the irony being that two of our charcters are called Bob and Stu) fit perfectly. All three don't just look perfect but also acted perfectly for the part. Though one performer, Chris, seemed to play Bob better having more homourous acting skills, he just didn't look the part.

Actors i personally would use for our film

This is Seth Rogan, a talented actor, comedian and writer, who started his career doing stand-up comedy as a teen. Rogen was born in 1983 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Rogan's first big film was '40 year old virgin' (2005) and since has gone on to do many successful films. During his film 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno' (2008), Rogan played a loser called Zack. Zack, who is in his mid-thirties, lives with his best friend and works in a coffie house trying to make ends meet. I would take his character from this film and give him a geekier feeling which would could tranform him into the Bob needed for our film. The look shown below would fit Bob perfectly.



The reason Rogan would fit perfectly is simple due to his ability to bring a variety of characters to life each time with a humourous feel. He is a master of comedy and in the real world seems to be an actual geek making him perfect for Bob. 

This is Michael Cera; he is Canadian and was born in 1988. He made his first big film apperance in 'Superbad' (2007) where he played Evan; one of the lead characters out of a trio of geeks. Michael seems to be a geek anyway and then plays them well, deomonstrated by his now large film history of playing either the geek or a weak character. He always seems to play the intellectual geek who is a book worm. This would fit the character Stuart perfectly. If he had longer hair he would be perfect. However, say we were a big industry and could have him as an actor, he could just grow his hair.

As a child, I watched James Franco because of the spiderman films but only recently realised he is a huge actor capable of becoming anybody he wanted. He is very talented and has a huge contrast of characters he has portryed. In 'Pineapple Express' (2008), James played a drug addict geek called Saul Silver. This was the film that made me first aware of his comedy skills as an actor. In 'Spiderman' films to he also plays Harry Osborn: a calm geek who isnt humourous at all but yet still a geek who would fit the character Tom well. As Tom is arguably the most normal of all the geeks. I would take the James Franco comedy character, Saul Silver, and his boring but clever geek Harry Osborn and produce a new character that would fit Tom perfectly.



Cameron Diaz was born in 1972 in San Diego. Though she would be too old for Stacey, I would want an actress like her to portray our Stacey. Reason being is that in 'Something about Mary' (1998), Diaz played a humourous, attractive woman that several guys were fighting for. Diaz's character was also geeky in some ways making her perfect to play our geeky, attractive, cool Stacey.