Podcast

This is our podcast for title sequence. Where myself, Taranpreet and Rebecca talking together through the process of our titles sequence. This adds to our evaluation, and we wanted to something as a group to end the very long process!. We are basically just talking about where our inspiration came from and the process we went through until the final edit.

Evalutaion

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our product is a title sequence, the reason for a title sequence is to simple credit the cast and crew of the film. It establish the audience on character, setting and genre. With Laylas Star we decided to follow the style of Catch Me If You Can title sequence where it tells the story in a simple form through the titles.

Our media product, Layla's Star, sits within the niche that is evident in the 21st century. You can split our film in two separate heading, the animation and the children's story.

First looking at the children story part of the product. More and more films realised in cinema today have an appeal to children. Like High School Musical and other Disney films they keep to simple storyline while being fun and magical for the younger audience to enjoy. Our narrative fits with this idea as the book Laura's Star, where the story came from a children's book, is very sweet and magical. It has the adventure slightly as well like Harry Potter, and the ability that the children watching it can then reenact the "Star friend" while the play.

The animation side of our title sequence is also relevant with films such as Shrek, Kong fu panda and bolt. Of course our is not at any high standard that these films are, however animation films seem to occur more and more in cinema now days.


Q2 How does your media product represent particular social group?

Thinking about representation in our film it is through our character Layla. She is young and her room and house appears to be middle class house. I think it is difficult to think who it is representing, apart from the obvious young children, in contrast to a horror or sci fi genre where there is an obvious group. As it is for children it is kept simple with no big advertisements or needs to feature in the film. It represents a young girl who is friendly who the audience can relate to.

Q3 what kind of media institution might distribute you media product and why?

Personally i think our product would fit nicely as a film featured on TV. For example on CBBC, a children's channel. Films such a The Tracy Beaker movie that was aired on CBBC worked well and it is very similar to ours as it was a book first. I feel that narrative is not broad enough to have it produced by dreamwork. However dreamworks are great for animation and have produced amazing animated films, but it is just our title sequence that is animated. Disney is another good producers as it has the knowledge and ability to advertise the film through merchandise in Disney Store and companies such as Mac Donalds. Disney have done this to films such as High School Musical and Hannah Montanna. Going back to my thoughts on being a feature film on TV, High School Musical did start like this. Therefor if our film was to be aired at the correct time and have a big build up to it, like High School Musical did, we could maybe also get a large audience. It proved that cinema is not the only place to pull in large audiences. Most of the companies i have mentioned are American, i like the idea that Layla's Star to be a British film. Children's Film and Television Foundation, CFTF, is perfect for our film and my ideal company as it is British and who produce many films for the bbc.

Q4Who would be the audience for your media product ?

As i have mentioned before the main audience is children, from our first ideas we knew we wanted to create a genre that a younger audience can enjoy. This was because we have never created something for a younger audience. It is mostly aimed a young girls as the colours a girly, like pinks and lilacs. The age range would be from 3-10, depending on the age they take a different element from the film. For example the younger ones will like it for the imagery and the colours, where they older ones will like it more for the narrative. Although it is primarily for children i think it is also a family film, a film that is easy to watch but is entertaining enough for an older audience. Layla appears to be middle class, as she has her own room and her house represents a middle class home, the audience i think will also be middle class. As the middle class are more likely to go to the cinema or buy films.

Q5 How did you attract/address your audience?

As it is aimed at a young audience, we had to make is attractive to them. We did this through pastel colours that younger people seems to draw more too. Also the object and setting are meant to reflect a children's bedroom. For example the bedroom setting, the bed has children's toys underneath and a teddy. Having our main character, Layla, as a young girl helps to attract the same age and gender, as they can relate to her. The music as well draws the audience in as it is exciting and adventurist which the younger audience would like.

We addressed our audience through the title sequence on the genre and the main storyline. The basis of story are all shown through each title, however as our film is not animation we decided to add a opening scene to communicate that.

Q6 what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From day one we have had a lot of trouble with technology, however the process of making our title sequence meant we had to rely on computers and cameras ,that don't always work!. For each second we had to have 10-20 photos, we really had to think about every second. We choose to construct our film through i-movie, this is because we was all familiar with how to use it. Also it is very useful for uploading photos and as we was adding so many we needed this.

Taranpreet drew Layla and we scanned it in so we was able to add colour through photoshop. We choose to have an original drawing, because Taranpreet drawings are brilliant and it is more creative, also can get a better image though an original drawing. Once we had it had it on photoshop programme we could create the setting etc. Every movement we had a new photo for. So we transferred the photos on memory stick then uploaded on to i-movie. This caused problems as we had so many ,the memory would run on the macs and the memory sticks. Having problems like this made it a lengthy process to get all the images together and through my blog you can see the all the problems there were. The blog was a great chance to get a chance to step away from the production and gather thought and ideas until we return to it. I liked that the end of every day we worked on the production i went home and explained what we have done and what there is to do. It was a great chance to organise what i had to do.

Video cameras as well caused problems as the tape was not good. Therefor we know now that when we film to use a brand new tape as it is then will only have our footage on. Even though i have moaned about technology if we didn't have it then wouldn't of been able to have created our film. When it works it was fun and good to do, but when it didn't it made all of us fed up of our film.


Q7Looking back at your preliminarily task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?


Our initial ideas were to create an animation title sequence. We all knew that it would be challanging and there would be a few problems however we was up for it. As a group we are all interested in art and wanted to use our skills to create something that not many people have tied to do. Way back at the beginning we spent alot of time looking at examples of title sequence. Such as Catch Me If You Can and Juno, we all loved these and was inspired.

As a group we each inputted ideas and worked well as a team. The first bit of animation we did as a group and we did a lot of trial and error. This was because we have never done animation before and spent a lot of the time at the beginning just experimenting. Once we knew exactly what we wanted to do we each took a section each and bought them together at the end. One thing i have defiantly learnt that to create a high quality animation you need millions of photos. Which we didn't do, however some scenes there was about 80 per 6 seconds and the flowed much better than the ones with less. As there was moments that creating it i got really frustrated i learnt to walk away from it for a bit then return. Computer are so unreliable and towards the end i think we were all used to that so we could handle it much better.

On reflection of the overall finished product i have realised how much effort goes into animation and how vital a title sequence is. Every mico-element has to express the same otherwise it will confuse the audience and not give the message that you intended. I have enjoyed making Layla Star, eventhough i have probably moaned to much. Working within the group i was in worked well as we each bought ideas together and all put equal amount of effort in to creat Laylas Star.

Finishing touches

OK the deadline is tomorrow!! and as other groups and years are also going to be using the mac room all day we have decided to come in early and get it done. All we had to do was to put Ian Elsmlie in the credits and attach the music. It all went well except a few photos were mucking up so we decided to delete them. It looks good and i dont mind watching it now as it has music. We have completed all of it now, but didnt get a chance to upload it on blog hopefully we will get a chance soon, however we do have a copy on dvd. When we was burning it on to dvd i think we were all happy that we have managed to get it done on time. Today we are also going to do a podcast to add to our evaluation.

We have music!

So close to the deadline and we have finally got music! we had alot of problems in finding the correct and copyright free music. Luckily enough Ian Elmslie composed a piece of music and it is perfect! We all listened to it and smiled out of relief we actually have music and how well it fits in with our animation. It has the twinkles that we wanted and the sense of an adventure as well, it reminded me of Harry Potter but not so dark. As we got this music this morning we added it staight away onto i movie and attached to our animation. We are in the process at the moment of crediting Ian Elmslie on one of the titles, so we have all the photos ready just need to transfer. We will be doing this soon then doing the finishing touches to it and of course a podcast !

where our animation is at the moment..

After weeks of problems we are at to this point in our animation. As a group we are still no entirely happy with it however we realise that there is not much we can do about it without causing more problems to the sync of the film.

filming and editing

From my previous blog are said that we have filmed, which we did, however when it came to editing it didn't all come out and there were problems with uploading it on the i-movie, therefor we filmed again.

We done exactly the same as last time, and used the same girl and same house.

scene 1
Panning from outside the window to "Layla" laying in bed, family member calls her, she wakes up. Walks out of her room.

scene 2
To keep the continuity we showed Layla coming out of her room and going down the stairs. The house we were filming in was a great opportunity to create this shot as the stairs go two ways at the top of the stairs, if that makes sense? so we could have the angle of this shot.

scene 3
This was the last scene of the opening of the film. Again we carried on with the continuity as she comes into the kitchen, still in her PJ's, and has a glass of water. The finale shot is "Layla" looking out of the window. We thought this would be a nice connection to the narrative of the film.


EDITING
Thankfully the editing was easy to do and no problems occurred. As this was the second time filming the filming flowed already so we just had to cut a few clips to make them run smoother. At this point we have animation done and now the opening titles, also from the crit it came up to hold the titles for longer which we have also edited.

TO DO;
- music!!
-evaluation
-podcast

not long to deadline, hopefully everything will get done :)

Feedback from friday - when we filmed.

From the crit we realised we needed to add something extra to our opening sequence. Therefor we choose to do a few seconds to the opening of our film. We had a bit of trouble finding someone who fits the identity if the animated girl, and someone young. Rebecca and Taranpreet couldnt find anyone to film so the only person i could think of was a family friend called Hattie. She is much older than what our girl is in the animation but she is small for her age. We filmed in her house. The first scene was her waking up and walking down the stairs, ending up in the kitchen were she looks into the sky while drinking. We thought that if she looks up into the sky it connects the story animation to the opening scenes. On Monday, tomorrow, we can upload it and then edit it, get music and finally sorted :D

Feed back on crit.

We were there first ones to show our animation today. When it was shown i was embarrassed because of it, i feel it is the worst work i have made in media, including year 10 and 11. I think being on bigger screen you can see so many more faults which i would like to correct, for example the titles move around one two shots, having them still will make it better. Also, again, i have said this on so many posting that i don't think there are enough photos and it doesn't flow well at all. We have three more weeks till the deadline, but i don't no how difficult it will be just to add a few more shots on the really jumpy parts of the animation. This would be something i would like to do, but i have to talk to the group and see what they want to do about it all.

Music was not in the crit today and we had sound effect ( which i don't think are staying) which made it look even worse! ha ha. Although like it was mentioned in having music will tie it all together. This is still a major to do.

Other things that came from the crit was to holder the titles for longer. This will be easy to for the opening "Layla's Star" title as we can just add a few seconds onto the frame. I would rather change it now before we add music otherwise it will throw everything out of place. The titles within the frames might be a bit harder for them to hold, but we can try and if it fails we will just have to leave it like that. Also another comment was to make a 30 second opening to a film, we did originally want this in our animation and even filmed it, but there was problem with low light. However we spoke about how we can change this and rather than filming it at night, we could start with the day in the morning to get over the issue of the lighting. If we are going to film the 30 second opening, then we need to think about casting a character, who looks around the same age of our animation girl, location and shots. Over the next couple of days i think we are going to talk about what need doing and try to think of a way that we can have everything done in three weeks time.

...

We still haven't done much to our animation. We again had a few problems with computer and things, and we nearly lost it all! But luckily we haven't. As we have our presentation/crit in tomorrow lesson we are going to have to show our animation without music, but hopefully in the week we will eventually get a chance to put some music with it.

Showing our animation tomorrow ,for the crit, I'm not entirely happy were we are at and what it looks like, i still think there a bits we can change and tweak to make it better. Hopefully as well people will give there opinion on it and if any advice is given we can go away and make it better.

Music, music, music ! have to get it done.

Wheres next?

So last week, when i was off, they had a few difficulties with computers, music and things. Which means we are behind where we wanted to be. As we have a double lesson tomorrow morning in hoping we can get it all in order and ready to add music. I know I'm not going to be completely happy because i would still like to add a few clips in between shots to make it flow much better. However if i have time then i may get a chance to add them, all depends when the deadline is.

Once we have our finished product then we will get an audience together and see how the respond to finished thing. It would be great if we could get an younger audience to view it as it is there genre.

So in a few blog time i will add all the audience criticism etc.

Audience response and ways of viewing Laylas star

As i said in the previous post our film will have a very young audience. If Layla's was to be realised i could see it not being a massive film but a film that the cinemas would air on a Saturday morning purely for a younger audience, which would only cost a £1 at cineworld. However advertisement would still be needed and like many other films aimed at younger audiences companies like MacDonald's are perfect to advertise the characters with the happy meal when they get a free toy.

This is an example of the Happy Meal and the route that many film companies choose to advertise films to a lower age group.

Having our film not being a massive Hollywood hit, it allows the film to be enjoyed by different classes in society. It is easy accessibly from all classes to be able to the view the film ,whether this is lower class paying a £1 on a Saturday morning or working class where it may be viewed on Sky or bought on DVD. This is a family film , which is what the cinema used to be there for, for a family day out to watch a film.

Like other animation film that have been massive hits over the last few years there is comical moments that can be more appreciated with an older audience however still having the main ingredients to be primarily enjoyed by the younger audience. Regrettably i don't think we have the characters in our film in order to have a character to aim to the older audience.

Sorry...

Annoy-ily i have had a bit of an accident therefore i am not in for the finishing of the title sequence, which i am gutted about! But im sure that Rebecca and Taranpreet will finish it great. As having a bit of an accident im trying my hardest to complete my blog, i will be adding things for the next day or so and hopefully finish soon. Again im sorry for not getting it all done on time and not being in.

The Audience.

Even if you film has the worlds greatest stars or best storyline is ultimately comes down to the audience to decide whether it is good or not. Moreover that's why when directors start to design/create a new film they set a target audience who they will aim all the advertisement and film too.

For our film we are targeting a very young audience, primary school children, this is because originally the storyline is from a child's book. Also we have a young child in our animation which make younger children relate to it. Having the simple soft colours make its more child friendly. The relationship that the child would have is that are enlightened with the opening of the film, they start to get to know who the main character is and the basic storyline. As our film is such for a young age if we was to advertise we would focus more on images rather than text as like to keep it simple to suit film, this is so when they see the film the can identify "Layla" through the advertisement technique.

Why opening title sequences are so important to the film industry?

http://www.thunderchunky.co.uk/articles/talking-title-sequences-with-the-master-kyle-cooper/

While researching i found an interview with Kyle Cooper who is a title sequence Creator and is very successful. He created film title sequences like Se7en, Spiderman and Fight Club. Linking back to the great Saul Bass, he was Kyle Cooper inspiration.

I really liked what he said about making a good title sequence;
"It makes you thrilled to be in this theatre at this moment, getting ready to see this movie. It makes you glad that you are nowhere else in the world except where you are, getting ready to see something amazing"

So why do we have title sequences?
A title sequence is the method by which cinematic films or television shows present their title and key cast and production members utilizing conceptual visuals and sound. It should not be confused with opening credits, which are generally nothing more than a series of superimposed text.

Over the year the title sequence have become in its own right a piece of art work and almost another film creation within the film. It is the first imagery that the audience watch, it has to grip them, tell them the basic information but at the same time do not make them bored or waiting to long for the film.

In our title sequence we have tried to follow the same sort of line that Catch Me If You Can done, where the story is told with names appearing in each scene.

ARRRGGHHHHH!!!!!

Two weeks until it has to be done and it seems that everything has gone wrong.We changed our text which took ages but while we were updating on the mac the mac and our memory stick failed. I think it was because we have used up most of the memory. But now it seems we are starting from square one!!

So will we get it done?

I think we will just have to put more time into it, we havent even got the music done yet!

We are getting close to finishing!

So yesterday we spent another 2 hours on animation and it looks like we have finished all the scenes. However we havent managed to put them all together yet as the was a few problems with transfering my images on the the i-mac, but i think we can try and put them on there on monday. I think we are all thinking that there is going to be something we have missed out so we are not completly finished yet. Once we have all the images together and in order we need to add the real footage, which Rebecca is going to do this weekend. This is where we are in a real room, which we have based the animated version on, and film zooming to the window to show the sky, where on the mac we will fad it in to our animated sky. There once that is all in order we need to sort out some music. We are still interested in making out own music, so we are going to see if anyone who can play music will be interested in composing some music to put over.

Hopefully by the end of next week we should have a rough copy of what it is going to look like.

Looks like im not the only one who liked my childhood book

It seems that Lauras star is already a aniamtion and Mel c from the Spice Girls has done a soundtrack for ! However ours is going to be different as we are using real life also ours is just a titled sequence.

Animation is starting to be a title sequence!

Ok so Thursday we spent a whole school day working on trying to get as much as possible done. We mostly worked in photoshop, then every so often transfered all the images onto the mac to see if it worked and how well it flowed.



The first 2 hours Me and Taranpreet were creating the girl. Taranpreet drew the girl and we scanned them in to the computer and on to photoshop were we coloured them in.






The image above you can see the original image and then the coloured version. We wanted to keep the colours simple and fun, as she is young, so we went for purple and pink with a smily face on the top. We had a bit of trouble with this scene of her walking in front of the house. The first image we had ( as you can see above) we didnt have her holding the tourch, however in our story board we had a tourch shinning to we broke the continuity as a tourch just suddenly appeared. As a result we quickly drew in a tourch so it flowed. Taranpreet done two different stages of her walking, one with the left leg out, then one with the right, this so it created the effect of walking. Personally i think it looks better when this certain clip is slower so effect of the legs show.











This is a clip of one of our shots of the girl walking across and bending down to get the star. I like it as it is simple but sweet. So finially at the end of two confusing hours me and taranpreet manage to get all the complications and create a half decent scene.



While we was doing this Rebecca done a scene where the star was fixing back together. This would be the scene that follows ours. Rebecca done the background as it would be the pavement you see ( in the above picture) so again it flows and connects the scene.




The next scenes we done were just simple scenes were we can show the names and make it in to a continuity sequence. I done a scene in the girls bedroom where the star danced around and the names would appear in the radiator.















This was easy to do as Rebecca toke a photo of her window, as we are going to use her window to go out of aniamtion, so i just coloured aroud it to make it go in more with the other pictures. Rebecca also used this background for when the girl stands in fron and the star dances around.





Not forgetting what taranpreet done, she was doing the scene were the girls cries as the star has disappeared.







All these images look really well together when put onto the mac. The images are great, thanks to Taranpreet drawing! they are really cute girl which fits in perfect with the story.

So thats what we done on thursday, very long process but we got a big chunk of the animation done now. Hopefully in the next week or so we can finish the animation and just edit and maybe add a few to make it flow better. However we still need some music to go with our animation, something stary and twinkly which i think we are going to create our selves.

update on animation

Ok so i spent todays lesson trying to get this star to full down in front of the house. I started to get a bit annoyed as it was hard to figure out which direction everything is going. The video shows the stage that we are at, at the moment. However looking at it i think the beginning bit of the video is not the same as the bottom, as the stars do not flow as much. So that must mean that i have loaded the pictures onto the wrong document, however you get the idea. Also what i done today came together well and it seems all that stress acutally made it work ok.

On thursday we are spending the whole day doing animaition. I think it will work best that we go in order of the scenes rather than skiping in front as it all get to confusing, so first of all plan so everything links together and everyone has a job to start and finish.

Start of our animation - scene 1

This is the beginning of our animation title sequence. We had a few problems with the stars as we wanted to create an effect as if we are moving the camera up towards the sky to revel the main star. After trying a few different ways we finially managed to do so. I really like how it has turned out and can see it getting somewhere now. The colours i think play a part as they look like a book animation which we wanted.

When planing what we are doing we have decided to change our ideas a bit. We are not going to show our real girl, instead keep to the animation person. Also without using our friends niece, and using a animation person, it allows us to use one of our own room , which will be easier to create. So instead we are going to use Rebeccas room and just use that at the beginning and the end to bring it out of animation.

Things we need to do. ( for thursday, as we are spending a day on trying to get most of it done)

+ Get photos of room we are using.

+ get materials to create our fake room.

+ try and book time in the music department, so we can create our own music.

+create out girl.