Preparation for final images

We then began working on the heart shapes that will also be seen in this section of the film.
We drew the hearts ourselves with a permanent marker (we used black so it would be easy to edit). We then photographed our drawings and edited them on photoshop.
The black heart is an unedited drawing, the pink heart has been edited on photoshop. We drew the hearts by hand because we wanted them to be a realistic shape, the colour however we made to look obviously computer enhanced as this complys to the typical conventions of the teenage romcom genre. We used the colour pink as it has girly and romantic connotations.

Needed items

This is a list of item / images we need to produce to create or opening sequence.
-Photograph of lead Female
-Film footage of 'plastics'
-Photograph of lead 'plastic'
-Photograph of lead male
-Photograph of lead and Best friend
-Diary
-Hearts
-Lips
-Pompoms
-Guitar music
-Necklace
-Cellatape
-Picture of max
-Badge (from BF)
-Stars

Preparation for final images

We have started to prepare the individual layers for our final film.

The first image we created was the lips. This image is used when the film pans to the section of the diary about the "hot" boy at the lead characters high school. We got a friend to apply red lipstick and then kiss a piece of paper, we then took a photograph and edited on photoshop.
This was our original photo:And these were the lips finished after editing:

This is our call sheet it is not in as much detail as a professional one but just like the risk assessment it is an example of how they are used in the media industry. we will use this to help organize our filming and make sure everyone knows what there doing and when there supposed to do it.

Photographs for final film

Today we took some photos in preparation for our final film.

We needed a polaroid of our lead female character so we took a photo in a polaroid style and then edited it with a polaroid frame.

This was our finished photograph:
We have made our character follow typical conventions through the use of costume and setting. The picture is taken in the library, not to suggest our character is a geek, but to indicate that she doesn't hang around in the "popular" places in college. She is also wearing non-revealing unique clothing. The audience can see that she is a pretty character and that there is potential in the film for her to develop into a more "fanciable" character.

We then took some pictures of our lead "plastic".
These are the photos before we edited them for the diary:These are the photos after editing:

We have made our character follow typical conventions through the use of costume and make-up. The character has long blonde hair, typical of the lead popular character in the teen romcom genre. She is also wearing red lipstick, this represents her confidence and shows how the character sees herself as more grown up than the others. She is also wearing high heels and a short skirt; both highlighting her confidence in the way she looks.

Risk assesement

Risk assessment for film opening project.

Hazard: Damage to equipment.
What could cause harm? Dropping equipment, scratching lens.
What is the likelihood of this happening? Minimal
Who or what would be harmed? The camera or tripod
How much harm? Minimal
Applying the following priorities, how will this risk be managed?
(1) Eliminate. (2) Reduce or substitute. (3) Isolate. (4) Control. (5) Personal protective equipment.
(4) appoint somebody to be responsible for the well being of the camera.

Hazard: Busy corridor
what could cause harm? Tripping, colliding with other people / objects.
What is the likelihood of this happening? Medium
Who or what would be harmed? Actors
How much harm? minimal
Applying the following priorities, how will this risk be managed?
(1) Eliminate. (2) Reduce or substitute. (3) Isolate. (4) Control. (5) Personal protective equipment.
(3) Isolate the corridor.



This is only a representation of a risk assessment. in the industry it would have been written in more detail ans depth. the person responsible for completing a risk assessment is the production coordinator.there job is basically to sort out mundane paper work and league issues to make sure the production flows smoothly and without any legal issues. They are also responsible for getting permission off local councils to film in different location. As well as this they sort out copy write issues.

Mark Waters

An American director born in Cleveland Ohio, 30 June 1964.
He directed his first film "the house of yes" in 1997. a Drama/comedy about a mentally unstable young woman [who thinks shes Jakie Kennedy] flipping into a murderous rage when her brother returns home to reveal he's engaged.

He has also directed other successful Romantic comedy such as
# Just Like Heaven (2005)
# Mean Girls (2004)
# Freaky Friday (2003)
# Warning: Parental Advisory (2002) (TV)
# Head Over Heels (2001)

Soundtrack.

The mean girls soundtrack also includes the same mix of music and keeps to the conventions of a sound track for a teenage romantic comedy.

Soundtrack.

Track listing
1. Drama Queen (That Girl) - Lindsay Lohan
2. I'm Ready - Cherie
3. Ladies Night - Atomic Kitten, Kool & the Gang, Kool & the Gang
4. Perfect [Acoustic Version] - Simple Plan
5. Tomorrow - Lillix
6. What Are You Waiting For - Lindsay Lohan
7. Na Na - Superchic[k] Alumni
8. 1, 2, 3
9. Medley: Don't Move On/Living for the City/Changes - Lindsay Lohan
10. Boom - Fan_3,
11. Day in the Life - Lindsay Lohan
12. Real Me
13. Un-Sweet Sixteen - Wakefield
14. Only in the Movies - Diffuser

This soundtrack includes a mixture of mainstream music produced separately to the film and songs created just for the movie. The majority of the films created for the film are song by the main actress Lindsay Lohan.
The genre of the track in the sound track are all 'pop' or sub-genres such as rock pop
This seems to be a convention for the style of music induced in teenage Romantic comedy's.

Costume

Lead Female Character - Olivia Olsen

Although this image doesn't mirror the exact style of clothing we want our lead character to wear, it portrays her attitudes towards fashion and lack of interest when deciding what to wear.
Whilst our lead character is seen not to follow trends, her clothes still present her as stylishly unique.
Below we have created an outfit that replicates the type of outfit our lead character will wear:

Above we have chosen some bleached skinny jeans, a baggy high school jumper and a leather jacket. We have also chosen a long chain with a vintage pendant and some casual "lived-in" pumps. The oufit is seen as quite "cool" but also represents the characters careless attitude towards fashion and how she just "throws" her outfits together.

Lead "Plastic"/Cheerleader Character

We have chosen a costume example from the popular teenage chick-flick Clueless.
The girls are shown to reveal a lot of skin, an example being their short skirts and strappy dresses. This represents their confidence in themselves and indicates why they might be popular with the guys in their high school. They are all wearing high heels, and expensive/designer looking outfits.
Below we have created an outfit that replicates the type of outfit this character will wear:

We have chosen a denim mini-skirt (probably Abercrombie&Fitch) as this item shows the characters legs and also shows how she likes designer fashion labels. We have then chosen a pink knitted "designer" jumper and bright pink heels. Pink is a colour that is typically related to this type of popular girl character. The character also has a tiffany's bracelet in her outfit as this is quite an expensive piece of jewellery.

Feedback

Positives
-Good Ident.
-Looked at characters,titles,font etc. in a lot of detail.
-Like the test footage, looks professional.
-Very neat and impressive. Easy to read and understand.
-Lots of images.
-Lots of detailed notes.
-Very detailed.
-Amazing detail.

Areas for improvement
-2 Analysis posts of Mean Girls, should be made into one post.
-Could have put more detail into some of the lists of conventions.
-Lack of information for call sheet.
-Not enough pictures.

How will we respond to this feedback?
-Our Mean Girls analysis blogs will stay seperate as they are analysing different aspects of the film.
-We will expand the detail on our chosen genre, and provide evidence of costume, location and soundtrack conventions.
-If we do decide to include filming we will expand on the call sheet blog.
-Within the costume and location blogs we will include lots of images/evidence.

How does this blog compare to our thriller blog?
Jonny - "this blog is presented in a lot more detail than my previos one. also it is presented clearer and a is genuinely a better blog"
Alex and Rachel - "Although our thriller blog got blog of the week so was therefore very detailed, our current blog is showing clearer evidence of film preparation and includes more in-depth analysis using the micr0-elements"

test footage

Using our mood bored I have created the effect of panning and zooming on this image by manipulation it in final cut.

This is the same method we hope to use to produce our final production and with a bit more effort could look very professional. However this image had to be much larger than the actual frame to give the best possible effect. this will mean that for our final the images will have to be first created in Photshop in a much larger scale than is needed, then imported into final cut.

Call sheet

This is an example of a call sheet. They are used to help organize filming and making sure everything goes according to plan.

We will need to complete on for the small bit of film we are going to do, this should help us stay focused, have all our actors in the right place at the right time and let everyone know what is going on and what they are going to be doing.

Final Animatic

Our actual opening sequence will be a lot longer than this anamatic [around two minutes] and flow more freely creating the effect that the sequence is at a slow pace.

We hope to use a similar sound track in our actual opening sequence as it has a strong beat and a funky Latino feel. however the curant music do have an upbeat sound which makes the sequence feel shorter than it is so for the final we may have to use a slower more subdued beat.