Directors' Commentary of Genre

This is a script we wrote for our directors' commentary on the genre evaluation question :

Juno Credits Order

We analysed Juno's title sequence as one of our inspirations for credits. We loosely based our order on this because it is a coming of age film, and therefore genre appropriate.

1. FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES PRESENT
2. A MANDATE PICTURES MR MUDD PRODUCTION
3. A JASON REITMAN FILM
4. JUNO
5. ELLEN PAGE
6. MICHAEL CERA
7. JENNIFER GARDER
8. JASON BATEMAN
9. ALISON JANNEY
10. JK SIMMONS
11. OLIVIA THIRLBY
12. CASTING BY MINDY MARIN, C.S.A KARA LIPSON
13. COSTUME DESIGNER MONIQUE PRUDHOMME
14. MUSIC BY MATEO MESSINA. SONGS BY KIMYA DAWSON
15. MUSIC SUPERVISORS PETER AFTERMAN AND MARGARET YEN
16.CO-PRODUCERS JIM MILLER, KELLI KONOP, BRAD VAN ARRAGON
17. FILM EDITOR DANA E GLAUBERMAN
18. PRODUCTION DESIGNER STEVE SAKLAD
19. DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY ERIC STEELBERG
20. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS JOE DRAKE, NATHAN KAHANE, DANIEL DUBLEIKI
21. PRODUCED BY LIANNA HALFON, JOHN MALKOVICH, MASON NOVICK, RUSSELL SMITH
22.WRITTEN BY DIABLO CODY
23. DIRECTED BY JASON REITMAN

• From this title sequence, we took the idea of putting the titles in capitals. This makes the titles clear and bold to the audience, yet also blending in with the genre. However, whereas Juno features extremely bold and colourful titles, our more menacing comedy element made this less suiting - so we concluded to use simple white titles.
• Also in this title sequence, title transitions are included. We decided to take on board this idea, yet we decided to keep the effect constant rather than varying the effects for each title. We thought this suited our opening sequence better, as we wanted the audience to not solely focus on the titles, but also the action in the opening.
• Like Juno, the distribution and production companies were our first credits: 'Momentum Pictures Present' and 'An X Production Film'. We thought this was deeply important to ensuring that we followed title conventions and also drew association with other films from Momentum Pictures e.g. Four Lions.
• In this title sequence, there are co-producers. We adopted this idea for one of our titles.

The Shoot

These  photos were taken during our much less stressful second shoot, in which we just had to get the end shots of the protagonist leaving. 

Here is some photo evidence of the lights being set up by Alice and Ella for our first real shoot, before we starting filming the overdose footage. They are setting up the Arri Redhead lights in order to saturate the room in light and create contrast between the party scene and the overdose scene.

After Effects - Post Production

An explanation of our grain removal on Adobe After Effects:

After the real shoot, one problem we faced was our long perspective shot at the beginning being very grainy because we shot it in the dark and not enough light could reach the camera. Our options were to find a way to remove grain, or have to do a reshoot of the whole thing, which would have been another whole day shooting. We did some research on ways to remove grain from video clips. After looking at many websites, and alot of youtube clips and getting some advice from our technician, we found a way of removing a significant amount of the grain on Adobe After Effects. We had to remove grain from 3 shots, but it meant we did not have to do a reshoot of all our shots. Removing grain from our opening shots had a massive impact on the quality of our title sequence and it made it look much more professional.

Here is our point of view shot before we removed the grain.

This is a sample picture of part of the shot after we removed grain. There is a big difference and removing grain from our point of view shot had a massive impact on the whole opening sequence.

Protagonist Name

NOTE ABOUT NAME CHANGE:
Our protagonist's name was originally Amanda, or Mandy for short, but we changed it to Eve during our research and planning due to the biblical connotations the name carries. Eve being in some ways held responsible for original sin and poisoning mankind is appropriate since it echoes somewhat the revenge trend that our character triggers.

Editing Schedules

We made editing schedules to make sure that we knew exactly when we were editing and to make sure that everyone in our group did an even amount of editing and took turns when they had the time.
We also planned some group sessions at lunch so we could all discuss our ideas together and do some of the work that had to be done in groups, rather than separately at lunch. The rest was done in our free periods.

Here are a couple of pictures showing evidence of our editing and when we found the time over a course of 2 weeks to edit individually, in pairs and in groups. 

 

Final Titles

This is a summary of our final decisions on titles:

• We put our final titles in capitals
• We chose white as the colour for our titles
• Originally the film institution titles were in the middle but we decided to move them to the bottom.
• We made the beginning titles very long in order to slow down the transition to the party. This made it more surreal.
• The font was Aubrey; a font we felt represented our genre well.
• The credits appear at different places on screen, and disappear with the Ghost effect to add drama to the opening sequence and mystery.

Final font decisions

When looking for a font, we decided to look online using the website "dafont" to find a font that was perfect for us and individual to our film. We chose a sans serif font as we felt it was modern, which suited the current teen culture our film explores. We chose the font Aubrey because it was unusual but still simple and gave our film the understated but unique look we were looking for. We used the font all the way through our title sequence to create synergy.
http://www.dafont.com/aubrey.font?text=vendetta+VENDETTA

Overdose Grading

In our planning we were greatly influenced by the trailer for 'Requiem for a Dream' in our ideas for editing, lighting and grading so during the editing phase we looked for some useful bits of the film to draw inspiration from. In this clip, although the whole clip was helpful, minutes 1.00 to 1.15 were of particular use to us since we wanted to achieve a similarly disturbing effect with our grading.

Credit and Title Order

Our current credit order is as follows:

1. MOMENTUM PICTURES PRESENTS
2. AN X PRODUCTIONS FILM
3. IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE BFI FILM FUND
4. SOPHIE HAMMER
5. JOE TRAFFORD
6. AMA MADUKO
7. JAMES STEEDS
8. SARRA SAID-WARDELL
9. CO PRODUCERS ALICIA POWELL ELLA DAWSON
   ALICE DUKE RAKHI BISWAS EVANS
10. COSTUME DESIGNER MEERA YOGANATHAN
11. DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY CIARA HEALY
12. EXECUTIVE PRODUCER SADE ODEJU
13. SCREENPLAY BY PERRY MARSHOM
14. PRODUCED BY PATRICK PEEL YATES
15. DIRECTED BY ALEXANDRA GIBSON
16. VENDETTA

(Those in blue are titles before shots, and those in white are credits seen on screen over shots.)

Following convention, our first credits are the institutional titles. This introduces the film and brings associated films into the audiences mind. Following this are the main actors, in billing order. Again, following convention, the cast are credited in order of increasing importance. For this reason the final two credits are PRODUCED BY and then DIRECTED BY. We end with a VENDETTA, the films title, in the same style as the first two titles.
 

Final Sound Edit

As well as afore-mentioned music tracks, we had to add several layers of sound to achieve the final effect as we believe it is the details which make for an effective soundscape. The sound effects we added were:

1. Button Click When the music is turned off we added a button click to make it more realistic. We found this sound effect on http://www.freesfx.co.uk/ - a site containing sound effects which are free to use provided you credit them on your film site or blog.
2. Crowd NoiseAnother sound effect from http://www.freesfx.co.uk/, we used this to give the crowded atmosphere texture so it realistically sounded like a crowded party underneath everyone panicking.
3. Panicking Crowd Noise 1We had some recorded sound of the master shots of people panicking which weren't all used in the final piece, so we detached sound from the shots and looped it through the entire overdose scene to make the party atmosphere seem more intense and panicked.
4. Panicking Crowd Noise 2So as to draw focus from the looped sound and to make the panicked reactions seem more individual and start more gradually, we recorded voiceovers of a few lines such as "Hannah, get up!" and "what's going on?!"

Audience Feedback

We did some audience feedback for our rough edit to see what direction we are going in for our final piece.

Audience Feedback:

 

Katie, female, 17

Recap the storyline of the opening
It is a party and during shots of the party you feel like you are there. Then Rakhi faints and lots of people look worried, apart from a few people who are uninterested. A girl leaves the room and when they get out the house, smile and look evil because they are not concerned about what has happened at the party. It raises the question of whether what happened was an accident or not.

What genre would you say the film was from the opening? Any other themes?

It could be horror or a coming of age film

Who do you think is the target audience?

Young people, probably late teens - early 20s. Not children

Key words to describe it

Eerie

What was your favourite bit and why?

The end because when the girl leaves the house there is a cliffhanger and it makes you want to watch the rest of the film and find out what happened.

What was your least favourite bit and why?

When the music stops after the shot of button being pressed on the stereo and the sound seems echo like.

Would you see this film at the cinema if it was released?

Yes.

What could be improved?

The sound when people are speaking to eachother.

Grading

Colour grading during the editing of a film involves altering and enhancing the colour of shots. Often it is done digitally, using programmes like adobe premiere pro, which we are using for our project.

We watched a few tutorials, such as this one in order to learn how to grade properly and the different ways to colour correct our 2 minute opening sequence. We also looked at videos on the actual Adobe website and practiced using tutorial techniques for our sequence.

Music

We have two musics tracks in our opening sequence (excluding sound effects, sound from the shots and diologue).

The first is a dubstep/techno track. This sets the scene of a party and represents the pyschadelia induced by the influence of drugs. It is digetic sound being played at the party, and the audience know this because people are dancing appropriately and more importantly it stops when a button is clicked; it has been turned off. We got this track through a copyright free youtube.com source.

The second track is non-digetic sound. It is atmospheric and eerie and creates atmosphere during the overdose scene. It was sourced from freeplaymusic.com . It makes the audience feel uneasy and nervous; they do not know what will happen to Hannah (overdosee).

At the end as Eve (the protagonist in the black dress) is leaving, the first dubstep/techno track fades back in. This associates her with the beginning of the scene, and implies it was her point of view that we were seeing. It also returns to the pyschadelic feel after everyone has started panicking and sobered up suggesting that she is not panicked by the events and further adds suspicion that she caused the overdose.

Audience Feedback

We did some audience feedback for our rough edit to see what direction we are going in for our final piece.  

Audience Feedback:

 

Neil, male, 17

Re-cap the storyline of the opening

It’s a party, through someone’s point of view, someone overdoses, everyone is shocked, the person whose point of view it was from walks out and you think it’s her because of the smile.

What genre would you say the film was from the opening? Any other themes?

Crime, teen drama NOT a comedy although the couple ignoring the overdose was funny

Who do you think is the target audience?

Teenagers both genders

Key words to describe it

Intriguing, realistic events – could happen to my friends, sadistic

 

What was your favourite bit and why? 

Ama checking out [Eve] because that’s when I realised it was a point of view shot)

 

What was your least favourite bit and why?

The start before it turns slow mo – looks less good real time

 

Would you see this film at the cinema if it was released?

Yeah

 

What could be improved?

The dialogue bits when everyone was around [Hannah] it seemed kind of generic like it was the only normal bit in opening I preferred it when it was weirder

Weather

Weather was not a major concern of ours because the majority of our shots were inside. However the last shot is the protagonist coming out the front door of a house, and we had to use our lighting and other equipment outside. We also wanted the last shot to be at night in the dark, so we had to check the sunset time in the UK.

The sunset time was around 6pm, so we got our equipment set up in preparation to shoot around this time. We also did a weather check for the evening when we were shooting the last shot to make sure it would not be raining or snowing.

Our First Shoot

On the day of the shoot, our group all arrived at Alice's house for 10am, so we could prepare the lighting, the camera and make sure everything was ready for the actors arriving at 11am and the shoot to start at 12pm. Once the actors arrived, the priority was costume and make up and handing out scripts to make sure they could rehearse their lines and make sure they knew what they were doing.

We took a few photos of our different actors as evidence:



These first pictures show Rakhi, the girl who overdoses in our opening sequence. Her make up was the most difficult, as we had to make her look like she had taken drugs and was looking rough due to them. We used talcum powder to make her look pale and brushed it over her face and shoulders. We then also smudged her make up - eyeshadow and lipstick - to show that she was a bit 'out of it,' and also bought some contacts with dilated pupils for the effect of someone on drugs and to make it look more realistic. We also roughed her hair a bit, so she looked a little more messy and like she really had been at a party.


The top picture below is of our main character. Ella plays the main character and her make up was dark and shadowy to reflect her personality and role in our film/opening sequence. The dark lace dress also represents her personality as quite dark and mysterious, but still feminine.


 The other pictures below, on the right, are of other actors, all part of the party with their make up and general look. Everyone dresses slightly differently and has a different style in order to have a realistic representation of the different types of people who would be at a party.

To keep everyone happy on the day and to make sure they kept focused, so we could get our shoot done within 5/6 hours, we supplied food (pizza, pasta, snacks, etc. ) and drinks to keep them happy so that they could eat when they were not acting.













When actors were not needed for a scene, or few, we let them go and watch T.V. and have a break in order to keep them happy so the day ran as smoothly as possible. We also ensured that for the long point of view shot at the beginning that we practiced it a number of times at the beginning in order to make sure everyone knew exactly what to do and exactly how it was going to work. To make our actors feel more at ease dancing, on top of the dark lighting and the strobe, we also put on some background music, so they felt comfortable dancing and so that the party looked as realistic as possible.

Our opening sequence used a wide representation of teenagers in order to break the stereotype of teenagers that are often in 'cliques' in films. Ours is a mix of different type of people, all at the same party - a much more realistic representation. For example, we had a bit of a tomboy - hair up, no make up, boots on. We also had a rave girl - disco pants, vans, colourful make up and so on.

Overall the day ran smoothly, and we did not have to do a re-shoot involving everybody. Just an extra shoot to shoot the shots of Ella that we had not had time for on the day. Success!

Our Animatic

Our Film Animatic

This is our film animatic. We did this in order to make sure consecutive shots had continuity and to make sure that we knew what order we wanted the shots in and the length we wanted them on screen for. It is a very basic version of our film which we hope will influence the final outcome of our film opening sequence, although the film sequence is likely to adapt and change alot based on our animatic, because it has shown us that we need to make many of the shots quicker. We also need to plan a few extra shots to make sure we have enough variety.

Filter Tests

We thought that using filters would add to the "trippy" look of our opening sequences. Below shows us testing them all out.



In the end we decided against using a filter. Whilst we liked the effects that some of them created, we decided that it added extra complication. We also realised that we could put in the effect of a filter in by grading or after effects. Instead we decided to use a strobe for the effects we wanted and it gave a slightly blue effect as well as making it feel more like a party.

Shot List

We made a shot list after our test shoot, planning out the order in which our sequence will go and making a list of what happens in each shot, the dialogue in each shot, the type of camera movement or shot used and any props that needed to be used.

After making the shot list we decided based on the different shots we were shooting the different lighting set ups and how many different of them we would need so that we could choose which order to film the different set ups in, and to make sure we will not have to continuously move all the lighting and equipment around. This is all in order to make sure the real shoot runs smoothly and quickly on the day.