Prelim Video

This is the Prelim task we created at the start of the year. CLICK ON THE LINK TO WATCH THE PRELIM!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSSyj05hbfk&feature=youtu.be

Director's Voice Over (Akshay)

This is the voice over explaining exactly what each scene is about and what is used in the scene. The voice over was recorded by the directors of the opening sequence, who are obviously me (Akshay), Antonio, Ricardo and David all together creating the "AARD" in our production name.

Titles (Akshay)

When i was creating Titles i implemented two sold rectangle shapes. I then added the text and "parented it with the solid", the means what ever the solid rectangle shape did, the text would copy. After i did this I key framed the movement of the of the solid, making it swish into the picture in a fast motion, then i key framed the shape to slow down for two seconds and finally i then added the fast swish effect again to position fade the title out.

This shows how the titles looked:

"Glass Shatter" Effect (Akshay)

This effect was an amazing and extremely unique effect which i created to make our opening sequence have a bit of an edge and "WOW Factor" ending to it. I used an actually effect called "Shatter" to create this overall effect, while also making it look like the pieces that were shattering looked were actually glass.

This shows have the final shatter effect looked like on the footage:

"CCTV Look" Effect (Akshay)

This effect was the most complicated and difficult to make out of all the effects. For this effect i firstly added a "noise" effect over the clip and set the nose to maximum  this made the pix-elated look over the footage, I then added a complicated "Time Particular" effect which produced the time counter on the top left side of the clip making it look almost identical to a real CCTV Camera.  

This shows how the final effect looked on the footage:

"Slide Transition" Effect (Akshay)

This effect is seen at the end of the first scene (School Scene) in the opening sequence. The way i created the effect was by using the masking tool, to create 3 rectangles over the clips. I then key-framed each one and made them come in, via a different direction to give it a unique movement. Finally I added a "Motion Blur" to make the clips look blurred when moving but then transforming into a still quality after the movement.

This screenshot shows the motion blur and keyframes i created for the effect:

"Blue Tinted Flare" Effect Creation Steps (Akshay)

This is the first effect you see when watching the opening sequence. To create this effect I used various plugins/effects on After Effects. The first one i used was the "Levels" effect which allowed me to create the blue tinted look with almost the flare look. I then implemented the fast blur effect which allowed me to make the outside border of the clip blurry , to make it look more like a professional point of view shot. All these effects finally allowed the scene to look like it was in the past.

The Editing Process Of Our Opening Sequence (Akshay)

In the following blog posts i will be explain and analyzing the various effects i created and how i created them to produce a good quality unique opening sequence consisting of special of effects and professional editing.

Firstly the program I edited with was Adobe After Effects CS6, due to me already being extremely experiecend in using the program.

This is how the work project first looked when i started editing on After Effects: 

This shows a completely blank project to start with, with only the clips of filming imported into the program.

AARD Productions Opening Sequence (Akshay)

This Link will re-direct you to our FINAL OPENING SEQUENCE.

Evaluation Presentation (Ricardo)

In today's lesson I was continuing with our A.A.R.D evalutation which is a presentation that shows our understanding of our thriller opening as a group, today I was answering the question of 'Looking back at your Preliminary Task what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?'. This is meant to make us think how have we improved in our way of thinking as well as the way in which we can apporach a task from the very first timed we picked up a camera in this subject. How I responded to this was that we have made alot of progress in the fields of editing, acting, planning before-hand, selceting camera shots and how important the 180 degree rule is. The reason why it is importnat is becuase it establishes the environment in which the story is set as well as introducing characters or narrative.

 

Lesson on 27/02/2013 (Antonio)

27/02/2013

In todays lesson we recieved feedback for our first draft of the opening thriller scene that we created. We recieved points for areas of which we did well and our work was a success, we also recieved some improvement points, which we should include in order to put our overall grade my severals marks.

Success's:

- Excellent film production titles that look very professional.

- An original idea and i like the nod to the gangster genre - this gives your opening another dimension.

- Some excellent shots and composition, which show a real craft and eye for camera.

Improvements:

- Titles- director shouldn't come first. Also, make sure that you have the full names.

- Your work will need to re-scripting and development.

- The shot in the car is great; however, the camera was handheld and wobbly. This needs to be re-shot so that it is still.

- Far too long, going well over allotted time of two minutes.

- Sound and music - some of the music ended quite abruptly and needs to fade in. Needs to be more layers to your music to build tension. 

- Lighting in David's house changes - becomes darker. Do you film this on different days and times? Does not maintain continuity.

- The ending scenes - you need to be more subtle, leave more to the imagination.

We then as a group started to discuss and mind map ways in which we can improve our work, we tried to come up with new points as well as the improvements given by our teacher.

As a group we decided that it was important to improve our thriller opening in an attempt to make our work more understanding and clearer to the audience. For example, there is no real reason as to why the Boss, wants Frank to kill his best friend, and the ending of our work seems amateur and rushed. To correct this it was felt that we should go back into the past of Frank's life as stated by him before, in order to give the audience a complete idea of his past, and then whilst we do this we can also incorporate and establish a relationship between Frank and The Boss.        

Opening Sequence Powerpoint Presentation (Akshay)

This link goes to the Powerpoint of my opening sequence of my Amazing Spiderman Presentation.

Reservoir Dogs Timeline Completed (Ricardo)

In today's lesson I have completed the timeline of my second film which is the thriller 'Reservoir Dogs' directed by Quentin Tarantino. This timeline cemeneted the idea that there are differences between opening titles, whether it depedns on genre or director. Quentin Tarantino is known for having his own unusual opening title techniques that baffle the audience as well as intriguing them at the same time.

Today's Lesson (Akshay)

In todays lesson each member of our group also had a specific job to complete:

David & Akshay: Today i blogged however i also helped David with some editing.

Ricardo: In todays lesson Ricardo completed another timeline on a different movie, the movie he decided to complete the movie on was Reservoir Dogs.

Antonio: Today Antonio had finished making the sound theme that was going to be in the title sequence of our thriller.

Panic Room Timeline Completed (Ricardo)

In today's lesson I completed the Panic Room Timeline that was needed for our media coursework, it really helped me to understand the difference between a good opening sequence and a great opening sequence. This timeline will provide us inspiraion and ideas on how we want this opening sequence to be made.

Today's Lesson(Akshay)

In today's lesson we changed the roles for each member in our group.

Antonio & David - Today Antonio & David took over the role of editing and made great progress getting a lot of clips edited together and make the overall project look much more professional.

Ricardo - Today Ricardo carried on completing the the timeline in detail.

Thriller Movie Timline (Ricardo)

In today's lesson I created a timeline for a mainstream thriller film in order to pin-point exactly where certain titles or names would appear on screen. The film that I had chosen to analyse was 'Panic Room' this would mean looking very closely at anything I see during the opening sequence that would be important to put on the timeline. I would also made by my teacher to create another timeline for another thriller film, although I have not decided on the film yet, so this is my next task.

Todays Lesson (Akshay)

Today we discussed about re-locating our location where we were going to film, due to some unfortunate events that took place in our group. We decided that we would film at my house instead of Antonio's house.

Animatic Storyboard from YouTube

Our Animatic Storyboard is an outline of the clips we are using for our Thriller Opening Scene, this is our final draft of it after several configurations.

Today''s Lesson 25/1/2013 (Ricardo)

In today's lesson I was looking at existing mainstream thriller openings in order to further explore the way in which the text is included into the opening title. I looked at the films 'Memento' and 'Se7en' both of these thriller films have the name of the title right at the beginning of the opening sequence. This gave me an ispiration of how and when to place the text during our actuall thriller sequence, also how it should be presented.

Todays Lesson (Antonio)

In todays lesson we as a group decided the day of which we are going to finish filming our thriller opening scene. We chose that on Friday would be when our opening scene would be fully finished and we cant start editing. I have also nearly completed the soundtrack for our opening scene, where i have used Audacity to produce the soundtrack. I have created a piece of music lasting around 20 seconds but then produced a loop with more effects in certain places to add drama and feeling to certain parts of the opening scene.

We also decided on new and improved camera shots we could incorporate into the final part of our opening scene so that we are fully prepared and are able to go out and film straight away effectively without having to plan on set. Some of the shots we are now considering to use it a shot reverse during the car scene when a conversation between the boss and Frank.

We are then going to try and place a zoom in, with the scene of Frank's bedroom where he receives a text message from someone saying he needs to visit the boss tomorrow. A zoom is used here, to signify the text message and as well as the fact that it is going to built suspense and tension, it also signifies how important this moment is, in the opening scene.

We then use a point of view shot for the scene where Frank makes his way to the boss' house and  our titles will be introduced here too. Here as Frank breathes in the cold air, as a part of our titles the smoke the breaths out, changes into writing informing the audience of the directors etc.

The last scene involves Frank being in The Boss' house where the two have a conversation about Frank doing a favour for The Boss. Here mise-en-scene is used with envelops containing photos of Frank's friend, and the a piece of paper in the other stating that he would be next? Here along with out footage finishing, so will our music in the background, and it will end with a child's laugh. Here the suspense and thrill would reach its climax and that would be a good way of ending the opening scene leaving the audience, thrilled, and eager to find out what goes on next.

24th January 2013 (David)

Today we watched a short film to understand the difference between short films and opening sequences. Understanding how to make an opening sequence, without accidentally making it seem like a short film. Suspense is very important in our thriller opening scene, especially because nobody dies.

Using Garage Band, Antonio can make a sound track to be a sound bridge for the majority of the scene. Which will hopefully create suspense.

Animatic Storyboard (Ricardo,Akshay,David)

In today's lesson I had successfully filmed the storyboard on my phone since the last blog was posted, so today was just a matter of bringing it in and syncing it up to the mac-computer ready for animation. Myself, David and Akshay sorted any technical ascpects of the animatic story-board that needed to be included, such as soundtrack or sound effects for scertain scenes.

Adjusting the Storyboard (Ricardo)

Today I  re-designed and re-drew our story-board as we adjusted and fixed a few problems that we had with our previous story and the previous story-board. E.G. Camera Shots, Positioning of Characters etc.
Next comes making our improved story-board, into an animatic story-board, I will film the story-board on my phone and then our whole group will be able to animate and edit it.

21/1/13(David)

In today's lesson Ricardo and I wrote an official list of shots to use for our induvidual clips. We did this so when we are filming we can save ample time discussinbg and doing shots.

AARD Production Intro Survey (Akshay)

Today in class i went around showing other members of our Media Class the two intros i had created for our group AARD Productions.

I asked people what they liekd about both intros and which one theyv thought was overall a better intro to have for our group.

Many people had said the more futuristic intro where the characters of our name transform in is a much more eye-catching intro which linked much more to a thriller theme.

So in the end the majority of the class said they liked this intro and we also decided it linked so much more to the thriller theme, so we picked it instead of the more colorful intro.

17 January 2013 (David)

Today we are using Garage Band and Adobe Premier to edit our thrillers, Akshay is configuring some of the clips we filmed prior. Antonio is on Garage Band editing some original music for our individual clips.

Today's Lesson (Akshay)

Today each member in our group had a different task to carry out again:

Antonio & David- Were working on GarageBand experimenting with different types of music and musical effects. Eventually they would then work on creating a track for our opening scene.

Akshay- My job was today was to blog and carry on analyzing other opening sequences to help and give me and hem my group ideas on editing.

Today's Lesson (Akshay)

In todays lesson each member of our group had a specific task to complete.

Akshay- My task was to blog about what task each person in our group was carrying out.

Ricardo had finished the moodboard in detial.

David & Antiono were filing out the production sheet, regading what times we were filming, when we took breaks and the diffferent locations we were filming at.

AARD Productions Intro 1&2 (Akshay)

Introduction
For our production intro I decided to create two intros for AARD Productions, then after discuss with the group which one they thought fitted out piece best.

INTRO 1
The first intro I created was quite a colourful intro which I wanted to make people think "wow" when they saw it, I used a various number of highly professional plugins such as Optical Flares and Particular. These two plugins in particular would give the intro a massive uniqueness about it because of the way the words moved and how the came into the picture in the first place.

There will be 2 screenshots showing my work area (project) when creating this intro, which will also have a description below the picture of what I was working on at the time of the picture, the finally the intro itself will be after following the screenshots.

SCREENSHOT 1


















This first screenshot shows one of the few compositions i was working on which made up the intro. This composition had the various "Particular" plugin effects on it which helped the particles of the intro come into the picture.

SCREENSHOT 2


















This screenshot shows the intro further in progression with the fast blur and linear wipe added to it. These two effects allow the actual text to appear in the smooth motion it does.

The Intro 1 Itself

This is the actual video for the first intro I created.



INTRO 2
For the second intro I created, I wanted to present something which would really link to the piece we were doing which is a thriller. i wanted the colours to be dark but have a gloss to them which would help attract users into watching the rest of the opening sequence. For this intro I used effects such as Twitch and Light directions with finally a small pinch of colour correction to the text to make it look like a thriller intro.

SCREENSHOT 1


















This shows the overall main composition of the intro 2 project. It shows the various effects used such as Twitch, Colour Corrections and some Light Movements.

The Intro 2 Itself

CONCLUSION
Overall our groups final decision was to pick the second intro for our piece and also for AARD Productions.
We chose this one because it easily linked to the thriller theme much more than the first one which was more linked to a happy colourful theme. Also we felt that it was much more unique and no other group would have anything like it.