Idea for editing

Earlier I was thinking about other films which involved shots of an urban city, and the next thing that popped into my mind was slightly different... a music video!

Despite the task being about film openings, I really liked the concept of the shots at the beginning of a particular music video; Say You Don't Want It by One Night Only. Although the shots involved in that video are more gritty, and targets the slightly lower-class places of New York, I liked the composition of the shots, to build up a very urban atmosphere to the music video, which then continues throughout.

It would be great if we could incorporate something similar to this for our film opening during the editing process.
Here is the music video. The first 16 seconds is what I'm talking about.

Half of filming done!

Today we went up to central London to get the first half of our filming done. I think this went sucessfully, despite it being extremely tiring!

We started off in Oxford Circus and tried a range of camera shots and angles to help portray the London atmosphere. I think we achieved this well, because we got a good range of different perspectives of London, and we got some iconic imagery in their such as the Big Ben, London Eye, Oxford Street signs etc.

Tonight I'm going to film a few bedroom shots, because my wall has a good collection of fashionable imagery such as magazine adverts and editorial pictures, which portrays the character's ambitions. Although we are not using my bedroom for the whole morning routine/bedroom scene, we can always just use one part of my bedroom and then use a seperate location for the rest of it.
Hopefully it'll go well!

He's Just Not That Into You

A film similar to the genre we are doing is He's Just Not That Into You. The film is based on a novel and one of the characters is quite quirky and aloof in her actions. This character may resemble our character that we are having in our own film.

Although I couldn't find the beginning of the film, I have a video of the trailer.

The bell has gone, and I have to go to my next lesson, will update more later!

Sophie's toast!

One of our group members, Sophie, had tested out the "beans on toast credits" idea.

Personally, I think it looks fantastic and definitely has the "quirky" look we wanted to achieve in our film.

The words are very clear against the toast, which is good because it is obviously very important that the credits are easy to read. Another idea was that after the words are shown, more baked beans could be poured on top to erase the credits. We think beans on toast is a good idea as it portrays a quirky character, but the beans can show lack of wealth since beans are quite cheap.

We are now going to discuss mise-en-scene items that is going to be in the bedroom scene.

Costume

Found a site which enables me to create costumes. These will not be the exact costumes worn on set.

This is for the dream sequence:

Character spec by riametric- featuring tan handbags

This next costume is for after the dream sequence:

(Pajamas)

PJ's by riametric- featuring checkered shorts

(Work clothes)

Work clothes by riametric- featuring a black tube skirt

That's all for now on costumes! This is sort of a mood board to get a brief idea on the types of outfits that will be needed on set.

I'm back!

I've finally reached home from abroad, and I can get into some filming with the rest of my group.

I have been updated by my group on new ideas, mostly on the concept of the credits. Instead of the conventional ways of presenting opening credits, which is usually just font over the footage, a "quirky" way of presenting credits will be used.

For example, a piece of toast comes out of the toaster with a name and then the name is erased with Philadelphia soft cheese. The different placements of the credits will represent the life of the protagonist, for example, credits on her laptop, phone and iPod. Instead of the protagonist grabbing an apple, they will grab a work folder, which is much more representative of the character.

We now need to discuss actors and costume, since it is important that the protagonist looks older (earlier/mid-twenties)

Old research

Just posting some older research into genres and composition of mise-en-scene, sound, editing, etc.

Name of film	Style of Titles (colour, size, font)	What sound is evident? (think of different layers?)	Key mise-en-scene (colour, lighting, props, actors, costumes, setting)	Editing (speed of cutting/transitions) and camera work (common shot types)
1. Dude, Where’s My Car? 2. The Perfect Man 3. It’s A Boy, Girl Thing	“psychedelic” theme, colourful, bold, bright “A Mark Kisman Film” etc. on a black background in pink lettering. “Icon Pictures Presents”… cartoon style “handwriting” lettering à possibly to reflect childish behaviour between the two characters?	Hippie, 90’s/80’s pop music Starts off with soft music, and then becomes quiet for conversation between characters. For a road journey, it kicks in with a female singer singing soft rock. Soft music, reflecting actions of the cartoon characters. Hip-hop music, speech of the girl when she is reading Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.	Nebula space background, unusual characters dancing “oldies” dancing”, muscular-looking men Teenagers, a woman who may be a mother yet she looks young and pretty. A beautifully, decorated cake, very bright lighting. Drive into an urban city and sunrise – suggests new beginnings? Cartoon of a boy and girl in conflict as they grow up through the years. Tree in the middle gets bigger, to show the passing of time. Fades into real life, girl reading Shakespeare, difference in rich and poor, rich upper-middle class and lower-middle class living next to each other. Boy dancing to hip hop in their room. The two argue from their windows opposite each other.	“20th Century Fox”, amateur transitions such as wipe, swirl, “clock”, warp, etc. pan of the camera. No “real-time” shots at all. All CGI with nebula background and actors dancing. Opening credits of names fade onto the screen and fade out, so on and so forth. Cast and crew name credits continue against car journey conversation scene Cut scenes. Shot/reverse shot during real-time conflict scene, fade transition during cartoon shots when time passes.