A2 Question Practice Using AS film Opening

How has digital technology helped you to capture your ideas for media production?

Digital technology has been a huge part of my production of my first film opening. From filming on a digital camera, to editing on a computer, technology has pretty much helped me for everything I’ve set out to do apart from choosing the costumes for Lia. I used: a digital film camera to film the project, lamps and torches for lighting the scene, digital camera for taking pictures, the internet for research and for recording my progress in the project on my blog.

What features of your work would you say are original to you?

Honestly, I don’t think that much of my actual film is original just to me but I think that my title sequence is totally different and unique to me. When conducting research by watching other science-fiction films, there wasn’t another title sequence like what I had planned for mine. I wanted it to be bold and dramatic while evoking questions in the mind of the viewer about the protagonist of Lia and of her journey through the film. I wanted to see if I could show hints of what would happen without making them too obvious and I think that I achieved this successfully. Also, I think that the music worked well with the titles to build up suspense. I wanted to use a piece of music that wasn’t well known and so I thought about listening to music from less famous stage shows and circus productions as they often act out battles and so I thought that I could have found something that would build the tension that I wanted in my titles. Luckily I found a piece of music in the show Kà by Cirque du Soleil and it worked well with my title sequence.

How did your research into genre contribute to your production work?

I did a lot of research into the sci-fi film genre as found that the genre has certain foundations which you should incorporate for it to be classed as a science-fiction. The research helped me to understand the genre more and to think about films that take these foundations and warp them into something unusual and quite literally out of this world. In looking at science-fiction, I discovered various stereotypes that a lot of directors conform to in order to play the safe card for an interesting science-fiction film. I wanted to challenge certain stereotypes of the science-fiction and so I thought about what a lot of science-fictions didn’t have and then my ideas sprouted from there. I also researched various directors such as George Lucas and watched a lot of science-fiction films in a short space of time (like Star Wars, Star Trek, Paul & Super 8) to see how they differed from each other. From each film I got different ideas for my film opening and so I believe that my research helped me a lot to get my ideas together and collected and to give me a firm idea of what a science-fiction film actually is.

How much of your text was ‘created’ only in post-production?

I created the entire title sequence in post-production on Adobe After Effects and it took longer to create than the opening took to film. Also, I edited the footage by colour correcting it after it was shot as the scene didn’t really have the right ambience that I envisaged for my film opening.

In what ways have your productions used or developed conventions adopted from real media products?

As well as using conventional media products to make my film opening, I think that I have both conformed and challenged the forms and conventions of real media productions.

With my titling, I think that it is unique. I’ve not come across anything like it in my movie watching experience and so I am happy that I have managed to come up with an idea that is quite original and eye-catching. I think that my titling worked well with my film opening and built suspense along with questions in the mind of the viewer. Also, I believe that, with my titling, I have managed to create something that looks quite professional despite the fact that I had an extremely small budget to produce this film opening compared to the professionals.

The low budget meant that I couldn’t afford a lot of the equipment that the professional film makers use to produce their films. Instead of large cranes with lights on and a light and sound team, I had house lamps to create the atmosphere of the opening being at night without having it completely black and, thanks to my brother, I had a studio microphone to record the narration on so the sound was crisp and clear. However, I think that I could have made my film opening look better by shooting in the day and darkening the footage later using After Effects as the end result would have had a lot more detail in the image, but I suppose by not having this level of detail, I have challenged the conventions of real media productions.

The setting, I think conforms to real media products. My film opening is set in the present day and starts by a girl being unhappy with the world in which she lives which is your standard, stereotypical suburbia.  This is similar to a few other sci-fi films such as ‘Super 8’. While the story is set in 1979, the protagonist, Joe, isn’t happy with the course of his life and is bored being stuck in suburbia. The setting of suburbia is common not just in sci-fi films but also in action, rom-coms and pretty much any other genre you can think of. So, in this way, I have conformed to the conventions of the media.

Lia’s costume reflects her personality and, in a way, conforms to the look of being an outcast which is seen in many different genres in many ages of film. Take The Joker from ‘The Dark Knight’ for example. The audience are made aware that he is more of an outcast type of character by the costume and make-up that he wears. He doesn’t have to say anything for the audience to be aware that he is different and Lia is the same. I dressed her so that she was wearing mis-matching colours, her style of clothing was an array of garments from different eras and her make-up showed her creativity and the fact that it wasn’t hidden showed that she didn’t care what people thought of her. The idea of her 'different' costume is similar to those of the characters of the Zeta house girls in 'The House Bunny'. They are all portrayed as geeks and outcasts through their clothing and, like with Lia and The Joker, the audience don't have to see the characters behaving to know that they are different from the norm of their society. So again, I have conformed to the media by conforming to the idea of an outcast’s costume.