How we are going to edit.

Here is our editing plan for how we are going to edit our clips together. We sorted it out into a list like this so that we don't get confused with what we are doing. We also see it as a way of being organised.

1. Put all clips into order in the file where it is saved and delete unusable footage
2. Copy videos into Final Cut Pro in order
3. Cut the video where necessary and were we want one shot to cut/fade into the next shot
4. Add in transitions and effects were needed
5. Add music and make the music link up with the cuts, so it is all in time
6. Add the titles
7. Finish up and make any changes to the final video

We are aware that we will not be able to complete this over the duration of one lesson. Nonetheless we still have a deadline date which means we will have to complete this in an allocated time of approximately 3 weeks, so we will have to work quickly and productively in order to complete this title sequence and present it infront of our class.

Comparison between shooting first time and second time

       There was quite a big difference between shooting first time and second time. It was only until we uploaded our shots to the computers was when we realised what mistakes we had actually made. First time shooting we struggled to use the tracking dolly, there was not much room to use it with which made it difficult to move it around the room with. When we looked at the shots we saw that the dolly slightly jolted/moved the camera, this meant we couldn't use the shots we recorded because of the constant camera jolting meaning we can't use these shots.
       Second time we recorded we decided to steadily use the tripod and move around the room with that, we found that the shots were a lot more steady and looked more professional. This also meant we could use these shots when editing because they were good enough to edit with and this also means the we can remove the shots we made from the first time of recording.

Lesson diary- 10 second filming

       For this lesson we had to film again. This was our second week of filming and to make sure that we get it perfect this time and that we don't have to go through the trouble again of recording for a third time, we had to make sue it was perfect this time.
       We went round to Michael's and set up his living room. We ensured that we had enough space to move the camera around the room so that we could achieve all of the camera shots/movement that we had drawn onto our storyboard. Michael decided to be the actor again in the title sequence, we felt this was a good idea as Michael acted the first time and he did a good job and knew exactly what he was doing.
       Once we had finished filming we looked over at what we had recorded and w were happy with what we have achieved. We completed everything on the storyboard. We returned to school and uploaded the shots from the camera to the computer. We will edit next lesson because then we will have time to look over the clips and put them all together.

Camera shaking solution

       WFor when record for our title sequence next we have agreed to not use the dolly for the 360 degree shot. Now we are keeping the camera still and just getting individual shots then cutting and then we shall edit them together.
       The reason for changing our camera movement, is that it is virtually impossible because my front room is very big, but it is still not big enough for the dolly to function. We have thought about this long and hard and we do not think placing cardboard down on the floor will make it any better. We want to make the best title sequence in the class so we have decided to change it, so it will not look tacky.
       We will move the camera on the tripod rather than having to use the dolly.
       The only issue with changing our camera movement is that we have to change our:

• Storyboard
• Photo Animatic

This is making us have to do more work, and we will have to do some work outside of school, but I am sure it will be worth it by the end of it.

Possible filming locations. My house

       Here is my best possible setting that would of been used to record our title sequence. This setting would not be up to scratch to record for this title sequence as the room is not big enough to record our camera shots/movements for the title sequence. As you can see my sofa is back against the wall, this is not what we want as we have drawn on our storyboards for the camera to go around the back of the sofa.
       There is not a table infront of my sofa, this wouldn't work as our character is meant to have his feet set up on the table with junk food scattered around on the table. Without the table placed in this setting and the sofa being against the wall means that my setting is not good enough to use to record our title sequence.

Lesson diary- 9

       In this lesson we had to look at what we had recorded in our title sequence. We were not impressed with what was recorded. The camera shook too much and was not acceptable to use for the title sequence. We viewed it on the macs and we saw every second or so the camera. We had then decided next week we will record again for a second time and we will make sure not to use the tracking dolly again. The tracking dolly was the cause of the camera shaking too much and we are now devising plans as to how we can reduce the camera shaking for the next time we will record.
       My next lesson diary post will be for how well our recording is going and whether the clips we have will be sufficient to record with.

Lesson diary- 8. Filming

        For this lesson we decided to do our filming. We had to acquire: video camera, tripod and a dolly. We got round Michaels house and set up his living room for our filming. WWe had to use pizza, crisps, chocolate, soft drinks and Michael had to use casual clothing as he was the actor in our title sequence. We brought the storyboards along with us aswell just to make sure we were doing everything the storyboard is doing just to show we are being specific with our work.
       We successfully recording everything we had to. We had difficulties with the dolly as the dolly was bigger than what we though which resulted in us having to move more furniture about just to allow the dolly to fit in and move around the room smoothly. Our other difficulty was how we were going to organise the food on the table. We had to ensure that the camera could record everything we wanted and we had to make sure the food would not get in the way of any shots where the titles may go.
       Nonetheless we completed the filming for the title sequence in the allocated time. We've returned  to school and now we will have to view the clips properly and edit them together aswell along with the titles.

Continuity sequence

This is the continuity sequence that we did during lesson time. We managed to film and editing this in the space of one or two hours. We had to use certain shots such as match-on-action shot and shot-reverse shot. We had to make sure we edit this perfectly so that it looks fluent and doesn't jump anywhere, this makes our look professional and it shows that we have taken care into our work.

Lesson diary- 7

       For this lesson we had to re-act our continuity sequence. We had to do this as first time we broke the 180 degree rule. Last time we had also spent too long filming the sequence. We knew that we had to cut down our time to around one minute. 
       We had difficulties recording, we had to move tables and chairs our of the way so that we could put the camera into position so that we could film. We also had to make sure the table we used for the two characters, Michael and Jason, was in a good position so that the camera could fit them within the frame and that we had room behind the characters so that we could record the shot-reverse-shot.
       Thankfully we completed the recording and editing in good timing and despite the difficulties we completed the work. I will be uploading this continuity piece to blog soon. Jason has uploaded it the sequence to his youtube channel, I will get the embed code and put it onto my blog now.

Lesson diary- 6

      This lesson we had to keep updated with our blogs. I was advised by my teacher to continue to update my blog with the posts connected with our title sequence. I was strongly advised to update my blog with homework that i had done other than leaving it on my PC at home, it would look better if I had presented my blog with the homework I had done as it makes my blog look professional and shows my teacher that I actually have done my homework.
      I also had work on my school computer which I had not done anything with, I asked my teacher whether it will be fine if I put it up onto my blog considering how old these pieces of work were. My teacher allowed me to put some of them on my blog seeing as the were relevant to my current project. The other pieces of work were unnecessary so I was left with no option but to delete them.

Lesson diary- 5

      This lesson we re-drew our storyboards, we had to edit to make it look clearer and be a lot more specific on the shots/movement we were planning on using. We also had to be specific on the time of shots we were planning on using. We had to make sure the timing of the shots matched perfectly considering we had to include the titles in this sequence when we start editing.
      We also planned the specific date and location for recording our title sequence. We Had organised the date for Thursday, January 19th round Michaels house. We decided this location as Michael had the best setting available to us as it will allow us to move the dolly around and we decided to do it during a media lesson so we make full use of this lesson.

Lesson diary- 4

        This lesson we had to catch up on our blog posts. We were given a sheet of required tasks on the teachers blog which we all caught up on. I had to catch up on tasks such as finding related films for our presentation for our production company. This was necessary as we have to find a lot of background research for our film to help us really figure out what type of film we plan on having and how the title sequence can reveal to the audience what our film is truly about straight away. 
       For this lesson i had also planned to complete any unfinished posts on my blog to help it look nice and detailed for when my teachers plan to look through all of my work to see that it is all completed.

Overview of storyboard and animatic

Producers and distributors for our film

       The reason why we had chosen Paramount vantage to be our production company is because of the types of films they produce will collaborate well with the film which we are creating. 

Original piece of music research

       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w6gMgZeb9c
       This was our original plan for the music we were planning to find for our title sequence, we found the music we wanted about 1 week later.
       From 23 seconds onwards in this music video (link above), is the sort of music that we will be making in Garage band for our pre title sequence video. We have currently made the piece of music yet but will in fact be making it next week after school one day. This is the sort of music that we will be using in our pre title sequence, but our will be with more of a balance of electric guitar and drums as then the music will be synchronised and will mix in with the visuals that will be displayed in the film. The reason why we are using this piece of music is because the film is set in America and this piece of music used in the title sequence will indicate to the audience just what type of film Andrew Anderson is and what the audience should expect when it comes to watching this film.
       It was not hard to make a decision over the music within our group as the three of us new specifically what type of music would suit best for our title sequence and which piece of music would communicate to the audience best, the different themes of the film. Also we as a group chose the piece of music mainly because when we film it will fit in with the idea of the titles as well as the actions that are happening on screen which we will be filming.
       We have chosen to use a sooundtrack within our title sequence video as we as a group think that it will fit in within our title sequence and whole aspect of where it starts and where it ends. The sound track will play throughout the title sequence but as it gets to the end it will cut out as dialougue from the main character will come in and when this happens the music will cut off automatically.

       This is our Logo that we have created to indicate to our audience that the title sequence was created by us three; Mike, Jason and Dom. We will include this logo in our pre title sequence video as it is our trademark logo that we have made this piece of filming.

       Mike made this piece of work by himself with input from me and dom. The reason why Mike made it instead of me or Dom is because mike is one of the best at photoshoping and so we felt that if we gave him ideas then he could put them ideas into place with possible changes of his own added to the process. We all came up with the idea for this logo as we were throwing a few ideas together and we first though of 'DMJ' for the first three letters of our name but then we decided that this wouldn't really look like the kind of logo that we each had in our heads, so then one member of our group suggested we use different parts of our names to try and piece together this logo and that is where we came up for the idea of 'JaMiDo'. 'Ja' for my name Jason, 'Mi' for Michael and 'Do' for Dom. The reason why we put capital letters at the beginning of each name in our production company logo is because it is the beginning of each of our names so we thought that it would be best to justify our title sequence even more by putting capital letter where we needed to in order to indicate to people that those are our names and that this is our logo.
       The reason we used this typography and the clouds around the image is because it looked unique and we new straight away when we did it that it looked like a real logo for a serious film production company. The specific reason that we used this typography was because when we first saw it we all pointed it out at the same time as it looks like a comedy sort of writing in the way that it is styled and thats what we believe we are, a comedy company and so we need a comedy logo. The colours in the writing also suggest that we could be a British company even though we are making an American film and this could be as that but the way that we see it is that the American flag also has the colours so i think that we could show through the colours of the title that we are possibly British people who make American films and that is where the colours come from. There was no particular idea for the clouds, i said to Mike that we need to have some image either behind it or underneath or perhaps around it and thats when he found the clouds on the internet and though that they looked like cartoon clouds and stuck it around the logo and when we saw what he had done, we agreed that it did in actual fact look quite good and so that is how we came up with the image at the top of the page and this is how we come up with the film production company logo 'JaMiDo'.

Lesson diary- 3

During this lesson we've gotten into our groups and created our pitch for the film. We did not have a lot of time to do it so over the weekend we were each assigned different tasks in order for us to complete the work quicker and to make it look better. When we came into our next media lesson we logged onto our computer and each uploaded our work from our memory sticks and put them all together on a powerpoint. We had to make sure when putting the slides together that they go into the right order and look professional when we present them the class. We presented the pitch and received feedback from our teacher. We were told that the story has to be a bit more clear on how the relationships within the film work out as we did not clearly explain the love life within the film of the character.

Typography and storyboarding

during this lesson started drawing out our storyboards for our pre title sequence for our film. We already had an idea of what our storyboard may look like and how we may shoot this title sequence, we then just had to transfer our ideas onto the storyboards. We split the work between the three of us by each doing a shot on the storyboard paper; we done this so that we each got a chance to draw and to take part in the making and planning of our storyboard. The idea of our storyboard was thought up between the three of us. The first thing we established was the narrative of the title sequence, we then looked into how best to deliver the title to the audience such as; the font, colour and size of the words. This was important as the titles are one of the factors that communicates the genre of the film to the audience. The idea for our pre title sequence is as follows; our main character (Andrew Anderson) is on a sofa throughout the sequence, like his characters personality he is being lazy while laying back watching television. The props around him are mostly fatty foods and sugary drinks, which are on a table that Andrew's feet are resting on. The sound in the background which will be added on will be American sort of rock music, this will be played throughout the title sequence. The camera movement will be a 360 degree angle throughout the scene, starting at the back left of Andrew's head and ending with the camera looking at the front right of Andrew's  face. We will be using a medium close up shot of the main character Andrew, we will be using this shot continuously as the title sequence unfolds. Furthermore we are going to go with the fluidity theme of pre title sequences by the way that we show our titles to the audience, for example whenever Andrew moves his body, part of his body or object a title will be uncovered for the audience to see; doing this will continue the theme of fluidness.

When looking for typography ideas all we had to do was look on my blog as I had researched many different pre title sequences, mainly ones that can be linked to our film's genre. The three main pre title sequences we looked at on my blog were 'Happy Gilmore', 'Step Brothers' and 'Superbad'. I looked at these three films as they were similar in some way to the film that we had come up with. The ideas we got from these films was that the titles were black, block capital letters that were mostly placed alone away from any images. We took some ideas from these pre title sequences and encorporated them into our own ideas. The ideas that we thought of ourselves were the fluidity and placement of the titles within the shot. We looked for the font and colour on the website 'Da Font' which is a website consisting of various types of fonts. The ideas we got for the colour and font came from looking at the pre title sequences that i had previously researched on my blog. We picked out a few from 'Da Font' and placed them in a questionnaire which we handed out to the class to recieve their opinion on what they thought of the fonts and which they thought best suited our pre title sequence.

The choice of our film production company

Choosing which Film Production Company to use wasn't difficult as we had each done reasearch on several different film studios and companies so we was able to select out of the three studios we had researched into which one best suited our film. Once we had looked at all of the studios we found that in fact the film studio that i had done research into was the one that best suited our film. Paramount Vantage (the one we chose) linked in best with our film as in its past it had dealt with many low budget American comedies and so our film fitted perfectly into the film productions companies criteria and so with this in mind we as have group decided to use Paramount Vantage as our distributor as well as our Producer and we will include their logo at the beginning of our Title sequence as i have stated in my previous posts. This is the logo of Paramout Vantage which will be at the beginning of our title sequence.

                    

Storyboard corrections and animatic consderation

       Our group had received feedback on the storyboard that we had created for our pre title sequence. The feedback that we was given was that there had to be more shots included in the storyboard and that there had to be more titles communicated in the storyboard to the audience. So as a group, in this lesson, we went back to the drawing board and made the neccessary corrections to our storyboard so that the feedback that we was given had been altered in order to make it better. 
       We also had the task of maybe preparing an animatic version of our title sequence idea in order to show it to the class to see what they thought of our title sequence idea and to see if it fit in with our film. An animatic is a photogrpahed version of your storyboard that runs from on frame (shot) to another and the time that you have at the bottom of that shot determines how long that shot is on the screen and then you add any dialogue or music that you plan to have in your title sequence to the animatic so it is like a drawn version of your title sequence. You would usually do an animatic to see if your storyboard idea works and it also gives others a chance to review your idea and give you any feedback on how to improve it. 
       When it came to preparing to do an animatic for our title sequence idea, there was a problem as our title sequence was just one shot which was a 360 degree angle of the main character sitting on a couch with his feet up, this was a probelm for us as the storyboard that we had drawn up didn't have the qualities that would be need for an animatic so we resolved this problem by deciding to do a photo version of this animatic. So instead of taking pictures of our storyboard we would take pictures of the actual scene with a person acting like our storyboard states. Once again we encountered another problem as at first we thought of having the titles appear on actual paper in the scene, meaning that the titles were propps in our title sequence but after doing a mock up of these titles it turned out that doing them on paper looked very cheap and you couldnt quite see what they said. Also as our title sequence would be shot in a living room of a home, it didnt quite look right being shot in a school without the propps that we needed and so the animatic didnt quite look right and when this happened we decided not to do the animatic any more as it was hard for us to accomplish this.

Music for our title sequence

We came across a few problems when it came to our music choice because we had originally agreed to create our own music in garage band. Michael is currently studying the subject and has training in the software. However Michael had coursework due in for music that same week that we was due to make the soundtrack and so we was unable to make the track that would play in the background of our title sequence. As we couldn't do what we had originally planned, instead we had to use our back up plan which was to get our sound track from the copyright free music website. At the time of writing what we could do as a back up plan seemed pointless to me as we were certain that we wanted to do our own music from scratch and thought that we wouldn't need a back up plan, but now when we found out we couldn't make our own music, i was relieved that in fact we did make a back up plan.

The music wasn't a difficult decision as we only had to search through a few tracks and we found the perfect piece of music and it suits our title sequence. The music is from the american rock genre of music that uses electric guitars and drums to good use. When Jason and Mike started to look on the website we didn't expect to find the piece of music so soon and so was very happy when we found the track that we did. When we started looking for music we were going to use an instrumental soundtrack but we couldn't find any from the sort of genre music that we were looking for and so instead settled with a piece of music that uses minimal lyrics but still suits our title sequence that we are trying to create.

Google calender

For our group we have had to acquire Google calendar in order for us to keep up to date and aware of the work we are doing. It is used for deadlines and to schedule wok date to make sure we are organised and on task all of the time.

Typography survey

Lesson diary- 2

This lesson we have had to re-draw up our storyboard. It has consisted of us o draw out each scene of the storyboard and to include: camera movement, type of shot, dialogue, transition and where the typography will be used. We have also decided on what music will be used for our title sequence. We had to be certain that the music is copyright free and will have to fit into our title sequence. We have used a rock-themed piece of music which is completely non-copyright and we agreed that this piece of music will be sufficient for the title sequence. We will now have to plan when we will produce this title sequence.

Andrew Anderson Typography

This is the typography we plan to use for our title sequence design. We feel this relates strongly to the film because the thickness of the writing has a fantastic link to our film and essentially our character. The source of the typography used was www.dafont.com This website allows us to flick between hundreds of different pieces of typography in order for us to find the right one.