Areas of improvement on Children's Film Opening. (Jessica)

After watching back over our children's film opening, the three main areas of improvement that stood out for me were music, mise en scene and the story line.

MUSIC 
The non-digetic music in our children's film was one continuous backing track, i don't think this idea worked very well as it didn't really fit with the actions taking place on screen. Also we created the track with the use of garage band and adding both quick and slow pace music with wide varieties of instruments, which when put together didn't blend correctly due to the pitch and volume of the various instruments. Although our digetic sound came across really effective, such as on the sound effects we used, the non-digetic sound was too loud and overpowering for this to have a strong impact. 


MISE EN SCENE
When we created our children's film opening, i don't think we looked into the mise en scene of the clips enough. Aspects of the mise en scene such as location, were not thought out thoroughly enough, for example we filmed "bagman's first attack" as him bursting through the car park doors the college refectory, this wasn't really explained in our clip, and could come across as misleading to the audience. 


We also could have furthered our use of props and costume, we didn't really experiment with our props, we could have brought the characters out more through the use of props and stronger costume styles, for example giving the villain and the hero a weapon of some kind to build the storyline of the of the characters.


STORY LINE
A third aspect for improvement was our storyline, i think from the first start of our idea researching we tried to create something that would only look good if we could get hold of professional surroundings. (which was pretty much impossible with our on site filming). We used a linear narrative but the story didn't develop in real time, we didn't make this clear enough to our audience either, which made our storyline weaker. 


We also, from class feedback, realised we had given away too much of the storyline in the opening of our children's film, it came across more like a trailer than an opening, this is an aspect we need to consider when doing our thriller openings. :)

Evaluation Question 2.

What editing techniques have we learnt since producing our preliminary task?
FinalCut
Green Screen
Fades
Continuous editing style
Credits & Titles
Effects
Garage Band
Compose a Soundtrack - Cuts, adding loops, changing lengths, volume when tracks were overlaid
Filming 
Smoother pans and tracks
Smooth zooms
      

Codes And Conventions of Children's Film Opening Sequence

Setting
2 Minutes
Establishing Shot
Introduce Characters
Music
Themes
Credits
Establishes Sub Or Hybrid Genre

Evaluation Question 3.

Related Films: Although, our movie isn't too similar to other children's professional films, some good examples of films that have the same storyline where there is a hero trying to defeat and evil villain would be.. 

Spiderman 1:

In this spiderman, the predominant storyline is Spiderman battling and defeating his arch enemy 'Green Goblin' 

In many respects this i like our film. For example, the way 'Spiderman' develops his superpowers is that he gets bitten by a spider and in our film, although he is the villain, 'Bagman' is bitten by a bag. 

Another way in which it is similar is both films have a plot where the hero - 'Spiderman' and in our film 'The Recyclist' battles with and eventually defeats a villain that is terrorising people - 'Green Goblin' and in our case 'Bagman'. 

Spiderman is produced by Sony Pictures and despite this not being one of the leading producers it could be a possible company that may commission our film. 

Screen grabs of our projects.

Our garage band and final cut project. 

Comments on Bagman Vs The Recyclist.

Question 1: Camerawork - are there enough variety of shots, angles, movement? Is it steady?
Lots of variation in shot types such as long shots, tracking and close-ups, but sometimes the camera is a bit jolty and the focus of the camera is unclear.


Question 3:
a) Comment on all aspects of Mise en Sen, how smooth is the animation, use of the effects.
b)

Group Evaluation

Question 1) Camerawork - are there enough variety of shots, angles, movement? Is it steady?

Lots of variation in shot types such as long shots, tracking and close-ups, but sometimes the camera is a bit jolty and the focus of the camera is unclear.

Question 2A) 

How well does the sound work? make comments on digetic and non-digetic sound, sound effects, background/ambient sound. Quality of effectiveness at creating mood.

The soundtrack helps to create a mood and describes the story and characters (fits well with the sequence) most music is non diagetic but the use of sound effects is good and relates to the sequence. The transition between sounds could be improved with fades and other tools.

2B) 

What opening title sequence conventions can you identify?

The introduction of characters and narrative was well introduced. 

It does all these things quite well but the only improvement is on the soundtrack and effects.

Question 3A) Comment on all aspects of Mise en Sen, how smooth is the animation, use of SFX.

The sound effects at times don't work very well they sometimes miss. 

Introduces characters with good use of costumes and positionings of characters. The location could be better however, it's good how the audience are sort of involved in part of the sequence. Good sense of what characters are about and how the story is going to go. 

Good use of props and special effects, colours and lighting but the bag people could be more colourful.

3B) What target audience do you think this is aimed at? Age range and why?
The target audience is 6-10 years old because they would understand the story more than someone of a younger age range.

Question 4) Editing;
Good pace throughout a basic style but i thing it is appropriate for the genre. Nice intro when 'The Recyclist' is introduced. Well cut, it flows nicely. Green screen is effective but looks sketchy - Random patch of green and Bagman is a fuzzy green colour. 
The music emphasises theme of film very well as it's very dramatic. The green screening quality is very good and is imaginative. You can't really hear the last bit of speech. 

Question 5) Distributing;
One media company thatwould distribute this film could be Pixar as the adventurous idea is similar to real children's films they produce such as; Monsters inc.