Costume

Through costume, we feel like we managed to put across the idea of the type of character Elliott is. We wanted him to conform to the stereotypical 'nerd', which is implied through the thick rimmed glasses held together with masking tape, and the Star Wars top. The alien clearly drawn onto the helmet shows his quirky, creative side, and also that the character is fun. Finally, by wearing casual jeans and trainers we were able to present how he is quite a laid back, chilled character, rather than a serious individual.

Casting and Character Profile

When we planned our opening, we hadn't yet decided who was going to play our protagonist, but we knew we wanted our character to be male and roughly 16 years old. Our friend Catherine attends a theatre group and asked a friend of hers, who myself and Rachel know from our secondary school, if he'd be willing to participate. He happily obliged, and undertook the role of 'Elliott'.

Casting:
Name: Ted Russell
Age: 16 (at the start of filming)
Picture:

Character:
Name: Elliott
Age: 16
Interests: Space, Aliens, Science

Potential Certificate Rating

According the the British Board of Film Classification, all films and video works must be given a age certificate in order to protect children from any harm or offence. When awarding a restriction to a product, issues such as drugs, violence, sex/nudity, discrimination, imitable behaviour and language, along with the theme and tone of the film, are all taken into consideration, and a rating is consequently applied. The seven possible ratings range from U, which are generally suitable for all audiences, to R18, of which films are restricted to distribution in specially licensed cinemas and sex shops.

We asked some of the members of the audience from the showcase evening what rating they would give our film based on the first two minutes, and the results were quite conclusive that it would be a PG. However, some people were leaning towards a rating of a 12 due to the nature of the plot and theme of UFOs.



From this feedback, we think our film could be awarded a 12A rating for  the cinema. Although there would be none of the restricted content mentioned above, the overall plot may not be suitable for very young audiences as they may not understand it. The target audience for this film is children and teens between the ages of 10 and 15 and therefore a 12A would be suitable as 10/11 year olds are eligible to watch it with an adult, and 12-15 year olds would not require supervision to watch it. 

Showcase Evening

On Monday, Ms Foster hosted a 'Showcase Evening' where the AS and A2 media students presented their product to an audience of friends, family, students and teachers. From this evening, we gained lots of feedback, in written and video form.

From our video feedback, we can see that many people were impressed by the lowering of the sound when our character removed his headphones, spoken about by Leanne and our actor, Ted.



Our written feedback was somewhat more critical, but is a perfect example of how we could improve if we were to re-shoot. The improvement which was suggested most frequently was the clarity of the phone/ text message shots, which I can agree with as they are not immediately clear. Other than this, the feedback was very positive, and we are very pleased with the reaction we received.

Dismantling the Set

After filming for 12 days, we were able to take down the set we created in my garage. The time lapse below shows how nearly everything in the mise-en-scene was added for filming, with only furniture and paint pots originally being from the garage.

Evaluations

Since our opening has been completed, we can now evaluate our final product with our feedback and our own views of what went well, and what could have been improved on. The questions to be addressed in  our evaluations are as follows:

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

How does your media product represent particular social groups? 

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 

Who would be the audience for your media product? 

How did you attract/address your audience? 

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Order of Title Sequence

On a typical film, the order of the titles in the opening tend to follow a particular pattern. This order is replicated on nearly all films, making it a convention of media products.

Typical Order:
-lead actor/s
-film title
-other actors
-casting
-music/ editor/ production design/ dir. photography/ exec producer
-produced by
-written by
-directed by

For our coursework we challenged the typical conventions of a media product as we changed the order of the titles displayed. We decided to order our titles in the following way: film title, lead actor, created/ directed by, produced/ edited by, other actors, cinematography by. We decided on this order as we felt it fit well to the flow of the film, and if we'd had stuck to the typical order it wouldn't have fit well to the story. For example, we decided to start off with the film title as it was integrated into the establishing shots and it would, therefore, not fit with the story to go back to this after the lead actor title. 

Length of Titles

On our trip to the BFI we were told that titles on a film typically last for 3-5 seconds. For our opening we have tried to ensure that all titles are 4 seconds long, however there are 2 exceptions. 

The title which reads 'Caspar Wright as Milo' is shown on screen for roughly 6 seconds, however we thought this would be a more suitable length of time than 4 seconds. This title is the only which is not left alone in the shot- unlike the others, there is something else happening within the shot the entire time. Also, the title is not placed in shot from the very beginning, and Elliott moves it into a position where it can be easily seen. This could distract the audience from the title as their attention may divert to what Elliott is doing, and therefore we decided to display this title for an extra 2 seconds.

The other title which strays away from the ideal 4 seconds is 'Kate Hide as Suzie' which is displayed for 3.5 seconds. This is still within the media convention of titles being between 3 and 5 seconds, but does not match with the others which are 4. The reasons behind this decision comes from the fact that the title is clear throughout the entire shot, and has very short words. The action happening within the shot is very quick, basic and wouldn't distract the audience from the title. It also broke the continuity to have this title displayed for any longer as the following shot shows Elliott lean over to use his laptop- had the title been on screen for 4 seconds, the time at which Elliott lent over would have looked unrealistic and broken the verisimilitude of this opening.

To ensure these titles were accepted by our audience, we made a feedback form which allowed for them to anonymously evaluate each individual title. Although some forms showed that these titles were too long and too short, the majority agreed that they were appropriate lengths of time.

Titles

For our title sequence, we decided that we would rather have creative, physical titles than types titles laid on to of the shot.The quirky, fun designs of the titles reflects the personality of the main character as he is shown to be an amusing, lovable character. Our aim was to have various different ways of displaying the titles, and not to have any that were similar.

UFO

Our main title was made from lettering stickers placed on the map. This is the only one of the titles that stays throughout the rest of the film as we have other words styled like this elsewhere in the set so leaving this in would not break the continuity. 

Ted Russell as Elliott

The first role title showed the name of our main actor with the characters name underneath. We used a Dymo Labelwriter ™ to create this title, inspired by the use of this technique in Napoleon Dynamite (2004). We thought this would be an appropriate design of title for our lead actor as it stands out well on the white light switch.

Created & Directed by Rachel Harrison

Our third title was designed to look as if Elliott had drawn the doodles himself. It fit well with the theme of our film as the title is placed within the beam of the spaceship.

Produced and Edited by Katie Killeen

This set of titles is very different to any of the others as they are written on the characters polaroid pictures of potential UFO evidence. This was one of the first titles we had thought of doing when creating our plot.

Caspar Wright as Milo

This title features a character that is not introduced in our opening sequence, who, if this was a full length film, would become an established character later on. We decided to include this title as to not break media conventions, as having only one named actor would be unrealistic. The character of Milo is partially introduced in the scenes when Elliott receives text messages from his friend, as the contact name is 'Milo' with a photo of Caspar.

Kate Hide as Suzie

Much like the previous title, this features an actor/ character who has not yet appeared in the opening. However, as mentioned above, we included it as a way of sticking to media conventions of having a few named actors in the titles. Like Milo, Suzie is also mentioned in the text messages as a way of introducing her the audience.

Cinematography By Katie Killeen and Rachel Harrison

The final title is stylised in a completely different way to the majority of the titles, being typed rather than written. The creation of this title differs to the others as Elliott is involved in it by typing the  word 'cinematography' rather than it being just a part of the mise-en-scene.

Diegetic Sound

Although our music was diegetic, we challenged conventions of this towards the end of out product. After seeing the character remove his headphones, we allowed the music to gradually get louder and go above the original volume whilst the main action takes place. Loud music throughout an opening is a typical convention and we therefore conformed to this. As well as this, we thought it would be appropriate to do this whilst there is a fast moving sequence showing, as it helps for the audience to realise the rush and urgency Elliott is in after receiving the vital text message.

Choice of Video

The video shown to the audience through Elliott's phone features an unidentified flying object passing over a bridge on screen behind a news presenter. However, the original sound which accompanied this video was not about UFOs, as it was taken from the BBC morning news segment, so we dubbed the voice over from another video on top of this one. We lined up the point in the video which homes in on potential extra-terrestrial with the point where presenter reports on "flying saucers" as a way of adding to the verisimilitude as for it not to be obvious we used a different voice over.

We decided on using the video with a different voice over rather than an actual UFO video for a few reasons. Firstly, the majority of the videos available are American and we thought this would be unrealistic as the map clearly shows places in the UK. As well as this, there is a typical 'British news' feel to the look of this video, making the discovery seem plausible as it is discussed on the BBC. Thirdly, the title which appears under the video on the text message doesn't specify a year, whereas many other videos showed a previous date, which would contradict the fact that this was meant to be 'breaking news'. 

Audience Reception- Angela

As a way of gaining feedback from a variety of people, I contacted friends and family via messages, as well as recording the primary reactions of others. As seen in the screenshot, my friend Angela's initial reaction to our opening was very positive and she gave feedback without being asked. After this, i asked Angela if she would mind answering a few questions related to our film to give us more in depth feedback and some construction criticism which we could feature in our evaluations. Her responses are featured in the screenshots below.

Her feedback was very useful as it was different to the other responses. One feature she commented on was the 'Created and Directed By Rachel Harrison' title, which was not as noticeable as some of the other titles. However, it must be taken into consideration that Angela was watching on a phone, and her criticisms may have differed had she watched it on a larger screen. 

Re-shoots

After editing all of our opening, it was evident that there was a lack of continuity between some shots. There were also shots that, although fine in terms of continuity, did  not have the desired affect on the audience, and therefore needed to be re-filmed. The shots which we redid were mainly the ones which included texting, as the time on the phone changed from 17:00 to 16:23- clearly indicating a lack of continuity and breaking the verisimilitude. Also, we decided on refilming the ending shot with Elliott leaving the room in a hurry, as the original shot was not long enough as we did not see the garage door shut. This shot took a while to redo as we were adamant on having the tube of Pringles fly out of the bag, as spoken about here. Although the shot we have ended up using does not look as nice as our original shot, we have made the decision to use it as the door shuts and therefore brings the opening sequence to a natural end.

UFO- Final Piece

Shown below is the final version of out two minute film opening, 'UFO'. We have been working on this since October, and have been engaging in processes such as storyboarding, filming, and editing in order to produce this video.  

The majority of our opening consists of a title sequence, made from physical titles, rather than the more commonly seen style of typed titles which are laid on top of a shot. The title sequence is see throughout the majority of the opening, stopping at 1:36. From this point on wards we see a sequence in which our character receives an important text, watches the video sent to him, and clumsily packs his bag and leaves the room in a hurry. 

With help from class feedback and opinions from other people, we were able to edit our opening to be the best we could make it, and appeal to our audience.

Feedback Questionnaire Results

From the results of our feedback question, we used our audiences' responses to edit our titles to make them as clear and appealing as possible. Although the majority agreed with how they were presented and for how long, a few comments argued that that they could be altered.

It was argued that our 'Caspar Wright as Milo' title was too long, and once reviewing this we agreed as it was almost double the length of the others. We shortened this to be 6 seconds, whereas it was 8 before. Rather than shortening it to 4 seconds like our other titles, we opted to keep it slightly longer as there is movement happening in the background.

The 'Produced and Edited by Katie Killeen' title also received some criticisms. Although the feedback questionnaires showed only one person to be in disagreement with our original positioning sm we have since had some verbal feedback which suggested we repositioned it in the frame, in order to bring more attention to it, as the background is particularly busy as it is the map. We have since made these changes.

The final title seemed to be the most approved of, with there being no issues for either positioning or length of time.