making a title sequence

AS Media Studies MAKING YOUR TITLE SEQUENCE

lo ts o f small things add up to get you better marks

9 Steps to best results!

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Step 1 take stock

• w hat ’s the task? • w hat ’s the assessment? • w hat ’s the t imeframe? • w hat ’s the equipment?

Your task and assessment

• Titles and opening of a new fiction film • up to 2 minutes • 20 marks Research and Planning • 60 marks Construction • 20 marks Evaluation

Timeframe and equipment

• build your skills • build up your research • build up your planning • give yourselves time to shoot and edit • keep evidence throughout the whole

process

keep evidence of everything you do!

Step 2 Add to your blog

• sound • camerawork • edit ing

Step 3 Build up your skills

SOUND EFFECTS

these are

VERY IMPORTANT!!!

Make a list now of what SOUND EFFECTS

You think you could use to enhance your production

What did you learn from your preliminary task?

Make some notes and add them

to your blog under the appropriate Evaluation question

• what do film openings actually look like? • what does other student work look like? • what do you need to know about titles? • how are you going to do something that

stands out?

Step 4 Investigate

key features

• genre • nar rat ive (enigma) • character • atmosphere • sett ing

film openings to look at?

• start general • home in on specific • make your research focussed and

relevant

W a t c h a s e q u e n c e a n d d e c i d e … w h i c h o f t h e s e a r e f e a t u r e d m o s t :

• genre • nar rat ive • character • atmosphere • sett ing

T h i n k a b o u t y o u r f i l m … w h i c h a s p e c t s a r e y o u g o i n g t o e m p h a s i s e ?

• genre • nar rat ive • character • atmosphere • sett ing

search for student film openings on YouTube

and Vimeo (G321)

Analyse one or two of them. How successful are they?

Level 1: minimal 0-23 Level 2: basic 24-35

Level 3: p ro ficient 36-47 Level 4: excellent 48-60

• possible scenar ios • 25 word pitch • moodboard t reatment • peer and teacher feedback • realist ic expectat ions - keep it simple

Step 5 Brainstorm ideas

• experiment w ith camera and edit ing • recce shots o f locat ions • examples of shots, costumes, props, etc.

onto blog • stor yboard, animatic, moodboard • logist ics planning, including r isk assessment

Step 6 Planning

• people, places, props, costumes • rehearsing, directing • equipment, jobs on the day • keeping a record of the process

Step 7 Shooting

• screengrabs of process • remember impor tance of audio and

t it les • remember importance of sound effects • rough cut deadline and peer feedback

Step 8 Editing

big picture before fine detail

• seven guiding questions • 20 of the 100 marks • need to be creative in executions • d ig i ta l depth • Listen to the teacher’s advice

Step 9 Evaluation

Six most common student film openings

• Saw : victim t ied up in shed

• Scream: hooded stalker fo llow s female victim

• Se7en: killer st icks knife in polaro id photos

• Lock, Stock: gangsters play cards and kill each other

• Waking up: clean teeth, brush hair, leave house

• Flash back or flash forward : “ 2 weeks later...”

six most common problems • looks m o re like a trailer o r short film • insufficient titles • poor sound, poor lighting • poor ly directed actors, not costumed • confusing fo r the viewer • uses one of the six common openings(badly)

key advice • plan for everything • keep all the evidence • avoid the obvious • pay attention to detail • make your blog var ied • learn from other work