During this task, I have learnt how social groups are represented in films. The mise en scene (clothes, body language, setting) does have a major factor on how the social groups are represented in films, followed by the sound, camera angles and editing; they are also important. The sound could indicate the type of the film, the camera angles could show the narrative structure, and the editing (cuts, transition, animation, etc.) could make the film more interesting. These elements can show the audience how different range of social groups looks like.
From this task, I now know in coming of age films: how the equilibrium goes, what different characters are used, binary opposites, and what kind of actions need to be revealed to make the audience interested in watching the film for more. Doing these research also allow me to know how much each of those were used and shown in the film.
For this task, we surveyed 16 males and females of ages 13 to 41 using paper survey about various questions. We then added it to a survey monkey to evaluate our results and establish what type of
films, and what about films, people liked and disliked.
From the research, we can see that most of 'Coming of Age' films are aimed for teenagers, mostly for the ones above the age of 17. It is because in most of the 'Coming of Age' films, there are scenes where it's not appropriate for teenagers below the age of 15.
This is the original title credit sequence of Footloose.
This is our title credit sequence of Footloose.
What went well
Planning
We planned to do the Footloose title credit sequence for this creative task - It looks cool and simple to do.
The shoes - As we need 23 pairs of shoes for the filming, we gathered our family collections of shoes that looks identical to the shoes that are shown in the original title credit; and we managed to gather most of the shoes. Although some of the shoes does not look identical, but we think it would not make much difference. We asked number of people as well that has got the shoes that we need.
The location - We looked around the school for the location and we found a room, which was G1, and it has got the plain background that we needed. We also used a whiteboard for the floor as a stage - it matches with the white wall background.
The dancers - We asked number of people to do some of the dance as well, since we have got different kinds of shoes with different sizes. ^Fun fact: We didn't practice for the dance.
The lighting - We used natural lighting for the first shot, and the white fluorescent light in the room for the second shot.
Other props - Such as the socks; we also gathered most of the socks that look identical to the ones shown in the original.
Make the title credit sequence
We made the title sequence in After Effects, an neither of us had any experience of using After Effects. So it took a while for us to figure out how to use After Effects. We figured out how to use it, eventually, with the help of Youtube tutorials, Google search and try random clicks to see if it does anything. We found the font that looks identical to the original - download it and use it. It took about 4-5 lessons for us to finish the title credit sequence, since we have to make sure the timing and the placement of the texts is on point, and the result is great.
Filming
When we did the filming, it took longer than we thought it would. The dances are not easy to do, but we managed to create similar moves. We got to do it in 2 different days, as we didn't have all the shoes that we need in the first day and the camera was low on battery, so we had do another one in different days.
Editing
Made the title sequence (just the text) in After Effects, putting all the clips together and add the background music in iMovie. Move the text file from After Effects to iMovie and sync it; does take a lot of time, 8 lessons to be precise. We also struggled putting the text into the clip, because we didn't know how to import the After Effects file into iMovie. After a while, we instead use a green screen background and put it under the text, move it to iMovie and removed the green screen. Also, as we filmed the opening in different days and used different lighting between the two, we had to brightened the clips so when we put it all together; they have similar, bright lightning.
Problems
Other than struggling with the program, we hardly found any problems during this task.
What I have learnt
From this task I have learnt a lot of stuff. From how to use After Effects, to how to sync 2 different files. We tried different things in After Effects and figured out how things work and what does what from scratch. That is a really good skill to learn as we will need to use the same program for our own opening sequence. I also have learnt that opening sequence can describe the type of a film, so it is very important. The font style is important as well, so when choose one for our opening sequence, we must choose the one that matches the narrative.
What I have learnt
From this task, I was able to see how typography is important and it helps the audience to know what the genre of the film is. The placement of the text, the font and the colour also do have an affect on how the audience would think about the narrative and the genre of the film.
As now we know what order and aspects mentioned on the opening sequence, we will apply the typography on our own opening sequence in the following order:
It is a scene about a student having his tutor session. It demonstrate the match on action, shot/reverse shot, and the 180-degree rule.
This is the edited version of the clip:
The dialogue
The Teacher: "Hi Ethan, how are you doing?"
The Student: "I'm doing okay."
The Teacher: "How was school?"
The Student: "It's going okay, but, Media is a bit hard. Mr. Howell has been putting a lot of pressure on me for Task 3."
The Teacher: "He always was a bit crazy. I'll talk to him for you."
The Student: "Okay, thank you."
The Teacher: "See you in our next session."
The Student: "Bye."
The Teacher: "Bye." What went well
The shot went very well, we filmed it without struggle and it was a very quick filming as well. And while we're editing, it's not that hard to do too, just need to cut the scenes and out it in order, also add a non-diegetic sound too make it more interesting, The lightning was not bad as well, we didn't use any lamp to support our lighting so it's all natural lightning. Diegetic sound of the two actors talking was a little quite, so we had to increase the volume up while editing, and now you can hear them just fine.
What I have learnt
During this task, I have learnt on how to shot a 180-Degree shot without having to move around quite so much. so instead, we did 2 long of each of the actors talking through the whole conversation, rather than having to move around when the dialogue of the actors changes. That way, it is much easier, because we just need to cut the clips when editing and put them all together in order. I also learnt new technique in editing, which is how to fade and reduce parts of the non-diegetic sound that I have added to the clip.
