Final Draft

This is the final draft of the Parallel opening sequence. Since the first draft, it has had all of the titles moved around, edited and replaced completely. This version is a lot shorter than the previous one, having large sections of the film removed because not a lot happened in it and people said that found it too slow and a little boring. Several other shots have been trimmed to remove parts where the camera shook and some have been trimmed just so that they transition a little better. The music has been changed since the first draft and the sound has also been edited in an attempt to fix the numerous sound problems that came about during the first draft.

Music for Final Draft

We have looked at several different songs that we could use in the final draft of the film. As we have decided that the song used in the first draft didn't fit the film as well as it could have, we looked at the following songs and considered them as candidates for the final draft. The songs we looked at are as following:

I think that this song would go well with the very beginning of our opening as is has a very vague direction at the beginning. The simplness of it would not overshadow the dialogue and it does not sound overly upbeat so it does work with the tone of the film. However the change of the song after the opening section, does get very busy and as such, could become distracting and slightly inconsistent over the course of the film's opening,

This song definitely fits the slow pace needed and does not have a very crowded composition, something very important for our films opening. The problem with using this song for our opening lies in the melody of the song. It builds up to be very uplifting, something that is not at all fitting for our film.

This song does have a tone that is fitting for our film. Is is not especially sad and is far from upbeat and these factors would make it good to use in our film. The reason we haven't used this song however, is that it is a very well known song and could be seen as being a cliche if it were put in the opening of our film. It may also be a little too dramatic for the opening of our film to, having a full orchestra of instruments might confuse the audience if it were played during our opening sequence.

This cover was looked at because it is not too busy and has a very ambiguous tone to it, something that suits our film's opening very much. It is not too fast paced and having it play quietly over the dialogue sections is doable without distracting the audience. Because of all these factors, we eventually decided to use this cover song in our final draft.

Film Poster Research

To make a film poster that is appropriate for out film, both in theme and genre, I have looked at the posters of other similar films so that I can take elements from them to make a poster for the Parallel film. One film I looked at is the film, 'The Double', as this film has both genre and concept in common with our film. This film also has a two of the same person in it and uses it as the main focus of the plot. Although the second version of the main character in our film's plot is no more than a figment of his imagination, we could still have both of them shown in the poster in the same way that they are for the double to show that the film does have two of the same person in it as the premise and get people's attention that way. The poster also focuses more on the imagery than the words on the poster. All the text is very small and despite being in the middle of the poster, it is not the main focus and is instead used to separate the two images and further direct the attention of the observer towards them.

This poster is made for a movie that never made it to production, but shows all of the features that most posters have and should have. The name of the film is shown very clearly at the top in the logo, something also done in the double poster but to a lesser extent. The colour scheme for this poster is very simple, relying heavily on dark blues and using practically no other sorts of colours. This gives the poster a very clean look because there are no distracting factors, drawing the attention to the importan part in the middle. That is how this poster differs most to the Double's poster. Where the double's poster has the two images on either side, this film's poster has all the attention centered around the image in the center. The text at the bottom of this poster is also very important. The way the typeface is written, looking almost squeezed, is a style used in a lot of film posters and gives off the impression to a viewer that it is a professionally done poster.

Feedback From the First Draft

The first draft of the Parallel opening was shown to the rest of the class so that we could get feedback from them to find out what they liked and didn't so that we can improve upon those elements. The feedback is also useful to see problems with the movie that we didn't noticed ourselves while editing the video together and watching it through while making the first draft.

A fairly decent amount of the feedback we received was positive. The main factor about our movie that people liked were the special effects that put two of the same person on screen at the same time and this seemed to catch the attention of the rest of the class. The problems that people found with the film seemed to be consistent across the board and so are clearly the issues that must be addressed. People mainly found that the second section of the film dragged on for too long with nothing actually happening. Another issue was that some shots were a little wobbly at points and that there were a few sound issues meaning that the opening was too quiet and people couldn't hear what was happening very well.

These are a few of the feedback sheets we got for the first draft, showing scores that people gave as well as comments about certain issues they had with it. By coupling these feedback sheets with the things we know must be improved upon, we have the following list of things that must be improved.

1. Fix all of the sound issues

2. Cut the shots that have wobbles so that they are no longer there

3. Cut down the length of the walking section as this bored a lot of people

4. Change the titles so that they actually have a proper order and add effects to them

5. Add/Change the music to fit the opening in a better way

6. Move the film's name title so that it is not at the end of the opening

First Draft

This is the first actual draft of the Parallel movie opening. This is the version of the movie that we have put together going off a single edit and is not intended to be the final version by a long stretch. As such there are elements, such as the titles, that are there to be a place holder for the time being. All of the names in the titles were made up on the spot while editing and are not in any particular order. The music has also been added here to make sure that the quiet section of the opening doesn't remain totally silent for over a minute. It was not very carefully selected and so will not be used in the final version. This draft also uses almost all of the shots that we initially filmed; this means that the film is a lot longer than it needs to be as it hasn't been trimmed down or refined properly.

Music Research

This theme is a song that I put in the first draft of the film, during the second half of the opening. I felt like the walking section was very quiet with no sound playing over it. This song isn't very loud or busy as it's original use was as ambient background sound and so I thought that it would work well in the first draft of the film's opening. It also works because there is dialogue at the end of the film and this song does nothing to detract from that, allowing the dialogue to be heard without a distracting drop in sound for the music. Later on we decided not to use this for the final draft and instead chose a different song to match the tone of the film a little better.

Production Diary

Day 1 - 10/11/14 - Our group got together for the first time so that we  could discuss each of our individual ideas for a film opening. After talking over each different idea we decided that my idea of having a character with a split personality was the best idea to use for our opening. However at this point, we lacked a solid idea for a plot so we only really had the premise to go off of. With what we had, we put together a group film pitch to show to the rest of the class.

Day 2 - 11/11/14 - We took our presentation and showed it to the class in order to get their feedback on the overall idea. The responses were mainly one of two opinions. A few people weren't quite able to grasp the concept of what we were trying to do with the film but this is to be expected as we didn't have a clear direction at this point. Some of the other people liked the idea and thought that it would work well once we got it going properly. After the presentation we looked through names for the film; After having the idea that the other personality would be controlling the main character, we decided to use the Latin word for control, 'Imperium' as out film's title.

Day 3 - 12/11/14 - Here we looked at other film openings that would be similar to our film, either in tone or the way it was shot. We looked at the opening for Shallow grave because it is a dark film and we were leaning towards the idea of making our film a dark one. Some of the other openings we looked at included Forrest Gump. While this film has little to do with ours in terms of tone or plot, the opening of having the main character on a bench is very similar and we wanted to see how it was done there. We also changed the name of the film to 'Dissociation' as we felt that the previous title could have been misleading and confusing to people that would think it was a roman film and not a film set in the present day.

Day 4 - 13/11/14 - To help with out story boarding, we separated and each looked at other film opening credits so that we could see how long shots lasted for and how the names in the titles were shown. After further discussion of our opening, we also decided to make our film more of a black comedy than a drama, making it a little more like the original idea than it was before.

Day 5 - 14/11/14 - This day we continued looking at the other title sequences separately, ordering them into timelines so that all the timings for titles and shots were easily visible. The information gathered here will be helpful in planning our own titles and ensuring that shots lasted for an appropriate length.

Day 6 - 17/11/14 - We assigned each other jobs so that we could work through on the production. This included things like specific sorts or research as well as writing the script and such. We also put together a shot list including the sorts of shots that we would like to include in our opening in order to look interesting.

Day 7 - 18/11/14 -Me and Liv started work on the script for the film. This included coming up with a solid plot for what would happen and planning the character's names. We had a little problem coming up with the humourous lines in the script but aside from that the script writing went well. While we were working on this Mollie was putting together a mood board and Marcus was researching film institutions.

Day 8 - 19/11/14 - This day was a continuation of the last day's tasks. We just carried on with our jobs and finished them up.

Day 9 - 21/11/14 - Me and Liv started to work on our film opening's storyboard. Using the script as  a basis, we were able to work out how long certain shots would need to be as well as angles and such from the shot list that we could include in the film. As I finished drawing the panels for the storyboard, Marcus was able to look at them and being to make a timeline for our opening.

Day 10 - 24/11/14 - The storyboard was finished today and from this we were able to plan our filming. We came up with a shooting schedule so that we could actually being filming the opening.

Day 11 - 25/11/14 - We didn't make any progression today, instead worked on our blogs to make sure everything was caught up on and in check while we waited to begin filming.

Day 12 - 26/11/14 - We didn't make any progression today, instead worked on our blogs to make sure everything was caught up on and in check while we waited to begin filming.

Day 13 - 28/11/14 - Filming began. We left school early to get to the filming location for our film and filmed for between two and three hours. We were able to film the shots specified in the schedule and thanks to the weather, were able to get some nice looking shots. Marcus was behind the camera and did all the filming today

Today we started our filming. We left school at 1:30 to get to Admirals park and filmed for around 2-3 hours. The weather was really nice and we got all of our opening shots done with some of the dialogue. I did most of the camera work, Max and Liv did some acting and we all pitched in our ideas about what we thought would look nice. Eventually it became too dark to film and we had to stop for the day.

Day 14 - 1/12/14 -  We filmed the rest of our shots, changing the ending of the film slightly so that we were able to film it as the use of a bus was not easily attainable at the time of filming. The weather wasn't as nice on this day and we had to get our shots done quickly because of how cold it was getting.

Day 15 - 2/12/14 - We uploaded all the footage for the opening onto the computer and tested out editing the main cloning effect. As this is the most important effect in our film, due to the fact that it is the central focus of the opening, it was important to make sure that the effect worked beforehand.

Day 16 - 3/12/14 - I focused on editing the first draft of the film, not focusing heavily on making the titles accurate, instead adding them there as place holders, and instead putting the clips together in the correct order and cutting them down to make the opening into a coherent movie. Alongside this I had to use a lot of clipping mask to fit two of the same person on screen at the same time. While I was editing the rest of the group worked on researching posters.

Day 17 - 5/12/14 - We showed the finished first draft of the movie to everyone else in the class so that we could get their feedback on what they liked about the movie and what they thought could be changed.

Day 18 - 8/12/14 - After getting the feedback from everyone else we started to make adjustments to the opening. This meant cutting out a large portion of the opening where not a lot happens to make it seem less boring as well as clipping certain shots to remove any wobbles that were noticeable.

Day 19 - 9/12/14 - The next thing to change was the titles as they were only there as placeholders in the first draft. Animations were added to them as well as changing the names, order and place of them to give the opening a more professional overall look.

Day 20 - 10/12/14 - The last thing that needed to be changed was the music for the opening. The music used in the first draft, we decided to change, and so we spent this time all searching for a fitting track to use in the movie, however this proved to take a lot longer than initially anticipated.

Day 21 - 11/12/14 - With the titles finished we continued to look for a music song to put in the movie and tested out several different songs before finally deciding on one that as a group we like and that was able to go alongside the dialogue without overshadowing it.

Day 22 - 12/12/14 - This last session included a lot of self nitpicking and trimming down some shots to make them look better. This came down to, a lot of the time, just cutting off a few frames and moving the titles over by a miniscule amount to center them before finally deciding that the film was finished.

Location of Shooting

This is the park that our film opening takes place in. In this particular image is the tree where the first shot of the opening is. The park is appropriate for out film because, in terms of practically shooting, we were able to film at a time where no other people would be running around and interfering with our shooting. 

The outdoor space for our shoot allowed for some interesting and varied shots. The long shot above was an angle that shows a great span of area that we could not have otherwise been able to shoot, had we chosen to shoot at another location or indoors. This angle also shows areas that are filmed closer up at other points in the opening, this lets the viewer have a good picture in their head of how the area of the opening is laid out.

Another upside of filming at a park is that all of the moving equipment there allowed us to get shots that are moving while remaining on the tripod. The roundabout in the picture above is an example of this. By placing the tripod on the round about and spinning it, we were able to get a steady shot while the camera was spinning around.

Shooting Schedule

This is the shooting schedule. On this table is a list of all the shots that are on the storyboard and details where and where they will be filmed. As there are so many shots in the opening of the film, for the sake of simplifying the schedule, they have been condensed into groups. An example of this is that all of the introduction shots, the ones that set the scene and have only titles, have all been put together. 

Conventions

Setting:
The setting of our film's opening will be a park. That actual shooting location will be Admiral's Park however this does not specifically carry over into the film. Our reasons for filming there is that, because we will be filming during school hours, the park should be devoid of most people and we can easily get the shots we want without having people interfere or getting in the way. The park is not a very busy looking place in terms of scenery and this suits our film very well as it centers around a normal person in a normal world with a very abnormal problem. The simpleness of the scenery helps to emphasize the unusual elements and make them stand out more.

Themes:
We have a general dark theme to our film. Because the main character has a mental illness, there has to be some degree of seriousness to it as this sort of subject matter is rarely tackled lightly. However, while this is a serious element to our film, hence the darkness, we also have comedic elements to our film that are in stark contrast to the darkness of the rest of the film. This shows the parallel themes in name and actually in terms of the themes throughout the film.

Icons:
Icons are used twice in the opening of our film to highlight certain plot points and to show further contrast between the two main characters. The medicine bottle is used to show the audience that the character does in fact have a mental illness, something that is never otherwise directly stated. The other iconography is the use of the two coke cans, one being normal and one being diet. By having the two characters drink the opposite kinds, people can see even more how different the two characters are. By using coke cans, something people easily recognize from day to day life, the audience's attention is drawn directly to these icons.

Narrative:
The Opening's narrative serve the purpose of introducing the fact that the main character has a mental illness, and that his split personality disorder has actually manifested as a separate character that the audience can see. By having an exchange of dialogue, or more of a one sided conversation, the relationship between the two parallel personalities is revealed and this serves to foreshadow how the film will progress with one being more antagonistic than the other.

Institutions Research

Film 4

Film 4 is a film institution that is owned by the Channel 4 TV corporation that is responsible for the production of a large amount of films. Film 4, while it has produced several big mainstream hits like, 'Slumdog Millionaire', it has also backed several smaller films that don't have such a wide audience as mainstream films. It has produced some darker films like, 'Shallow Grave,' a dark comedy about a group of friends struggling to cope with stealing money from a deceased flatmate, and 'The Double,' a black comedy that focuses on a man meeting his doppelganger face to face. Both of these films have a very niche audience, something that our film will have and so it is appropriate to have film 4 for out film Parallel as it is similar to other films already produced by film 4.

Title Fonts

This is the typeface that we are using in our film. It is not a very fancy looking font and is supposed to give the film a clean look when they are on the screen. The point of them being simple like this is so that they do not distract the audience from what is happening on the screen at the time they are being shown. This is important because the shots that have the titles playing over them are the setting shots, showing the audience the area that the opening is taking place and, because of this, flashy looking titles in an obscure typeface would end up being very distracting to look at while trying to watch the opening.

Story Board of Parallel Opening

This is the storyboard for out film opening, 'Parallel'. The storyboard is made up of all the shots that we thought would make the film interesting to watch as well as clearly show what was happening in the film. The storyboard is made to show how long each shot will take so that, when filming it is easy to know how long to roll the camera for in each shot. This makes the entire filming proccess much more simple as it does not have to be done randomly on the day of filming as this has all been planned in advanced here, with the storyboard.