Final film opening - Elephant Juice

Preliminary Exercise

I just noticed this isn't my finished preliminary exercise as the background sound in this version from neighbouring classrooms hasn't been edited out but hopefully it will be up on Youtube in the next few days so I can embed the finished version.

Evaluation Question 7

This is just an image of the mindmap I created using bubbl.us as I couldn't get the embed code to work but it will hopefully be up tomorrow!

Evaluation Question 6

View more PowerPoint from ZoeChapple

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience on Prezi

Evaluation Question 4

To be embedded

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1 on Prezi

Disaster strikes... :(

Unfortunately we found out last week that we had lost ALL of our editing because there was an issue with the hard drive. Of course at first Zoe, Jess and I were panicking but we realised that nothing could be done and we'd just have to accept it! Fortunately, I had backed up all the original footage on my memory stick so it's not like we have to start completely from scratch... (note to self, back up EVERYTHING!) We have however lost 2 scenes which we will need to re film when we come in over Easter to redo our edit. Hopefully now we've all had quite a lot of practice with the editing it won't take us too long to redo everything as we have made a plan of everything that needs to be done... Organisation is key!

Glitter Storm

So today we were discussing names for our production company and eventually decided on Glitter Storm Productions! We all really liked the idea of making it with actual glitter so that's what we experimented with next. Firstly we had the idea of writing Glitter Storm on a page in glue, then sprinkling glitter all over it, tapping off the excess to reveal the words Glitter Storm written in glitter.

However, this idea didn't really work out so instead we used a page of A3 black paper, covered it in glitter then filmed the words Glitter Storm being written into it. As you can see from the image I took, this idea also didn't work as there wasn't enough contrast between the black paper and the dark purple glitter so the words were not readable. 

So to resolve this we tried it on white paper and it worked brilliantly! 

Script 2

Elephant Juice 2

EDITING

Editing is going pretty well so far but it appears we underestimated the amount of time some scenes would last! So we've decided that we won't film the 'lads night in' scene as that would take up too much of our two minutes and arranging meeting times with actors for the same time as a football match to be on would be very tricky, never mind the continuity to consider as well! We've decided to cut a few other scenes as well just because of timing issues and fitting all the necessary bits into the 2 minutes.


Today we also experimented with the non diegetic narration. We recorded the script with Zoe speaking so we could get some better feed back from other members of the class and our teacher. Because our film opening is reliant on the speech to be able to understand what's going on it was causing some confusion not having it on there. 


However, from recording the speech and trying to fit it with the clips we realised that for the sarcastic tone and the thoughts we wanted our protagonist to give it needed to be slower and not quite so rushed! So we experimented with cutting bits of the voiceover out, also to try and make it fit with the scenes, and have decided that we will re word the script slightly and then re record it for our next editing lesson. 

3 2 1 ACTION!

We decided that the best time to film was February half term as it was one of the only times Zoe, Jess and I could all be free on the same day that our actors were also available. On the Monday we completed most of our filming, with the exception to a few scenes that weren't possible to complete (lads night in... we had no lads! And eating with wings as we didn't have time to cook a meal!) so hopefully we'll complete those shortly.
We also changed the location of our outdoor scenes from Hightown lakes to Poulner lakes as it was closer to our other film location and was much more scenic and it actually worked out really well as we managed to find a boat to include!
We decided to change the scene where we were planning to have multiple people holding hands to a shot of Sam behaving very arrogantly in a the boat and rocking it side to side and splashing Becca as this would immediately show the audience that Becca can do so much better and she doesn't actually want to be with him so sets up the narrative. 

Questionnaire responses

Following the questionnaire we sent out we discovered that lots of people like the same sort of thing when it comes to romcoms. The general female favourites were storylines that weren't cheesy and predictable and that had comedy that was sarcastic and/or with innuendo's. They also like the idea of the female protagonist being active rather than passive, with an odd, interesting persona to add depth to their character, much like what we have in mind for the female protagonist in our opening.  For the male role, multiple girls said they like to have an attractive male protagonist with good/interesting style, witty humour and innuendos to convey the "ultimate lad".
A favourite among the men we asked was to include black comedy, innuendos and sarcasm, an attractive female star, a concept that's different and "not the same old soppy stuff".

Costume

Like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we want our characters to wear multiple layers of warm clothing in order to convey a cosy, winter feeling and to reflect their personalities. For example, we want our female protagonist to be quite quirky, which large knitwear and big boots and a woolly, bobbly hat would add to. For our male protagonist he will be well dressed in order to contrast with his slobby character.

COSTUME LIST:
BECCA: Doc Martens, Skinny jeans, Casual top (+ slogan tee with titles on back), Green jacket, Coat, Woolly hat (like one in centre of image), Worn in fingerless gloves, Chunky knitted scarf










SAM: Jeans, Chelsea boots, Button up shirt, V-neck jumper, Smart coat  (Like image to left)            

Animatic!

Questionnaire

We handed out this questionnaire to friends, parents and teachers so we could gain a better understanding of  audience and how film preferences differ with age and gender.
Questionnaire for Rom Com Research

Script!

Script

Film name

Today we finally came up with an idea of a name for our film and drafted up a rough image of what it may look like. After a lot of deliberation we decided to go with 'Elephant Juice', as when you mouth these words to another person it looks like your saying 'I love you', which we thought fits with the conventions of the quirky kind of rom com that we're going for.



When we make the actual design for this title we want the 'Elephant' to be in wider writing and the whole thing will obviously be much neater!

Our Man!

We decided that we'd ultimately like the appearance of this character to completely contrast with his personality. In this situation, he would be attractive, well presented and 'cool' on the outside, but for our opening all we'd see of him is scruffy, rude and not the kind of man our protagonist should be with! 

For example, towards the middle of the film 'What Happens In Vegas', we see Ashton Kutcher's true grubby, sleazy side coming out, particularly in the scene with the popcorn which has similar qualities to one of the 'bad habbits' we're including in our opening... 



















Sam White (left) is having the pleasure of playing this role, another friend of ours who can act very well. 

Female Protagonist!

When discussing the kind of characteristics we want our female protagonist to portray, Jess, Zoe and I all agreed that we want her to be fairly plain with minimal make up but still pretty, with dark hair similar to Carey Mulligan and Zooey Deschanel (below).   

Fortunately, we have a friend who would be perfect for it... And she can act too! Becca Stamatis (below) will be playing our female protagonist for us.

Script Writing!

We began writing our script for narrating all the pet hates we want to include in our opening today. We decided we wanted to include lots of long winded adjectives that would really make clear the annoyance our female protagonist feels towards relationships, these include "which insecure, self incapable tortured soul..." and "who's own life is so unsatisfying that they need someone else to revolve it around...". We asked for some feedback on our script so far from a few of our classmates and they said it was funny for both men and women... Not bad for a first draft!

Titles and location!

We recently came up with some more ideas for the titles and also planned the order of the scenes and some of the locations they will take place in. We'd like to begin and end our opening sequence with a shot of a couple holding hands in a romantic location, some ideas we had for this location are hightown lakes and the bickerley, a field in our area which has an un-used railway running through and a cycle track
   

© Copyright Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

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Another idea for a title we had was to show a freezer door being opened and a tub of Ben and Jerry's (every woman's fave!) being pulled out, the lid removed and a POV shot to shot the tub is empty, a title would either appear in the tub or be on the lid or incorporated in some other way!