EVALUATION - Robert Buler (QUESTION 1)

In this post I will be comparing some shots from my title sequence opening to other media products created by professionals. More exactly, I will show and describe in what ways my opening movie use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products. 

Firstly, I will talk about the opening. From my point of view, it was very calm on the beginning, and then BANG - the movie starts. Quite a lot of different shots, angles and effects are involved to create the action. The movie I can think of with the similar beginning can be "The Stepfather". At first, very calm, not really knowing what is going on, and then bang! speed, action, tense, effects. This is really what happened in my title sequence opening.

The only difference could be that The stepfather has much longer introduction and time for titles to appear. However, the speed, action and the tempo is quite similar, and I must say that I didn't really think about it before. But I am glad that I happened this way, because the effect is stunning (at least on Stepfather :))

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My titles are pretty effective, stylish, bald and eye-catching, however I did not mention a lot of names and the order of appearing really is different to other movies. However, what I've done was on purpose. I don't want my audience to keep steering on names and what have they done. I made it simple.

The title appearing list is short (Stars -> Editing -> Music -> Director -> Movie title) and the movie I can compare with is "What lies beneath".  The movie starts with the distributor, then a production company and the titles. THAT'S IT!

I think that I've made a better job, kind of developed their idea because it is important to say the names that are the most important and who have done the most job. And these are the people I have included.

However, the style and the effect of appearing is more likely to be from "The taking of pelham 123". They have used some great editing. However, I think that the titles appearing are too small and placed in bad positions, and I think that my titles can challenge them. I have placed black/blue titles in places where these can be easily seen, and and the size of letters is big and bald enough to be read without magnifying glass and the lighter.


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The opening I have chosen was very calm, instead of "big bang!". I used it to make the audience feel the quiet and calmness. First 20 secs or so were almost still. And then suddenly the alarm goes off and BANG! I think it was preety effective, because there is a fast change of speed and tempo that works fantastically. To create that, I needed two different types of soundtracks. One calm, acuistic, and the other one fast.

The movie called "He loves me, he loves me not" has something to do with that. They have used almost still pictures or single shots, and then when she goes on the bike, everything gain the tempo and speed. Great use of editing!


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I must admit that I didn't really introduced my character as I should. All what have I done is showing the audience that the character is in hurry, and that the speed represent encourage. Movie "He loves me, he loves me not" shows in few minutes that she is in love, and she tends to be calm, quiet and "sweet". I don't really think that I can challenge this film, however some people should recognise her unstability and some problem with her.


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In my movie I didn't really give people much information at the start, however it was on purpose. I have seen in some film the scene that some guy ran for few minutes with titles on the top. I cannot really remeber what was the title, but he was running in some competition. He did ran just like her. He run for winning, and she ran somewhere very important and - from the clock seen few times - we could guess that time was important factor. I think that I have developed this idea in some way, because I also added lots of architecture and much more different shot types and angles. Simply created the action.

EDIT: I found the name of the movie: "Marathon Man". Here I give you a trailer.

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Girls are often described as weaker/ slower gender. More flowers, hearts and love. Less speed and man-activities. This is a huge difference between my movie and "he loves me, he loves me not". In my movie, the actress is on her own, lonely in a huge city and runs all the way by her own. However, in "he loves me, he loves me not" the acresss is described as a lovely and sweet person from the beginning, as we can see from the flower shop and all the hearts. Absolute difference. My character is more independent from the beginning, and the other one sends the flower to her boyfriend from the top of the movie. This might show that my actress doesn't need a man and can handle everything by herself.

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There is one feature in my opening that can absolutely challenge any movie. Locations. I have shown huge amount of different types of architecture, old tramway, city from close ups to extremely long shots. And the movie I can compete with is the "Panic room". However, in my opinion its much different! OF course, I used many long shots and even the same type for title, but the architecture is different. New York has houdreds of huge sky-reachers. My movie has some big buildings, but most of them are old and not-in-so-much-technology. Great 1800's or older building shows that the movie was made in East European country, because it's where most building stand right now.

I did use some close ups on buildings, and this is the difference. They didn't use that to put huge titles over the screen. I used some close ups to show more accuratelly how building look and how let some audience be fascinted by the view.

EVALUATION - Robert Buler (QUESTION 6)

Very interesting day that was on monday! Bernard told us more about what are we doing from now on.

We went to next room to watch our films. I've seen some preety great movies, as well as a little bit worse (like mine:)) . I gave everyone my opinion, and I tried to make it reasonably fair. I said what were the best aspects in media terminology and howdid I feel after watching the movie. Easy questions, but it took some time to write my statement.

Up there I've uploaded the picture made on www.wordle.net and I've written every single opinion from my class about my movie. 

As you can see, the words with the biggest letters were the most frequent e.g motion, effects. Less frequent words like speed, action, slow or great are also very important and bascally these words describe my movie in full. Lots of people were amazed by the effects, slow motion or action speed. 

CINEMA TRIP:

Unfortunately, I couldn't go to cinema that day as I had very important and painful dentist session:( However, I knew about that and prepared myself. 

I talked with m friend Konrad who was also going to cinema that day, and asked him to take some recording from his Iphone camera. From what I know, there was about 180 people out there watching my film! I was awfully worried about the audience. Normally, I am preety shy about showing my work to others, even to my teachers.... and now, around 200 students and teachers were assesing my work! Gosh, my heartbeat... BOOM BOOM BOOM!

From what I know, Konrad did record quite a lot but I will put the clips later on. EDIT: this is one of the movies recorded.

He also told me, that the audience was shocked when they've seen my editing! Especially when it came to slow motions. The last jump of my acctress was hugely apploused by the students, and they absolutely loved it. I am not really surprised, because teens action and effects similar to these in "Matrix". But it is great feeling to know, that some people actually liked my film and appriciate hard work. Awsome experience, even through I couldn't be there...

EDIT: Today on school's corridor Annabel told me that teachers really liked my music and they were really impressed, especially that I worked by myself. She also said that teachers know about my problems with the sound (programme error), but overall the music and soundtracks were fantastic, and they are shocked! And well, so was I! It's lovely to hear these words from media teachers, especially from Annabel. Thank you!

I would love also to thank everyone who gave me their opinions about my movie. Good and bad ones. I accept critisism!:) 

Quick evaluation

I think that the movie went well, and I am very happy about it. Maybe there are some problems with the sound, but these are minor and even some of them are not my foult (the unwanted techno-music at the end). However, even through my sound is poor, I have added much more effects than any other group I have seen recently.

The editing went very well, I have added lots of upgrades from my rough cut and the slow motions were repaired. Some people told me to make my film in back and white, however I don't think that is a good idea because the light is very important in every movie. Black and white movies are from '40s, not 2011.

Even through I had to rush with my titles, I personally think they went really well and quite effective. Letters are stylish and jumping around, making the tempo rising up. Also, I have put them in correct positions, and the black colour works well with the background and placement.

Unfortumately, I will have to miss movie cast in cinema because of visit to dentist. Normally I would delay the appointment, but I need to take care of my teeth :P I will ask my friend to record everything on his Iphone. Thank science for convergence!:)

If i had more time, I would do much more. More edit. More sound. Better sound. Better effects. But there is not enough time! Even through I think I went well comparing to others are I need to remember that I was working all by myself. SO EVERYTHING ARE MY SKILLS. Not my team-mates. And I am very glad I was working alone, because I could show part of my skills.

I want to thank my teachers for their help, and especially our tech-team because I had a LOT of problems with disk and sound. I am very glad that I've chosen media studies, because I have never enjoyed any subject that much as this. THANK YOU!

final movie - Run to the past

LiveType - photos

Editing - photos

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For some reason photos do not want to co-operate with the page and layout:P...

LiveType

So the time came to make my titles, however I already am out of time! I cannot lie, and I must admit that I made it as fast as possible. However, I got a little lucky because I've prepared myself before and I knew exactly what to do...

On the beggining of the film, I did put "starrings" to begin with. I used Solid bold font and some great animations. The letters were jumping and flashing, and altogether the effect was fantastic. Then, there was "Editing", Music", and "Director" All of them with the same effects and sizes.

You might wonder why is director before the titles. I thought that breaking the rules might look more cooler, and I am concerned that the Movie title is more important than the director itself. Director doesn't do that much comparing to his people. It's not like I don't care at all about directors - but I don't feel that they deserve all the glory and the "best spot" as the last title sequence.

As I said, the last one is the Title with a great font that I have sound on the LiveType section. All of those were created by profesionals and it looks amazing. At the beggining, the letters are not visible, and then contantly they are being more visible. The font "draws" the letters by a pencil. At last, the letters float away. The font size is little bit bigger than previous ones, but I cannot remember excacly.

Sound

 As the time came to edit sound and create soundtrack, I had to go for a advise to out tech team. I really am very weak at this. Or maybe its not me, but doing sound is thousand times harder than I thought.

I created the soundtrack by myself, but I had quite a lot of problems with cutting it correctly and making other sounds co-operate with it. Sometimes I wasn't able to hear footsteps or car because of loudness of soundtrack.

I found some good effects like: car driving by, tramway inside, walking, running, running on snow, bird singing, slap or clicks etc. It really is difficult to manage it. Every sound effect must be perfectly cooperating with movie, so lots and lots of cutting, copying, pasting...

However, Just near to the finish when I've exported the video to final cut, I found huge problem with sound. On the last 10sec of movie instead of one sound track, I've heard one more. It is difficult to explain... It seems that there is unwanted sound track heard and it was unable to remove it! Mikey, our tech-guy tried to remove the problem but he was unable to! He had absolutely no idea how and where is this sound comming from. Everything was fine on soundtrack pro, but everytime we've exported the movie to final cut there was unwanted sound as well. Preety anoying and I am sure that marks will be affected... However, as long as I wasn't my foult, maybe the examinners will make less consequences out of it...!:)

The pitch

As I had to be absent on the day our class was doing "the pitch", I thought that I will present it right here!:) I also wanted to catch Annabel next avaliable lesson, but she seemed in hurry and she didn't really even looked inside to our class room. 

Firstly, I will talk about the Title. I though that the film can be named "Run to the past", and the whole film would be about a girl that have some unknown illness. Everyday, at 3 o'clock she must at the gate. Later on, the audience will know that her mother died in front of her during the war, and she was also hit on head. The title would have something to do with the genre and the storyline. 

The genre of my movie would be more likely action, as she is running across the city. The editing will be more dedicated to speed and cutting, as the action movies require. Unfrtunately, because of my unexpected trip to Poland, I will have record the movie in my house and city during the half term holidays. The city is named Elblag. This might be a good idea to show some different architecture and culteres other than British. 

Sound will have to contain "an action" in itself. what I mean by that is the tempo must be very high and fast. Music should wake up the audience and make their hearts beat faster and faster! However, by creating the music alone I must know that it is very difficult and takes a lot of time.

Example:

Analysis of animatic -" Run to the past"

I did upload some pictures which show the movie at the different stages. It is just to let you know how the movie looks like, however it is pretty useless as I uploaded rough cut already:) well, I am kinda behind so need to catch up!

Photos are showing the movie at different angles and shot types, and there is more-less the same time difference between them. First photo shows the room from the high angle. This is a long shot type. then there is a close up to the clock, and when she wakes up - she press the button of radio to turn it off. This shot is very intresting because it show her from the front, and also you can see the buttons aswell. 

Then there is a OTS shot when she runs to grab her coat. After that there are few shots that are showing her running across the city with a great architecture on a second plan. Next, a tramway. Close up to her face. She doesn't seem tired at all...:P

At last, we can see the big church from OTS shot, and a long shot of a gate where she's running to. The last shot describes her as disappointed and perhaps late. She seems quite upset and the audience might know that it was kinda inportant.

Animation on my film - Run to the past