Thought Shower

Inspirations/ideas
dinosaurs/mini dragons? animated characters.
morph - play dough men - using istop motion.

Playdough turns into man, and other characters, creates opening credits. Zooms in and out to show the child playing with playdough then zooms back to credits.
Makes a playdough man an then girl (bully) comes along and squisheshim -> goes to titles. After title, little squished ball (from what the bully did to the playdough) turn back into a man, winks at the screen.

End of opening sequence.

MOOD BOARD



Our mood board shows our primary ideas for our children's film. The pictures gave us inspiration towards our final ideas.

U and PG certificate guidelines

U Universal – Suitable for all. It is impossible to predict what might upset any particular child. But a ‘U’ film should be suitable for audiences aged four

years and over. ‘U’ films should be set within a positive moral

framework and should offer reassuring counterbalances to any violence, threat or horror. If a work is particularly suitable for a pre-school child to view alone, this will be indicated in

the Consumer Advice.

Discrimination No discriminatory language or behaviour unless clearly disapproved of.

Drugs No references to illegal drugs or drug misuse unless they are infrequent and innocuous, or there is a clear educational purpose or anti-drug message suitable for young children.

Horror Scary sequences should be mild, brief and unlikely to cause undue anxiety to young children. The outcome should be reassuring.

Imitable behaviour No potentially dangerous behaviour which young children are likely to copy. No emphasis on realistic or easily accessible weapons.

Language Infrequent use only of very mild bad language.

Nudity Occasional natural nudity, with no sexual context.

Sex Mild sexual behaviour (for example, kissing) and references only (for example, to ‘making love’).

Theme While problematic themes may be present, their treatment must be sensitive and appropriate for young children.

Violence Mild violence only. Occasional mild threat or menace only.

PG Parental Guidance – General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable

for young children Unaccompanied children of any age may watch. A ‘PG’ film should not disturb a child aged around eight or older. However, parents are advised to consider whether the content may upset younger or more sensitive children.

Discrimination Discriminatory language or behaviour is unlikely to be acceptable unless clearly disapproved of or in an educational or historical context. Discrimination by a character with which children can readily identify is unlikely to be acceptable.

Drugs References to illegal drugs or drug misuse must be

innocuous or carry a suitable anti-drug message.

Horror Frightening sequences should not be prolonged or intense. Fantasy settings may be a mitigating factor.

Imitable behaviour No detail of potentially dangerous behaviour which young children are likely to copy. No glamorisation of realistic or easily accessible weapons.

Language Mild bad language only.

Nudity Natural nudity, with no sexual context.

Sex Sexual activity may be implied, but should be discreet and infrequent. Mild sex references and innuendo only.

Theme Where more serious issues are featured (for example, domestic violence) nothing in their treatment should condone unacceptable behaviour.

Violence Moderate violence, without detail, may be allowed, if justified by its context (for example, history, comedy or fantasy).

Inspirations

We looked at morph and came up with the idea of using play dough and istop motion. We then decided that we could use the

play dough idea for the opening credits.

Cont. Of Conventions
Narrative by Kiera Roseberry

The opening sequence starts as an elf film that comes across as really happy and a stereotypical children's film that then cuts and goes really dark and into the main opening which, introduces the characters, which is the three Baudelaire children, Claus, Violet and Sunny, who each had a unique quality, Sunny bit things with her strong teeth. Sunny was really intelligent and likes to read books, and Violet is the 14 year old inventor and she tests out all of her inventions on him. You then find out they are orphans which suggests that they will have to overcome a problem in the film, probably using there unique 'quality's'. Also in the burnt down house they find interesting objects which will probably be a main part of the story line leading to the audience assuming they will find out the family secrets and mysterys.

Themes - Francesca Hazel
- family (losing family)
- secrets and mysteries (finding mysterious objects, leads us to think we are going to find out the secrets behind them later on in the film)
- overcoming problems/tragedies

Conventions of children's opening sequences

Analysis of opening sequence of Unfortunate Events

Character- Georgia Phillips
The characters do not conform to the characters that would normally be seen in a children's film as the children do not talk in the introduction (making them seem unusual). The first shot we see of the children we only see their back, this adds to the mysterious atmosphere of the film as a whole. They are all dressed in old clothes, this suggests that they film itself is not set in the modern era as all of the mise-en-scene is not modern at all so it is not just how the children dress.

The children are portrayed as being clever and intelligent. Clouse is associated with reading lots of books and remembering what they are about. Violet is associated with being the inventor of the family and the baby is seen playing scrabble. The fact that they are clever may determine how they solve a problem. This is likely to save them in the end if the film follows this convention of a children's film as there normally is a problem that characters have to overcome.

The family are wealthy people as we see when the house has burnt down that it was infact a mansion. The family also seems very close as Violet tests her inventions out on her younger brother.

genre- Hollie upton
HYBRID

adventure-

Conventions of a children's film

Conventions of a children's film

• Narrative - the narrative is quite simple
  - Usually a happy ending
  - There is usually a moral to the story and a lesson to be learned
  - There is a usually a problem that the characters need to overcome
• Genre
  -Action
  - Romance
  - Adventure
  - Musical
  - Fantasy
  (Most are usually a hybrid of a mixture of genres)

• Characters
  - Main character is generally a child - vulnerable
  

Evaluation of Preliminary Task

Georgia Phillips

During the preliminary task we encountered a few problems along the way.

We chose our action to be shot in the C block toilets, but realised once we had got most of our footage that we were unable to do a long shot because the toilet space was too small. Although we thought this was an issue we then realised that our establishing shot was also a long shot too so this was not an issue after all.

During editing we found out that we were not allowed to have explicit swearing in our piece. Because we did have a lot of swearing we had to think of a way to get round it without having to re-film. We decided to try and 'bleep' it out by lowering the volume at certain points. We found this quite difficult as a group because we were not used to the software but when we eventually worked it out it looked effective and flowed with the piece.

From doing the preliminary task I learnt how to use the software and I am now much more confident. I also learnt how to change the films into a QucikTime so we are able to upload the footage onto our blogs. During this process I also learnt how to use the blog and update it regularly. I learnt that editing plays a massive part in making the film flow, if we did not edit properly then the task would not have been continuous therefore it would not have worked.

In conclusion, I think we as a group worked well together and covered everything we needed to cover in order to pass the preliminary task. Doing the task has given me a taste for what's to come and I am looking forward to creating the opening sequence to a children's film.

Francesca Hazel

Overall our sequence for the preliminary task worked quite well although we did encounter some problems when filming and editing afterwards. We had to incorporate a conversation into the sequence so we chose to use two girls having an argument and decided to use the girls bathroom as our setting as it is a typical place for events like this to occur. When filming we found it hard to get all the shots we needed as there was limited space in the small bathroom, however we overcame this by using the corridor outside to shoot our long shot.

The filming went well as we re shot some of the shots again if were weren't 100% happy with them, giving us the chance to choose the best afterwards and i think the shots we used worked well, especially the over the shoulder shots during the argument and when Hollie slapped Georgia. At times it was hard to keep the camera steady when filming shots that we couldn't use the tripod for but this didn't affect the shot too much.

When we came to editing our shots and creating the sequence it was hard to place the shots together and edit the duration so that the conversation flowed. It sounded unnatural as they had been shot seperately so it took lots of cutting down the shots and lining them up until we could make the conversation flow naturally. The continuity shot was similar as it had to be cut at a precise point to make it flow from the shot before, but we managed to fix this. Another problem we encountered was the speech in our sequence as we had to remove the swear words. It took a while to get used to the software used to edit sound, but in the end we managed to dip the sound level so that the swear words were inaudible.

I think our group worked well together as everyone had there own ideas and when we put them all together and incorparated them into our sequence we were happy with the result. The preliminary task helped us all the get more experience with the software and i now feel more confident using it.

Kiera Roseberry


During our preliminary task we had a few problems but overall the project went well and our sequence came out well. The main problem we had was during filming, we had to encorperate many different shot types, which included a long shot. As we chose to film our girl fight sequence in the girls toilets we realised that shooting a long shot was going to be difficult as the toilets are only small, we resolved this by using the establishing shot in the corridoor as our long shot too.

Another problem we had was continuity, we had a few issues when hollie was coming through the door and we had one shot one side of the door and one on the other side, but we resolved this in editing, and also when Hollie slaps Georgia it ws hard to get the over the shoulder shot of georgia being slapped and the shot before of the front of Hollie about to slap her.

After filming we uploaded our sequence and started editing, one of the problems we faced was cutting down each part and then sitll keeping it in sync. Another problem with editing was cutting out the couple of swearwords in the fight scene, this was hard to do as we only wanted to mute on word and no the whole sentance other wise it wouldnt make sense, we couldnt do this at first but then we zoomed into the part we were muting so that we could make a more accurate change to it.

I think during this task we worked very well as a group and we all learned new things about filming and the camera equipment and we also gained further knowledge of how to use the macs and how to edit our sequences which will help us when we do our other sequences in the future.

Welcome

Our group consists of Kiera Roseberry, Fran Hazel, Georgia Phillips and Hollie Upton. We had to create a short sequence for our preliminary task this involved taking a variety of shots such as:
-a long shot
-close up
-continuity shot
-establishing shot
-reaction shot
-shot reverse shot
and we had to make sure we kept to the 180 degree rule.

After completing our preliminary task we are still unsure of what idea we are going to go through with when creating our final children's film opening. Our next task is to research children's films and get a clear idea of how our opening is going to look like and be based about.