Evaluation Unit 6

In this evaluation I will be talking about the good points and bad points in my title sequence.

My task was to make a title sequence for one of the seven deadly sins. The title sequence had to last at lest a minimum of 30 seconds and a maximum of 1:30. Some of my intentions was to make a title sequence that lasts for 1:00 about the deadly sins “Wrath” or “Greed”. These also were my initial ideas to make a simple title sequence about either “Wrath” or “Greed”. The idea for “Wrath” was about a person who overcomes everyday scenarios like waiting in a queue and talking to people and in the end eventually uses there wrath to destroy the scenario. The idea for “Greed” was about a person spending money too quickly and not saving any money for the future. In the end, the person runs out of money and thinks back why they didn’t save any of the money. After looking through these ideas a few times, I decided on choosing the “Wrath” idea because it was simpler I thought than the “Greed” idea and I didn’t have a lot of time to film the title sequence and the”Wrath” idea was shorter than the “Greed” idea.

Why I think an opening title sequence will help me in the future is because it briefly describes to the audience what could happen in the film and also describes what genre it is to the audience. So if there was fighting in the title sequence the audience would know that the film and title sequence is an action genre. It sets out what might happen in the film. As well as that, it also gives me practice in how to make a title sequence in the future. My skills in filming and editing before this unit were not to bad. This is because I had already done filming and editing before on a few other units and I knew how to operate the camera, editing software and camera settings. The only two things I didn’t know was how to use a green screen and Adobe After Effects.

To start my research off, I made a proposal about my seven deadly sins title sequence and how I would sell it to a client. The proposal explained the initial idea of my title sequence that was a person using there wrath on a number of different scenarios. Then I moved on talking about the aesthetics in my proposal. This included what colours I would use, working with the green screen and explaining what colours of the siloets would be in my project. As well as that, I explained about the different camera angles I would be using. What I mostly put down on my proposal were median shots and Dutch angles. I mentioned what font and colour I would like to see my text in and as well got some research from previous project that have used green screens. One project that I got inspirational from is the James Bond film “Casino Royale” where the title sequence is mostly green screen and then edited to make siloets. This was one idea which I liked for my title sequence having it all with siloets. I did look at a number of different title sequences from different genres to get some inspirational. To make the characters stand out more in the title sequence. I mentioned in the process the pre-production documents this was the storyboard, shot list, location recce and script. All of these pre-production documents explained how I plan and develop my idea.The last thing on my proposal was to say if they was going to be any problems in making the title sequence. I mentioned that if people were too close to the green screen it could make a shadow at the back of it which means I would have haft to taken more shots which takes more time. As well as that, using Adobe After Effects to edit on could be a challenge on that I haven’t used the software before.

Another part of my research was to research the seven deadly sins itself. The thing is that I didn’t research all seven sins I only researched my specific sin for my title sequence which was wrath. I found out a lot of information like the colour red is related to wrath and that the punishment for wrath is you’ll be dismembered alive. This would help me to develop my title sequence of wrath. My pre-production documents would help me plan and develop my title sequence. This included the storyboard to show what is happening in every scene by drawing. My script to know what characters are going to say. The shot list to know what shots are coming in each order for my title sequence and a location recce to know where the place is. However, I only used my shot list because when I develop on my idea I decided on no characters speaking so I didn’t need a script and because I was short on time I didn’t do a storyboard or location recce. However, I knew I was going to film my title sequence in the studio at college and I had a rough idea in how I wanted my title sequence to look.

The next part of my research was researching the editing software Adobe After Effects. I was researching this editing software because I would be editing my final product on it. What I started off with was, researching title effects,fonts and colours. This gave me the opportunity to make the title stand out in my title sequence. My tutor gave me a good understanding in how to set up and develop my titles. This included adding special effects like the title fades in after three seconds or the title slides in and increases over a period of ten seconds. I found doing this easy but a bit tricky in some areas especially trying to move the title around the screen. This included me using the pen tool to direct where I want my title to go. As well as that, adding in different colours to my title was pretty easy. This was done either by clicking on the pen tool, selecting a colour and changing the title colour. The other option was to drag and drop special colour effects in like a magma effect. This was great but sometimes when I dragged and dropped the colour effect on my title it sometimes didn’t go on the title and went on the background which was really annoying because I had to undo the background colour and start the process all over again. The one other thing was knowing how to change the font, that I found very simple because you only needed to highlight the title and click on the font drop down bar which would automatically change the font which I liked.

The last piece of research I looked conducted was researching how too operate the green screen and edit off it. When filming people on the green screen, you had to make sure the camera setting were correct. This for example was the ISO, Aperture and Focus. This did take a long time because you need to make sure everything is good to film when filming people on the green screen. When filming people on the green screen though I found it quite challenging in a way that you have to have the people in the centre of the green screen and not any way away from the camera. This is because it would not pick up the people you have filmed on the green screen. As well as that, I needed to make sure that the people were not too close to the green screen because it could create a shadow which when editing would be hard to edit out. However, though filming on the green screen wasn’t to bad because you are keeping the camera in one position which saves me moving it around which takes up time when filming. When editing the green screen footage I found it simple enough to add in picture background like route 66 which I used. The only difficult bit I found hard was cutting down the green screen background so you only have people you filmed in it. Eventually, I managed to cut out the background by looking through the right editing tools to make the people look correct with not green screen background and having a picture of route 66 in the background which I wanted. I was after this going to look at some After Effects tutorials off the internet but sadly I didn’t have enough time to do this.

What I thought about using Adobe After Effects was that it was a bit tricky to use in some areas. These areas were trying to add in a solid colour background, siloets and editing the product itself on After Effects. To start off with, Making the green screen having a solid colour background wasn’t as easy as it seemed. The first thing was that, I needed to delete the green screen background. So I highlighted the people in the film and cut out the green screen via the editing tool. Which found simple enough. The problem lied in changing the green screen colour, I used the pen tool and selected black the colour I wanted and clicked on the background. At first, it didn’t work I thought the software might have crash. I tried again numerous times and it didn’t work, so I restarted the software to try again. This didn’t work either. This got me really angry in the way that the software wouldn’t work. I asked my friends but they didn’t know what the problem was, I looked on the internet and couldn’t find any help at all. In the end, I asked my tutor who helped me and told me I didn’t make a composition which I need to do. The tutor explained how to make the solid colour background and what to do for next time. In the end, I did’t make a composition to drop the solid colour background in and then swap it around with the film. Which eventually made me the product that I wanted. What I would do next time is to look at more online tutorials about After Effects so I could get a better understanding in how to use it.

Another problem on After Effects was that creating a siloet for my title sequence was very hard at first. This was a similar problem to the solid colour background but the difference was that I couldn’t get the people on the film to turn to white. I already had a black background thanks to the solid colour background advise but I needed to know how to change the people on my green screen. The problem lied in that I didn’t change the black and white colour correction dial which either increases or decreases the colour. This is how I solved the problem about the colours of the people on screen and also managed to sharper both the black and white colours from the dial. As well as that, the black and white siloets suggests that the people on screen are vulnerable and the magma effect of my title suggests that it is like wrath in the way red is related to wrath as in my title. The special effects title made up of a magma special effects was good but in some places was hard to read so if I was to do this again I would change the title colour to red. My last problem on After Effects was editing my title sequence. On After Effects only one clip comes up that you can edit, I wanted to edit all the clips at once. However, this was not possible so I had to export all the edited clips which I had done on After Effects and structure them on Adobe Premier Pro. This wasn’t too bad, but did take up a lot of time when editing my product. I found Adobe Premier Pro easy to use because I have already used this software in the past. The only difficultly was making sure the clips and the music was in sink together. This was because some of the clips were not in sync the music and over a period of time I manged to get them both in sync together.

My final product as a all was not to bad because I managed the main intentions which I wanted in my title sequence, the down side for me was quality of the video. I wasn’t happy with the final product and could have done much better to edit it. I think that not using After Effects had a main factor in why I wasn’t satisfied with my final product. However, though the music, timing of camera shots and continuity I though weren’t to bad. I used Iron Maiden Phantom of the opera because the song is full of heavy metal which I thought fitted the idea of wrath because wrath is anger and the heavy metal song sounds very angry. I thought as well that, the timing of the camera shots were good because it ran very smooth through out the title sequence with also no continuity errors which meant the title sequence was well structure.

The down side I thought in my final product was that, I could have added more content into my title sequence. The two problems was that I didn’t know what else to put into my title sequence like more fighting for example. I thought though, if I repeat I would be repeating a lot of what I have already done in my title sequence which I didn’t want to do. The other issue was that I didn’t have enough time to add in any more content because I had a close deadline and needed to do other pieces of work as well. Finally, the design of the final product was good but I could have done much better. I could have done better by adding in more special effects like on my title and when they were people on screen. As well as that, the design could have had more of the narrative in about what wrath is about which I could if I tried it again. What makes a good title sequence is probably it explaining a lot of what the narrative is and about and having some action in it to keep the audience interested. This would be one I would do if I was going to do this task again. This is compared to my final product where it was good but could have had more of these elements of what I said a title sequence should have.

Feedback

Person 1: This is a good video Robbie the fight scene is great because it really fits with the music I thought the siloet was good. The names of actors and people starring in your sequence could have been clearer.

Person 2: This is pretty good Robbie. The fight scene looks great and the music fits well to the piece. However, the names weren’t very clear but overall, great job.