Organisation - Pre-production

Location:

We decided to film our opening title sequence at my house as we feel that it created the right setting for our character Daisy. The house is a typical family house; semi-detached in the suburbs of London. The rooms we shoot in are a bedroom and the kitchen. The bedroom was big enough to offer us space to film and we re-arranged it with clothing and belongings of Daisys' in order to make it feel like her own room. When we filmed in the kitchen, we felt it was the right setting for Daisy to have an argument in with her brother, Jason about what she was wearing. It is here we see him acting like the older and wiser brother.

Exterior:



Daisy's bedroom (though not set up with her belongings and clothes):



The kitchen:



Costume and Make Up:

Our cast only consists of two characters:
-Daisy: the main character.
-Jason: Daisy's brother.

We decided to base Daisy on some of the more rebellious charcters from both TV Drama and Film. Here are some of our main influences:

Jenny from TV show 'Gossip Girl':


Anna from 'Freaky Friday':


So taking inspiration from the characters above we created Daisy's rebellious, rock chick, grunge look:



As you can see from the characters above, both Daisy, and Jenny from 'Gossip Girl' wear dark and heavy eye make up with messy, untamed hair.

Ellie, Kate and I wanted Daisy's older brother to look more like the typical, normal boy. We decided to dress Jason in a plain white top:



Props used in 'Chasing Daisy':
-clothes to spread out over the room.
-Daisy's belongings also spread out over the room.
-the clothes Daisy gets dressed in.
-Daisy's bag.
-cigarettes, lighter, pills, beer bottle and jewellery on the bedside table.
-magasine Jason reads.

Equipment used to film 'Chasing Daisy':
-Sony Handycam.
-Tripod.

Development

Generating Ideas:

The first time we shot our opening title sequence, we had put together a story about a 15 year old girl called Cassie. It showed her getting ready for school in the morning. From the setting of the girls room, we can tell that she is quite girlie, but not over girlie. From her clothes, we can tell that she is cool and laid back; she throws on jeans, a t shirt and ballet pumps. In our film, we portray the girl as laid back and popular. This we can tell through her clothes, room style and the music which she plays. The girl is called Cassie, although the audience are not told this. She lives in the suburbs of London, in a middle-class, average home, which can be seen in the establishing shot.

When we looked at our footage of what we had filmed, we realised that there were many faults with it. These issues included problems with lighting and continuity, sound was muffled and we had broken the 180 degree rule. We decided that it would be best to create a new title sequence, reshoot and edit it.

We took our inspiration from films such as 'Legally Blonde' and 'Pretty in Pink' and decided to create a montage sequence of a girl getting ready. We called our film 'Chasing Daisy.'

We decided to change the story and made it about a slightly older girl than Cassie and named her Daisy. By looking at the way Daisy dresses, her make-up and the state of her room, it is clear to see that Daisy is quite a rebellious teenager. The opening title sequence shows Daisy getting up late in the afternoon and this is made clearer when we see that she opens her front door to her friends and it is dark outside. As she is getting ready, the shot cuts to one of her two friends waiting for her. It is clear that Daisy has been asleep for most of the day and is preparing to go out.

During the filming process, Ellie and Kate took on the role of directing and filming the sequence together with Ellie making an appearence in the film. I acted in the film.

During the editing process, I took on the role of editing the film together, Ellie took on the role of creating the titles and Kate took on the role of creating the music on Garageband.

Though it took us another two times to get out final footage for 'Chasing Daisy' we learned from our mistakes each time and managed to create our final product.

Shot List for 'Chasing Daisy.'



Storyboard for 'Chasing Daisy' shown as an animatic:

Research

Opening Title Sequences:

We felt that the three films which resemble similar opening title sequences to ours are 'Legally Blonde', 'Freaky Friday' and 'Pretty in Pink.' All three include a montage sequence in the opening two minutes of the film which is what we are hoping to do for our own.

Legally Blonde:


In the opening title sequence for 'Legally Blonde' we are shown a montage sequence of a girl getting ready. At the same time, we are also shown what is going on presumably around her. It is clear to the audience that we are being introduced to the main character of the film. From what we are shown about the character, though we do not see her face, we get the feeling that this girl is going to be the typical blonde stereotype. We took Legally Blonde as an inspirtation as it allows the audience to feel like they are learning things about the main character that will be important and will have relevance to the film. The song used in this opening title sequence is a girly, pop song which represents the character we are watching as she gets ready.

Freaky Friday:


In 'Freaky Friday' a montage sequence is also used. This montage sequence is different to the one used in 'Legally Blonde' as it does not show our main character getting ready but instead we are introduced to where she lives, her mother and her attitude. From the first two minutes we can tell that she has been stereotyped as a typical teenager. She is lazy and is not wanting to get out of bed. The character Anna has posters and pictures all over the walls of her room and she has clothes strewn about on the floor. Again, this helps to represent the typical, rebellious teenager. This is again reinforced when she reappears wearing a rock t-shirt showing that she is not a girly girl, cheerleading type. This is similar to the character that we are hoping to create; someone rebellious with a dark character. The original song used in the title sequence is called 'Happy Together.' However, because of copyright this song could not be uploaded to YouTube.

Pretty in Pink:


The opening title sequence of 'Pretty in Pink' is the sequence which is of the most influence towards our opening title sequence. Though the above clip is of the trailer, you can see cutaways of her getting ready in the morning. Like her morning ritual, in a way. This is what we are hoping to create for our character. In 'Pretty in Pink' we are introduced to the main character through a montage sequence of her gettng ready for the day. By the clothes she is putting on, to the accesories she's picking out, to her make up; we can tell that she is a girly girl who is obsessed with the colour pink. This introduces us to her as a character and we gradually find out more and more about her personality.

Researching Audiences:

We are aiming our opening title sequence at the teenage age group. We feel that young adults could really relate to the character portrayed in our film as it is clear that the character is going through the same issues as real teenagers her age go through. Her rebellious character is a phase that all teenagers go through and therefore, we think that this will really help to attract the teenage audience.

Brief

For our AS Media Coursework we need to create a two minute opening title sequence for a new feature film. This includes the processes of development, production and distribution. We are going to look at opening title sequences of films similar to the one we are hoping to create.

Preliminary Task

For the preliminary task, I filmed with Douglas Kay. Before we began filming, we drew up room plans, camera angles and a storyboard. During editing we had some difficulties when matching audio with the right camera angles but by using 'fade in' on the voices, both audio and picture matched up in the final cut, shown below.

Plan:
This is the plan I did for my preliminary task. It shows a birds eye view of the room which we filmed in and shows all the different shots we used.