The ideas behind our opening sequence

From watching many different styles and genres of children's films, our group have designed a storyboard using various different themes that childrens films present. For example, we wanted to create an adventurous, sci fi like, quest film, that children could follow but still be gueesing, and using there own imagination to decide for themselves what the story means to them.

We begin our storyboard with a slow zoom, long fade with the camera facing a boy sat in the centre of a room. This boy is facing the camera, and on his desk in front of him is a picture. A picture of a woodey setting where later on in the opening scene, the picture becomes real.

    

How our film incorporates challenges

Our opening sequence follows the conventions of having opening credits overlaying the footage. This shows the main directors and character names in the film as it would do in a professional film.

The image shows how we used credits.

We think we challenge the stereotypical children's film as ours shows darker scenes in the woods whereas many children's films are far happier. However the movie 'A series of unfortunate events' is alike our opening sequence as they are both dark settings.

The dark setting compared with many Children's Films

We also share our plot development with other children's films as it changes when he enters the dream. This is alike other films like 'Alice in Wonderland' as the main plot give away happens when Alice enters the underworld.

This is the comparison of the two dream worlds where they reveal the plot.

Key Features of our Film

Key features of our film are:

Character

• Stereotypical character (Jack played as a typical 12 year old school boy, who has dicscovered something within his picture)
• Stereotypical mentor character ( Harry plays a more confident, higher status character who enters with power and authority. He confuses the audience in the opening sequence by only saying one line, which keeps the audience guessing to what part he plays in the film. But in later sequences we discover he is a mentor character)

Setting

• The opening sequence is filmed in a mysterious school in an arts and crafts class, where the main character draws a picture of the schools woods, and begins to dream he's view of the dark, mysterious setting in front of him. After jack enters his dream he finds himself sitting on his chair on a field, where the woods is close by. As the camera angle changes we begin to see jack walking into the woods, and from there, the rest of the opening sequence is filmed in the woods.
• The first few scenes are filmed in an arts and crafts class, where the teacher is the first character we discover. He is only seen in the filmed sequence inside the classroom, which helps the audience understand that the classroom room is where he works and stays for most of the film.  

Storyline

• The plot of this opening sequence we have designed to be tension building, and suspense like. This resembles to the long walking scenes that jack is in, and helps draw out a suspicious, questionable introduction.

Comparing characters

Central Characters

The central characters in our film are Jack and Harry. This is because Jack is the main character filmed and Harry is shown to have a important role. Jack is seen as a main character because he has most screen time in the opening sequence and the camera is following his life. Harry shows that he has an important role when Jack finds the mysterious device and Harry says "you have found it". This leaves the film on a cliff hanger and allows the audience to ask questions about the characters and the device.

Comparing with a professional film - Alice in wonderland

We can compare our children's film with Alice in Wonderland we are alike they're story of the dream world. The character in our film of 'Jack' can be compared with 'Alice' because they both find themselves as the main character exploring through an adventure and ending up in a dream world. Jack has fallen asleep into a day dream and Alice falls down a hole into underworld. They both experience a confused and strange feeling as they appear in the dream world. This is shown as Jack questions his location by saying 'huh?' and how Alice finds this underworld resembles her nightmares. 

Harry can be compared with the cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland as the cat is shown as a mentor and Harry is also shown as this mentor figure. This can be shown in the opening sequence as Harry shows that he is the more powerful character as he tells Jack 'you have found it' and makes Jack look vulnerable .

Intended Audience for our Film

The age range for this film, we believe, would be from 6 to 13 but with slight adult humor, and has an resemblance to modern adult society. Adults will also find this interesting to watch because they will pick up on parts the children may not and they will try and decipher them.
We did this by having stereotypical characters which are easy to understand and their status' are easily worked out by having camera shots that determine status and power.
Also, we have included a catch soundtrack that the adults will enjoy more then the small children, but the small children will still enjoy it.
Our storyline is very basic to understand and we have used Disney's Traditional storyline which has many highs and lows and this helps the children relate and understand the film.

BBFC Classification for our Childrens Film.

We feel that our children's film 'Misunderstood' would be a PG. In the opening scenes, the viewers may feel that this is harsh as the opening sequence includes conventions of the 'U' Classification but on the basis that later on in the film there will be slightly dark and frightening moments with mild bad language and lighthearted, comedic violence.

For example, when the main character enters the woods, the setting is dark and startling and small children might find this frightening, But we lightened the mood by putting an upbeat and 'happy sounding' soundtrack within the scene.

The Misunderstood Final Render without black beginning

What went well

The cinematography went well as we completed all filming in the allocated time and were pleased with the footage we had taken. We also had finished filming mostly within the same day so that the lighting changes were minimal. This worked by recording all of the outside scenes on one day and recording the inside scenes on another to allow for continuity.

Our planning also went well as we didn't need to improvise in any sections as we made a detailed storyboard and many blog posts to ensure we made it correctly. Our planning also showed that we combined two storyboards or ideas to get a final product of one storyboard. This allowed for many good ideas to be combined and get an adventure.

The editing and soundtrack went well  as they were perfectly timed together so that the music links with what is happening. 

What didn't go well

Firstly we think that there was some continuity problems in some of our shots as Harry was in one of them and also the tripod was in the other. However we quickly found these problems and re-filmed each clip. 

Another problem would be that during filming there was ongoing background noise to make it that in the final 10 seconds of the opening sequence we couldn't hear Harry as clear as you could hear Michael and Jack. We couldn't lower the background noise and keep the same voice level of Harry talking so we had to leave it as it was. 

Originally we had a 20 second black screen during the beginning of the film and found that this was a problem.  

Misunderstood final opening sequence

Overall we are pleased with our opening sequence. We discovered  few problems such as key framing colour correction although we fixed these issues quickly. 

Children's Film - todays accomplishments

Today we planned to:

1. Add credits to the opening sequence
2. Add the finalised soundtrack to the film and put it in time
3. Create a title for the film

To decide on credits we found that we needed a child like font to go with the audience but also the right colour so that you could read it against the background. 

We created the soundtrack on a separate machine to ensure that we use our time wisely and that we could get it done. The problems with this is that we didn't have the film in Garageband at the same time and so we didn't know whether it was in time. To solve this, we gathered the correct timings of speech from the film and just lowered the volume of the soundtrack.

To decide on the title we had to look back at our storyboard and use the planned story to gain the title of 'Misunderstood'. 

We achieved all of the above and we're happy with the sync between the film and music.

Our objectives for next lesson include:

1. Adding colour correction and refining the film
2. Export to blog

Children's Film Research - What is a children's film?

A children's film is a film especially aimed for the audience of children and nobody else. There is no other audience that its aimed for. For example films like Toy Story and Finding Nemo are key examples of Children's films as they are animated and are about an adventure.

The most common genres used in children's films are action, adventure, fantasy and comedy. The characters are usually played by famous actors and there are usually many different character types.
For example in Toy Story the characters of 'Buzz' and 'Woody' are the heroes yet still are different character types.

The opening conventions of the opening sequence may contain:
Title sequence
Credits
Introduction of main characters
Establishment or setting the scene of location
Sound track or theme
Introduction of the film narrative and genre

Children's Film Research - Credits

The opening credits of a children's film usually include things like the producers, directors, sponsors, characters, music producers, editors, designers and if its an animation then animation designers, effects and others like associates.

The way that the opening credits is incorporated into a animation like The Incredibles is that the credits are in action with the scene. For example in background of the opening credits for the film is moving characters and explosions. The credits are moving with this and are linked to whatever happens here. This opening shows that this scene is dedicated to the credits by having no characters introduced or spoken about here.

Children's Film - Second and third day of filming

On our second day of filming we planned to try and film the outside scene with also some establishing shots. We wanted to get this done to ensure that the outside setting remains the same throughout the opening whereas if we started filming on two separate days the lighting may be different.

We succeeded in completing the outside filming and some outside shots but also we completed one classroom shot as well. However we later found, after reviewing the footage, that two of the shots we had taken had problems with them. For example one shot had someone in the background who wasn't supposed to be there and the other had a piece of camera equipment in the background. To fix this we decided that on the third day we would need to redo these shots.

On the third day of filming our aims were to complete the classrooms scene but also, due to problems with earlier footage, to redo some outside shots. After completing all of this we would have finished our filming on time.

We finished our classroom scenes and corrected the outside scenes within thirty minutes of filming. We now have the editing and the soundtrack to do.

Children's Film - Script

Classroom Scene: Mitch:  'Right class, today we are doing this'
                                         'Thats Good'
                            Jack: 'Thank you'
                                    'Huh'
                           Harry 'You have found it!'

Childrens Film - Prop and costume list

Props:
Black marble car tyre to act as magical object.
Chair
Table
Picture of story
Classroom
Train

Costume:
Green jumper
Blue Jeans
Dark Navy blue jumper
Jeans

Children's Film - First day of filming/blog posts

In the first hour of the lesson we decided to do some blog posts instead of filming. This included: Shot list, location pictures, title sequence and the final storyboard design.

Then, with thirty minutes left of the lesson we decided to take some establishing shots of our children's film so that we had some useful footage to edit later on. We got an establishing shot of the outside from a high angle and also using the long shot camera technique. This gave us some footage to edit in the titles here. Also we got a long shot of the main character walking towards the woods as this showed the scale of the woods.

Childrens Film - Final Storyboard decision

We made the choice of either two similar storyboards and decided instead of choosing one to mix the two.
The first storyboard had a zoom in front of the character but the second had a over the shoulder shot. We then had blinking and zooming onto the picture. We mixed both storyboards by using the picture, blinking and transitioning into the scene. Both storyboards had similar endings and we used them both.

Childrens Film - Location Photos part 2:

Classroom Establishing Shot

Mid Shot

Close-Up

Point Of View Shot

Point Of View Shot 2

Establishing Classroom Shot

Mid Shot

Mid Shot

Close Up And Over the Shoulder

POV of character

POV of Keyboard.

Children's Film - Title Sequence

Sponseredbyfender productions in association with Marshgreen entertainment.
Ruddy Pictures.
Ruddy Pictures presents.

Main Title:

Jack Sandham
Jason Marshgreen
Michael Ruddy
Harry Blair

Written and directed by Harry Blair and Jason Marshgreen.
Produced by Long Road Media.

Children's Film - Shot List

Classroom Scene:

• Establishing shot to set the scene.
• Panning across to show all the scene.
• Slow zoom on characters face (close-up)
• Long fade in
• Whilst zooming it will transition to  a point of view shot.
• Blur, still with point of view.
• When the character starts blinking it uses quick fade in/out.
• Slow motion change as the character is starting to daydream
• Camera zooms down with point of view shot into picture.
• Scene then blurs the picture so it transitions into it.
• Camera looks up to new scene and character is in the picture.

Outside Scene: 

• Zooming out to establishing shot
• Extreme long shot
• Hitchcock zoom
• Tracking the character as they walk into woods.
• Using over the shoulder whilst tracking.
• Character finds a special magical object using a low angle shot to show significance.
• Beam of light (after effects) on this object as the shot transitions into the sky.

Storyboard and Location Shots

2) Changes to a high angle, extreme long shot, of jack, showing scale of scene. Character moves towards the trees, camera zooms, following character into woods.

1) After day dream transition, next shot establishes scene in characters point of view, camera moves from left to right, imitating the characters moves. 

3) Character comes into scene from front, over the shoulder shot, into the woods, tracking the character.

4) Once into the woods, character stops looks around, and starts moving in direction of trees.

5) Camera looking between tree, seeing character move from background gradually into foreground. 

7) Depth of field looking through leaf, leaf moving creating tension.

6) Character finding something on log, low angle, making him seem important.

U2-62: Previous Children's Film Opening

What's good about the film:

• Good effects on opening
• Lots of different camerawork: match on action, close up, over the shoulder.
• We liked the use of the lighting effects near the end to show flickering.
• Depressing sound that fits the theme.
• Simple story-line.

Q1-08 Children's Film Introduction

Whats good:

• clever tranistions
• whilst exiting and dramatic, not over the top 
• a range of differant camera angle that helped support the plot of the story
• easily understandable storyline
• good costumes
• 
  

Classification Research - '18'

'18'
No one younger than 18 may see an '18' film in cinema or rent/buy one.

• Material is in breach of criminal law.
• Material appears to risk harm to individuals or violent acts. This may contain illegal drugs and contain portrayals of sexual violence.
• Explicit images of sexual activity which cannot be justified by context.
• Video Games may have more frequent intervention than films
• Sex education: Where it is used to inform and educate, explicit images are permitted.

Classification Research - '15'

'15'

• No one younger then 15 can enter a cinema to see this classified film
• The entire film must not reinforce bad language or behavior
• Drug taking may be shown but must not promote actual drug use
• strong threat is allowed if not sexual or sadistic
• dangerous behavior should no be dwelt on
• there may be frequent use of strong language if justified by the context
• some sexual nudity alowed
• violence may be strong but not dwelt on

Classification Research - '12, 12A'

'12/A'

The same criteria counts for both 12 and 12A. Work classified at this category may upset children of 12 and under. A 12A requires anyone under the age of 12 to be accompanied by an adult. 

• Discrimination language must not be endorsed by the work and aggression is unlikely to be acceptable.
• Drugs must be infrequent and not glamorized.
• Horror most be moderate and infrequent.
• Imitable behavior should not be in detail.
• Language should be moderate and infrequent.
• Nudity is allowed but brief.
• Sex should be brief and discreetly portrayed.
• Mature themes are acceptable.
• Moderate violence should not be in detail.

Classification Research - 'U'

'U' Classification:
Should be suitable for audiences aged four and over and should set a positive moral framework. A 'U' needs to have counterbalances to violence, threat or horror. Discrimination, drugs, horror, violence imitable behavior and language should be infrequent, mild or nothing at all.

Classification Research - 'PG'

'PG' Classification:

• No detail of Potentially dangerous behaviour
• No prolonged fighting scenes
• Moderate violence without detail
• Mild bad language
• Discreet and infrequent sex references and innuendo
• Natural nudity only

Introduction Research - Finding Nemo

Genre: Adventure, animation.
The trailer shows the main plot behind the film which is to find Nemo. There is also a hint in the title of the film. This trailer uses non digetic suspenseful music and a montage of scenes at one point to show the  importance. Like other trailers this uses non digetic music to help establish the film.
Characters: Introduction of main characters by showing the problem and who is involved.
Camerawork: montage, close-ups, establishing shots.
Sound: suspenseful, dubbed sound of water.

Introduction Research - Series of unfortunate events

Genre: Detectives, dark.

The opening at first shows a fake scene to 'happy elf' which then changes to the film itself. This shows a contrast between the happiness of that film with the depressing scene of this film. It then sets the scene and the plot with the passing of the main characters parents.

Animation to begin the credits: contrast of happy and sad introduction.
Introduction to characters by using non digetic narration for each person.
Camera shots: low lighting, close-ups on the main characters for each introduction, match on action, long shot of the fire/event.
Sound: Happy at the start then contrast to depressing.

Introduction Research - Monsters Inc.

The genre of the film: Scary, comedy, animation.

The opening scene shows the main plot of the film, which is to scare children through the doors. It doesn't introduce the main characters.
characters: No main characters introduced.
camerawork: over the shoulder, close up,  match on action, high angle, low light, tracking.
Animation to begin opening credits.
Sound: Suspense as he enters.

Introduction Research - Toy Story 3 trailer

Genre: adventure, action, animation.

Introduces most of the main characters in the trailer by showing that woody is the leader and buzz is the follow up. Basically the trailer is showing what kind of personalities some of the characters have and how important each characters part is in the film.
Camerawork: Tracking the scene; one camera type of shot.
Sound: Non digetic music to show the adventure genre and its the main theme song.