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