Opening sequence 3- Finding Nemo

This film is also a highly popular film, particularly with those that were children when it first came out on DVD in 2003. One of the main characters- Marlin a clown fish- and his wife are seen inspecting their new home where they hope to raise four hundred children, all of whom are currently in eggs in a crevice below their home. Their new neighbourhood is shown with bright lighting from above the ocean, warm colours and happy laughter of children chasing each other.

 

Marlin on the left, wife Carol on the right and their
four hundred children waiting to hatch

The opening sequence of this film is child-friendly and nicely coloured to represent the happiness and security about the sea. I could use a similar affect at the beginning of my production, with the two heroes in their bright colours and in a bright light to signify that help has arrived. By changing the lighting and the shades of the colours, the mood presented is changed, such as when Carol swims out of her new home and comes face to face with a predator of the sea. All their new neighbours have hidden and Carol's main worry is her four hundred children nesting below. Marlin warns her to return the anenome, but she dives, a sudden movement that sparks the antagonist's anger and causes it to attack.

 



Face to face with danger

Danger

 

The happiness of the opening scene has gone, replaced by a slow and serious darker mood, exaggerating the obvious danger. Following Carol's dive, the predator goes after her, but Marlin puts a full-force tackle against it, only to be whacked aside by the monstrosity's tail and knocked unconscious.

When he awakes, all is gone, but one egg. Nemo, a name chosen by his unfortunate wife.
The colours in the picture of Marlin finding his one remaining child are all dark shades of blue and shadows. This is perfectly symbolic of his mood when he realises that next to nothing remains of the life he could have had and his immense grief.





The colours in the picture of Marlin resting the last egg on his fin are a bit brighter, his one last shard of something that could have and should have been. We see clearly the crack in the egg, which may be the cause of Nemo's characteristic 'lucky fin'. By Marlin calling his last child Nemo, he is remembering his wife's request and honoring it. He grows into being an over-protective father, much to Nemo's annoyance, but Marlin has lost so much already and couldn't stand to lose what little he has left.

 

 

Opening sequence 2- How to train your dragon

The opening sequence begins with the trademark man-in-moon Dreamworks, a night sky behind him with the clouds being cleared by a flick of his fishing line. If you look in the background carefully, a silhouette belonging clearly to a dragon- a Night Fury in particular- can be seen. This is key to the play as it is clearly about dragons and a Night Fury- or Toothless, as the main character, Hiccup, names him- is the first dragon to form a bond with a Viking.

Hiccup describes his home village as 'twelve days north of hopeless and a few degrees south to freezing to death'. His tone is serious and slightly depressed at describing his home. The village itself has stood for seven generations, 'but every single building is new'. His tone, his description of Berk and the slight lilt in his voice as he claims every house to be recently constructed, shows that there are issues with Berk, but these issues have a sense of interest to them.

He compares his home to that of other places. The only problem with Berk is the 'pests'. Most places have rats or mosquitoes, he claims as a shadow swoops over grazing sheep and drags one away. A fellow sheep seems not to be bothered by this sudden disappearance and moves forward to eat the grass his now absent friend had.

We first see Hiccup as he looks at the camera with his back to the door he had just hastily closed as fire billows around it. The constant attack of the dragons explain why every house is new. Hiccup appears to have a lopsided smile, as if the fact that dragons attacking his home village fascinates him.

'Most people would leave,' Hiccup states, but not them. They're Vikings and they have 'stubborness issues'. This proves evident as there are armoured Vikings running around with shields and weapons, seemingly at ease with the disastrous events wrecking havoc on their home. Hiccup is looked at disdainfully and many tell him to return inside or get out of the way. He is a clumsy character, unlike the rest of his Viking tribe. They are all prepped and built to fight dragons and protect their home- Hiccup is not.

Berk

Berk appears to be a mysterious island, described with negative words such as 'freezing death', 'misery' and 'hopeless', and this mystery is shrouding the island in a dense fog and icy waters. I believe I would not be using this sort of effect in my story as my production will not be as violent or as disastrous, although there may be a sense of mystery about it, such as the unidentifiable figure standing in front of two captured heroes.

Hiccup

 

 

 

Opening sequence 1- Tangled

Tangled is a popular film directed at young children, particularly girls as it concerns a princess.

The opening sequence starts off on a serious note, with it being dark and in a dense wooded area. There is a voiceover of one of the main characters- Flynn Rider or Eugene- speaking gravely about how this is the story of how he died. He instantly lightens his tone after that, and directs the audience's attention to the sun, a key part of this movie. It's a warm and bright factor in his tale.

He tells the story with a friendly tone, pointing out another key character- Mother Gothel. Whenever this character appears, she is seen in the darkness with shadows playing over her face. Stormy weather or the night sky is often displayed when this character is on screen- a form of pathetic fallacy. We know instantly that she is the 'bad guy' of this film and they use her manipulative characteristics to build suspense in the movie. She was said to have kept the flower a secret- a selfish act symbolic of her greed- but she slipped up and accidently revealed the flower to those that genuinely needed it.

The flower, the one linked to a drop of the sun featured in Eugene's tale, was used for good, its magic powers healing the pregnant queen and gifting her daughter, Rapunzel. The baby is shown in warm and bright lighting with wide, innocent eyes and blonde hair that fell about her childish features. Her looks remind us of who she is and the lighting played over her shows us that she is the protagonist. There are two key things in highlighting that she is the princess- the first one is her father placing a beautiful tiara on her head that doesn't fit and slips slightly over her face, to which she laughs at. The second thing is that, 'each year, on her birthday', the royals release thousands of floating lanterns into the sky in hope of her return.

Gothel kidnapped the child after finding out about the powers she inherited from the magic flower and the last we see of her is a billow of a dark cloak into as she vanishes with the child. She raises Rapunzel as her own, another sign of her deceitfulness and we see her sitting with the child a few years down the line, brushing Rapunzel's hair as Rapunzel sings the song required to activate her healing powers. They sit by a fire, Rapunzel in the homely light while her 'mother' sits further back, in the shadows and using Rapunzel's gift for her own selfish requirements. She does not allow Rapunzel to go outside, we discover following a question by the curious child. Gothel is further contented to see herself younger and this is displayed with the use of match-on-action, cutting from a side-shot of Rapunzel to a close-up of Gothel's hand as it loses the signs of aging. The side shot of Rapunzel could be to hide her identity, as Gothel had done for years by this point and will continue to do so for years to come.

We do see Rapunzel's face towards the end of the opening scene. She creeps down the stairs while her 'mother' sleeps- we see Gothel lying in her bed through a door past Rapunzel. We know that if Rapunzel's hair was to be cut, it would lose it's power, and this point is emphasised by how long her hair is as she sneaks downstairs to a window where she gets a perfect view of a sky full of floating lanterns. She does not know they are for her, but feels as if they are special and you can tell this by the wonder on her face as the scene ends on a close-up of her expression.

I could use similar lighting techinques within my own production. The heroes in my short film could be established in a warm, bright light- maybe sunlight through the window, depending on the weather. This will show them to be the heroes that they are and to further that point, I could use a low angle shot to highlight their super hero quality.

For my own villian, I could have a darker light about her, such as shadows across her face. This would be ideal alongside a high angle shot- looking down on her- to signify that, although she is screaming for help, there is something about her that is not quite right.

Mother Gothel seen as old, angry and hooded dark figure

 

Baby Rapunzel with tiara

King and Queen releasing the first lantern of thousands to celebrate their daughter's birth

Main task basic notes

Actors and costumes:

Billy- Batman!
Thomas- Superman?
Emma- Buzz Lightyear, princess or other

Locations:

Garden, living room, bedrooms, hallways, kitchen, drive, back room- ENTIRE HOUSE

Props:

Nerf guns, fairy wings for Emma, toy guns with lights and sounds, lightsabers, wands, toy weapons, cushions


Rating of production:

U or PG
U- Universal
PG- Parental Guidance
Child friendly video, harmless humour and some idiocy

Ideas:

Drama for the opening sequence could be somebody has taken Emma's chocolate bar or Thomas's sweets and they won't rest until they found out who done it. Billy could get involved as Batman and try to solve the case, but I could include close-ups of him sneakily eating the sweets while Thomas and Emma are bickering over who did it. Needs to have 180 degree rule, match on action, shot/reverse shot, camera shots- close-ups, etc. - script, credits and ORGANIZATION.

Batman going Batty- one of the storyboards- Thomas and Emma try to calm Batman down, but Batman runs about the house. Match-on action could be use to show him running out of the living room and down the hallway, to the kitchen by moving the camera and editing bits out.

Preliminary task evaluation

I have used media conventions such as filming by setting up a camera and organising my younger siblings into various roles for them to play. My younger sister, Emma, was given the job of descending the stairs, opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down, as was required.

The main shot I’ve used was a wide or establishing shot, but I intend to use a variety of other shots for the main task. The mise-en-scene and the layout is simply my home, where it is easier to film as travel is obviously not needed and my siblings can simply be themselves for the camera in an environment that is suitable for them. There are a range of colours and images as I move about the house to do the recordings.

As for addressing the audience, the language is casual, informal, as these are my younger siblings and they have that childish banter and dialect.

Skills I’ve developed during the preliminary task include research, planning and production, all of which proved vital. The research helped me to understand more about filming techniques and camera shots- match on action, close-ups, etc. while the planning gave me ideas to work with and organise the production. These ideas kept changing as new ones emerged every now and then. My favourite ones were drawn up into storyboards and I’ve developed them based on my younger siblings’ interests, habits and personalities.

Editing the video proved difficult to begin with, but I managed to piece together three separate videos, cutting some of the content out and combining it all to make a longer, draft video for the preliminary task. For future filming and editing, I'll have less of my siblings mucking around and just going about their usual activities and try to organise them into the roles of one of my storyboards.

More videos, not yet editted

This is my younger sister, Emma-Jane, simply recorded as more videos were required. I plan to edit the videos so that I can get various pieces from all of them and put them together in one video. It took several attempts as she was running into a door and falling over just for the fun of it.

Pictures of little sister in elf costume

Emma in an elf costume for Storyboard 4. Attempted two poses.

Practise videos, not edited

Short clips of younger siblings; Emma-Jane, Emma or Missy Madam (aged 5), Thomas or Wurly (aged 7) and Billy or Nutjob (aged 9). Filmed at home, with Emma on the stairs and running into the living room and the two boys playing Lego Marvel Super Heroes on the PS3.

First video is from a while ago of Billy being his usual nutjob self. Recorded on my brother's Blackberry.


The following videos are all takes and of my siblings with me trying to direct them into helping. This isn't easy when my sister wants to watch every video in between recording and my brothers are on their new game.