Task 4 The Pitch : Studio Logo

Ella and I both decided to create a design each seperately before coming together, showing and sharing our work with one another and then combining what we like from each one. Before we seperated to create our own design we had to discuss the main focus/ main image of what our studio logo was going to be. Eventually we decided on an oak tree as it word be a play on our production company's name: Oakford.

This was Ella's design which of course included the big oak tree in the middle of the screen. Her design also included the name of our company to the right-hand side of the tree. She incoporated falling leaves which were blowing off in the wind and were to appear that way on screen, as if they were continuously falling. She also drew a base which is a ground of grass on her design.

My design, which is to the right, included an extra word in the name: Villa. The reason for this is at the time of designing the logos we were unsure whether to call our company Oakford Productions or Villa Oakford Productions but we later decided to just stick to the combination of only our two last names. I included falling rain droplets, which I couldn't draw on the design as it wouldn't have been seen. I also seperated the two names on either side of the tree and placed the 'Productions' at the bottom.

We wanted this for our final design and, with help from a friend who had more experience with the program, ended up with this as our final design.  We chose to keep the grass from the bottom of Ella's design and the falling droplets from my design. We did however change one thing slightly by making our studio name have a 'wipe' effect and have the name appear one letter at a time. It was first made on photoshop by combining the grass and the oak tree and then, using Adobe After Effects, falling rain droplets and the 'wipe' effect was added which gives it a more professional look. We wanted to make sure to have a bright background also so the start of our film would look bright and not deary as it might do had we made the background grey or dark blue. Overall we were very happy with how our final studio logo turned out to be.

Task 4 The Pitch : Mind Maps

This was our final mind map for the planning of our film, the one in which we actually decided to follow and create our film around. 

We wanted to make sure that we included most things if not every detail from this mind map as we thought it was the best one we created. We seperated our mind maps into six sections: Locations, Representation, Costumes, Characters, Plot and Codes/Convention of a *chosen genre*.

For our final idea, which was a romance, we decided we would like the majority of the opening sequence to be located in a cafe, bar, restuarant or somewhere where the two characters could share a drink or food together after they met (which would be shown had we made our film into a full-length feature). Towards the end of planning we decided it would be best that our two characters first meet in a cafe as it is more quieter and gives the scene a more intimate feel and that is what we wanted as this is such an important moment in both Harriet and Louise's lives.

In our opening sequence, we wanted to show that it wasn't going to be a stereotypical romance where two heterosexual twenty-something year-old people meet and fall in love. So instead we decided to have our two main characters homosexual and also two girls, as when 'gay' movies are normally made they usually show homosexual males and so we wanted to show lesbians in our film instead to show diversity. We also wanted to show a younger love story so teenagers could also relate to it as they'd understand what the characters are going through as they are going through it and adults would relate as they have already been through it.

We wanted to keep our costumes basic so we decided we'd have two for Harriet: one for her getting out of bed and one for wearing outside, one for Louise and one for the waiter. We wanted to show Harriet as more of a 'tom-boy' like character so we chose darky colours and unisex clothing. For Harriet, even though only shown for a few seconds, we wanted to have her in lighter colours and even maybe some makeup, in order to give off a more girlier vibe. For the waiter we decided we wanted to give it a stereotypical 'waiter' type look.

There are only minimal characters as as it is only the opening sequence of a film we thought that not many people would be introduced so we kept it at only three.

We tried to create an exciting storyline and one that would captivate an audience and so we decided to add in something different and give it a fantasy-like feel, which is shown by the timer that each person has on their arms.

For the codes and conventions that we wanted to use in our storyline, we decided to use more subtle things rather than cliche conventions. We wanted to include an internal monologue like most romances have and show emotions within that and so we incoporated the use of a diary which Harriet uses to write down her emotions. We wanted to show sexuality within our film and so we used young lesbian characters in order to do so.

We also produced other mind maps which consisted of two different genres: horror and comedy.

Conventional Title Order

Title orders at the opening of a film is to, essentially, show the order of importance of people and companies who made the film possible. The first thing that is shown is the studio logo as they are the ones who made sure the film was made a reality rather than just an idea. The logo is followed by "Studio/Producer presents. This could follow immediately after the studio logo or a small opening section of the film can first be shown followed by the rest of the titles.


Usually the film's title will follow bigger than the rest of the titles or in a different font; something to show that this is the creation all these people are responsible for. After the title of the film, the names of main/major actors will show across the screen however this could also come before the title of the film, depending on how the editor/director wanted the title order to be.


The main actor's name will stand on the screen by itself as this may have ben one of the reasons for the number of people watching and so it is very important, arguably more important than the rest of the cast. An example of this could be in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom could draw in a lot of women and make the audience number larger. The camera person/operator may now appear on screen but sometimes they are left until the end of the film in the complete credits.


The editor's name is then shown across the screen, they are responsible for putting the credits in the order that they are. The composer of the film's soundtrack is presented; their work may be played whilst the opening title is being shown, underneath a verbal scene or across landscapes for example. However, their work also may not be played whilst the opening credits are being shown. The screenwriter is responsible for the creation of the film as it is them who thought of or researched the plotline. Some films change screenwriters whilst in production, in that case whoever wrote the script/ thought of the film idea would receive a "Screenstory by..." credit on screen at some point.

The last two people who are credited on screen is the producer and the director. The producer is shown first and then the director. These two roles are presented last as they are the most important functions to the movie. The director is the last one as it is the one who has constructed the film to be what it is and is the name that should be remembered most.



This is an example of an opening title sequence from The Notebook, one of the films that we were inspired by. Although inspired by the film, we didn't follow it's opening title sequence completely. We did it another way with less titles as not all films follow the same title order and so we did it our own way as the director/editor will have the last say in which way round the titles appear.

Model of Genre Development

In Christian Metz's Language and Cinema (1974), explorations of the development of genre film are shown and we see his evidence and suggestions about the four phases of existence that genres go through.

The four stages are referred to as:

• 1- The Experimental Phase
• 2- The Classic Phase
• 3- The Parody Phase
• 4- The Deconstruction Phase

The first stage, the experimental phase, first originated through classic English Literature. For example Dracula written by Bram Stoker in 1897 was adapted in 1922 to become Nosferatu.  Another case of this is The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari (1920); these two films are classic examples of film born from the experimental phase as they were experimented with and then adapted into film. After the first World War people became interested in this type of film as they could experience danger                                             second-hand rather than being in harm's
                                                   way themselves.


In the phase that follows: the classic phase, films that               remain significant throughout history were produced. Strict conventions were followed throughout this era as they were what intrigued audiences and so the same type of film with only a few plot details changed were made. Frankenstein (1931) and Dracula (1931) are popular products from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Other popular films just like this were made as the public responded well to it and so Hollywood just kept writing and producing the same film over and over again to accumulate all the money that made Hollywood boom and become where and what it is today.

The parody phase originates from appreciation of the chosen genre it is based on but then is often converted to the comedy genre as it mocks the movie or movies it is based on. As this phase produces mockery comedies, it also shows people often not interested in the genre the parody is based on, little snippets of how the original movie(s) was. Two examples of a parody is Date Movie (2006) and Scary Movie (1998); Date Movie being based on the very popular horror film Scream (1996).

The last phase that genres pass through is the deconstruction phase. This involves the making of a mix of genres converted into one collaboration in a single film. An example of this phase is horror-thriller The Sixth Sense (1999).  This gives the two genres a new lease of life and allows new plotlines and enigmas to be constructed. A combination of different genres are very popular in today's cinema and prove to be very successful; for example another mix that is popular are rom-coms. These mixes take certain elements from their individual genres and blend them together, this also allows different audiences to experience genres that perhaps they wouldn't usually watch.

BFI Statistical Yearbook 2014

As we can see from Table 4.1, the most popular genres of film in the UK in 2013 were Animation, Action and Comedy. Animation topped the box office charts with it raking in a whopping £246.6 million followed by Action at £215.4 million and Comedy at £158.2 million. Compared to the amount of Comedy and Action films that were released in 2013, the Animation genre released a smaller amount of films, which shows that Animation is well loved in the UK and the public would rather watch a more childish film even though they have more choice for Action and Comedy films.

We can also conclude that the Horror genre is more popular than the Thriller genre, at least in 2013, from Table 4.1 as, just like with Animation compared with Action/Comedy, there is a smaller number of releases but there is a higher success rate at the box office. Horror also took in £57.5 million but only produced 5.3% of all releases in the UK in 2013 (37 films). Thriller made £29.1 million but produced more of the releases (9.2%).

Table 4.2 shows how Sci-fi topped the board in terms of WPR (Widest Point of Release) with the average number of sites being 422, followed by Western and Fantasy at 327 and 280. In terms of Horror genre releases in 2013 (37) and Thriller genre releases (64), we can see that even though there were less releases from Horror it still produced a higher average number of sites at widest point of release (145) than the Thriller genre which only had 89 as it's average site number at WPR, proving that the Horror genre serves as the most popular choice of the two.

Adventure topped the charts in terms of the highest earned from the box office. From Table 4.3 we can see that Horror produced a higher average at the box office, over £5,000 more on average compared with Thriller, indicating that the genre proves popular in cinemas despite the fact that it was shown at a smaller number of sites.

Table 4.4 shows that despite only having 9 releases (6.5% of all releases in the UK) in 2013, Action still managed to take in the most amount of money from the box office (£64.1 million), with Music/dance placing second and raking in £47.9 million.    

From Figure 4.1, we can see that neither Horror or Thriller took in a reasonable amount from the box office, however out of the two, Horror received the most in terms of All Films/UK films, but Thriller took in more in the UK independent films category. From Figure 4.2, we can see that Thriller produced a good number of releases and so it's results at the box office tells us that the genre wasn't very popular with audiences despite having released more than Horror and over 10 other genres.

Opening Scene script

TIme's Up script

FADE IN

INT. HARRIET'S HOUSE - HARRIET'S BEDROOM - EARLY MORNING

Harriet lays in her bed, she is waking up. She is wearing her pyjamas. She's sixteen. She shuffles around in bed a little and out of bed now and opens her eyes slightly and rubs them.

She sits up. She goes to get out of bed and puts her slippers on.

INT. HARRIET'S LANDING

Harriet walks to the bathroom and closes the door.

CUTS TO WHEN SHE IS READY AND DRESSED.

Harriet opens the door and walks out.

INT. HARRIET'S STAIRS

Harriet walks down the stairs, looks at herself in the mirror. She grabs her diary and walks out the door.

(CREDITS PLAY OVER THIS SCENE)

Mr Judge Feedback

There are significant and far ranging posts that are missing. Please respond to the previous feedback and identify a) what you still need to complete b) when you propose to complete them. This is becoming major cause for concern at this stage.

The most recent missed posts are: Your evidence for designing and creating studio logo's and your understanding of the correct conventional title orders as studied in class. Some images are also required to enhance the look and design your blog.

The BFI data analysis as promised yesterday for completion today.

Please provide feedback, in the form of a new post, how and when you hope to achieve the tasks.