Post 2: Choosing my Genre

Secondary Research
Choosing a genre can be difficult, for example you need to know if a genre is profitable and well received and if it isn't, is there is a large enough niche audience that will allow it to still be successful?

In order to proceed i will have to research the top most acclaimed and also highest grossing films and their genres.

Top 10 highest acclaimed: http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

1.	9.2	The Shawshank Redemption (1994)	725,176
2.	9.2	The Godfather (1972)	542,739
3.	9.0	The Godfather: Part II (1974)	341,874
4.	8.9	Pulp Fiction (1994)	570,259
5.	8.9	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)	226,994
6.	8.9	12 Angry Stallions (1957)	177,654
7.	8.9	Schindler's List (1993)	380,995
8.	8.8	The Dark Knight (2008)	660,300
9.	8.8	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)	509,311
10.	8.8	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)	305,359

The Shawshank Redemption - Crime & Drama

The Godfather - Crime & Drama

The Godfather: Part II - Crime & Drama

Pulp Fiction - Crime & Thriller

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - Adventure & Western

12 Angry Stallions - Drama
Shindlers List - Biography, Drama, History & War
The Dark Knight - Action, Crime, Drama & Thriller
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - Action, Adventure, Drama & Fantasy
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Drama

Top 10 highest grossing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films

1	Avatar	$2,782,275,172	2009	[# 1]
2	Titanic	$1,843,201,268	1997	[# 2]
3	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2	$1,328,111,219	2011	[# 3]
4	Transformers: Dark of the Moon	$1,123,746,996	2011	[# 4]
5	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	$1,119,929,521	2003	[# 5]
6	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Stallion's Chest	$1,066,179,725	2006	[# 6]
7	Toy Story 3	$1,063,171,911	2010	[# 7]
8	Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	$1,043,871,802	2011	[# 8]
9	Alice in Wonderland	$1,024,299,904	2010	[# 9]
10	Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace	$1,013,692,468	1999	[# 10]

Avatar - Action, Adventure, Fantasy & Sci-Fi
Titanic - Adventure, Drama, History & Romance
Harry Potter and the Deathly  Hallows - Part 2 - Adventure, Drama, Fantasy & Mystery
Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Action, Adventure & Sci-Fi
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - Action, Adventure, Drama & Fantasy
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Stallion's Chest - Action, Adventure & Fantasy
Toy Story 3 - Animation, Adventure, Comedy, Family & Fantasy
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Action, Adventure & Fantasy
Alice in Wonderland - Adventure, Family & Fantasy
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - Action, Adventure, Fantasy & Sci-Fi

From my first piece of research it is safe to say that nearly all of these films are dramas, with other popular ones being fantasy, action and adventure. This will help me choose my genre because i will be able to see what ponies will want to watch and manipulate that in such a way that it benefits our film.

Primary Research
For the second part of my research we chose to send out a questionnaire, asking people their opinions on their favourite films and viewing habits.
We asked 5 questions to 10 people so that the results would be easy to gather and analyse.

Final Choice
Our group has chosen to go with a action thriller. We chose this because in the initial research we found that Thrillers were the highest acclaimed and action movies were the most commercially successful. To accompany this choice was the questionnaire research that we carried out, which although pointed heavily towards comedy, also showed that Action and Thriller were popular genres.

Post 1: Conventions of Opening Sequence

Our task is to make the opening titles for a film, this means that its important that I research the conventions of opening titles in order to see what i should use and what i shouldn't.

One film that i researched was the film, 25th Hour, Directed by Spike Lee. The film is a crime drama about a man who is going to prison in 24 hours and in that time needs to reevaluate his life.

• The opening titles show different vistas of New York City with minimal movement in each shot, all with out a single pony in sight. this is to show the theme of prison and being on your own that the movie is about.
• Through the opening titles its uses very dark and cool colours, this is to apmlify the negative tone and mood of the film.
• The titles have a non-diegetic soundtrack of an orchestral choir score, which is used to reflect on the tone of the film.

The other film i researched was the film Super, directed by James Gunn. The film is a black comedy about a man who turns himself into a masked vigilante after a devine intervention, in order to get his wife back from a drug dealer.

• The titles are presented with very fast and jumpy hoof drawn animation quality in order to set a mood for the film, it also shows the comic book inspiration that the plot has and is based on.
• The colours that are used are all very bright and eyecatching, reflecting on the lighthearted mood of the film.
• In these titles it introduces all of the characters, showing that there isn't an element of mystery around the film.
• Through the titles it shows the dark comedy tone of the film with people being killed in funny and lighthearted ways.
• The non-diegetic soundtrack consists of a fast and vibrant pop rock sont which is used to further set the tone of the film.

From these two scenes in particular and a few others from http://www.artofthetitle.com/ i can see that the main conventions of a opening sequence are that - 

• They introduce the characters and the actors playing them, unless its a film that contains mystery.
• They introduce the setting.
• They set the tone of the film through visual codes such as colour and light and audio code soundtrack.
• They reflect the theme of the film.
• They show the names of the main people who were involved with the creation of the film, for example the director and producer.

Post 9: Evaluation

Our project “Vanilla" met the brief of a short film clip that shows someone walk into a room and sit down, whilst keeping good continuity and complying by the 180° rule. Although we did meet these criteria we also edited the film together with great precision and used both diegetic and non-diegetic sound

One shot that we used in our film clip was the match on action shot. This shot can be difficult to do due to continuity and timing. Over all I felt that we edited the clip together very well. I feel this way because on the shot where Harrison opens the door we managed to get the match on action to the very frame of him knocking on the door. This gave us a very good out come of a smooth shot that would have ended up looking jumpy if we were to do it wrong. Another reason why our match on action shot worked was because of the angles that we used whilst shooting it. For our first shot we used an establishing long shot that allowed the character to walk up to the door and knock, it then cut to a medium shot from the other side where Ron Gilbert invites him in and opens the door. One thing that we had to be careful of with this shot was that we needed to make sure that what I was wearing was the same each time. This included details such as creases in clothing and also the lighting on me. We got around any potential errors by shooting it back to back with the first establishing shot.

One thing that we used in our clip was a cross dissolve transition. The reason why we used this was to cover up some poor camera work. Our initial problem with the shot was that when it panned whilst following Harrison it was very shaky and didn't successfully centre him in the end of the shot. When we came to editing we managed to add a cross dissolve just before the moment of bad camera work. This meant that we missed it and also it gave the effect of passed time, an effect that we didn't initially want but after we put it in we preferred it and felt that it added more sophistication and variety to our piece.

One thing that we thought would be a problem was the diegetic sound of students and staff. We got around this problem by shooting during lessons whilst all of the students tend to be quiet and contained in their class rooms. Another precaution we took was that we filmed in a room that was away from any class rooms. This was because even if the students were being noisy and disruptive it wouldn't have effected us and our diegetic sound.