Journal 5 - Starting a Rough Edit

I have started a rough edit of the title sequence and I have put the shots together on Final cut. The indoor shots all look fine but the issue is with the establishing shot. The establishing shots are not straight and they are all slightly slanted as the tripod used was faulty and we didn't realise this when we filmed the shots. This means we are going to have to re-film the establishing shots found at the start of the title sequence. We will reshoot these shots after the first edit is done, the reshot scenes will be used in the final edit of our title sequence.

Journal 4 - Indoor Shots

My group and I filmed some of the indoor shots which are the final shots we need to complete our title sequence. Some of these shots may need to be reshot along with some of the establishing shots if they didn't look good. We also filmed the investigation wall shots as well which will be used in the rough edit. I filmed most of the indoor shots and the investigation wall shots, but when I needed to be in the scenes the shots were then filmed by Thomas.

To do some of these shots we used the digital SLR Camera, lighting and various props such as passports, credit cards and mobile phone along with a gun.

I will soon start editing the shots we have and create a rough edit to see which shots we may need to redo.

Journal 3 - Filming the establishing shots

16th February 2016,

Today Thomas, James and I went to London to film our opening establishing shots for the start of the title sequence, specifically we were at Albert Embankment, House of Parliament and Trafalgar Square. We filmed at these various places in London as planned and the shots were filmed in the way we wanted to film it. We had one issue today which was the tripod was slightly broken and therefore not all the shots came out that great and they were slightly slanted, hopefully this issue can be fixed when I edit the shots. My group and I are planning on reshooting some of the London shots. The weather was nice on the day and we need to make sure that it is similar when we reshoot. I was the main Cinematographer which filmed most the shots but when I needed to act in a scene the shots were then filmed by Thomas another member in our group.

The day went really well but some of the shots came out very bad quality due to the faulty tripod, therefore we may soon plan to reshoot the scenes in London with a new tripod.

Location Shots (London)

Today we have taken some Location shots and my group and I decided we were happy with our Location. These shots show the main locations we targeted for our title sequence such as the establishing shots. The location shots for our title sequence can be seen here:-

Test shots for the Investigation wall

This shot shown above is our best test shot, we used lighting and a GoPro with a steadycam attachment to film this. We might use this on our actual title sequence or we might re-film this in a different way without a steady camera and instead use still shots which transition and fade into next shots. I can also stabilize this shot in editing on final cut pro.

Journal 2 - Location shots and starting to shoot (Production Schedule)

My group and I will take some location pictures on the 16th February at Albert Embankment in London near Vauxhall Bridge and we will also take some location pictures in Central London near Big Ben and the Parliament houses.

If we are happy with the locations, on the 17th February we will start filming the establishing shots in our chosen location.

Journal 1 for Title Sequence

Today my group and I created an investigation wall as a prop for our title sequence. I created the props on photoshop or used images which I edited and got from the internet. I created two front pages of a newspaper which will be used as a prop in the title sequence and I also created a wanted picture for the main actor Josh Bowman in our title sequence.

The investigation wall we created can be seen in the images below. We printed off images which link with the film as well as locations such as map of London and tube maps. We created the investigation wall on our classroom board on our teachers wall.

This is what our investigation wall looks like and it will be used in our title sequence. We will turn the lights off and use some studio lights to create a dark mysterious look and we will take some shots of this scene so we can use it on our title sequence. We have taken some test shots on a GoPro which will be seen in my next post, we will then take the actual shot that we will use in the title sequence. We took the test shots with various equipments such as a steady cam, GoPro headstrap and we tested with lighting.

The blue borders around the board will be removed when it comes to shooting as that isn't meant to be included in the props.

Audience Profile

The above image is my groups Audience profile for our film Agent X. This shows that our main target audience is British males ages 18-29. We decided this is the main target audience as the Spy and Action genre are mainly attracted at this age range especially the it features a young cast playing main roles, such as Josh Bowman and Daisy Ridley. We can target this audience using certain marketing methods such as TV/Internet Adverts, social media and even apps and games for consoles and smartphones. This will help us attract our target audience to watch our film and will hopefully create positive reviews as well as revenue and gross.

Agent X Film Pitch

Agent X Pitch from Ghanshyam Shiyani

Making props for the title sequence

I am starting to make some props for our title sequence. I have made them on Photoshop and that can be seen on the below screenshots. I have made some wanted posters and newspapers and we will also use props provided by our teachers such as fake guns and maybe even fake money if the props look realistic. We may not use all of these props but most of them will be used in our title sequence.

Copyright Free Soundtrack for our Title Sequence

Soundtrack 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNzEtud5rFM

Soundtrack 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmzjHhvC5e0

Soundtrack 3 - https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk/production-music/all-to-play-for_28071.aspx

My group and I have chosen Soundtrack 3 as we feel it suits the Genre of our film and it suits the scenes the most out of the other 3 soundtracks. Once we have filmed we will add the music on top and edit the shots, if the music doesn't work well our second choice is Soundtrack 1 and we will use that if Soundtrack 3 doesn't work well with the title sequence.

Action/Spy Typography

I have been looking at various Spy and Actions films and I have looked at the fonts they used in Title Sequences as well as in Posters of their films. This should help us decide a font when it comes to choosing on for our Title Sequence for "Agent X". Below are some of the images of Fonts and Typography I have found in various Spy and Action genre films.

James Bond Franchise Typography:

The modern James Bond films use very simple sans serif fonts which are either bold or thin. The thin sans serif fonts are used for the cast names in Title Sequences and the bold sans serif fonts are used for the film name title in Posters and the Title Sequences. The older James Bond Films such as GoldenEye (1995, Martin Campbell) used a Serif Font in a Gold and Red Gradient colour. For my groups title sequence "Agent X" we may decide to use sans serif fonts in just plain simple colours such as White as it looks more modern and suits our target audience.

Bourne Identity Poster Typography:

Bourne Identity also has a plain white sans serif font which is bold for the title and thin for everything else. This shows that my group and I should consider using white sans serif fonts for our title sequence as well, because the Modern James Bond films do this as well.

Mission Impossible Franchise Typography:

Mission Impossible franchise also uses Sans Serif Fonts which are in the colour white, Mission Impossible also added a black shadow effect on the background of the fonts to give a 3D look and make the fonts stand out even more.

Gathering these resources and conducting this research as helped me realise what font we need to look for in our Title Sequences. I feel we should look for white sans serif fonts as it looks very classy and high quality as well as being modern. This will help achieve interest from our target audience (British Males ages 18-29) as they are young and modern.

Storyboard for our title sequence

These are scanned images of my groups storyboard. This isn't a finalised storyboard for the final title sequence, some shots will be added on and some shots will be taken out from this storyboard and from the final title sequence. This story board is just a rough guideline of how and what we must shoot and also how the footage will be edited.

The storyboard starts off setting the scene of London and it then goes into close up shots introducing the audience to the background story of the film, it will also show the audience what genre the film is.

Sound Research on Spy Genre Title Sequence

The sound my group and I need to research for is an Action themed soundtrack with a fairly fast pace that gradually increases slowly. The pace for our title sequence will increase slightly and we need to find an action soundtrack with a pace that also increases slightly. There are many types of action soundtracks, some examples can be seen below.

Our OCR Specification tells us we need to use royalty free/Copyright free soundtrack which I will research further into, in order to find action genre soundtracks that are copyright free.

Props Used in Spy Title Sequences

The props we plan to use will be a fake gun, passports, credit cards, mobile phone, black folder and some images linked with film such as wanted pictures to create an investigation wall. Some prop examples can be seen in the images below found from other spy genre films.

Below are some scenes in Bourne Franchises with some of the props they used:-

I have also found some images of props used in the James Bond franchise:-

Spy Genre Analysis and Research

The Spy genre is a subgenre of Thriller and Action. Our film Agent X is an Action film with the subgenre of Spy. These films are usually linked with Guns, Weapons, Explosions, Chase scenes, Love, Relationship, Fights and suspense.

There are many spy films such as the James Bond series (Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Live and Let die, Man with the Golden Gun and Spectre). The Bourne series (Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, Bourne Identity and Bourne Legacy). The mission Impossible series and Kingsman (2014, Matthew Vaughn) North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock), The Expendables series and many more films.

The most famous spy films are the James Bond series and the Bourne series. Our title sequence is like a picture of these films, its a British spy film mixed with some traits of Bourne such as a spy on the run.

Spy characters are portrayed to wear smart clothes such as suits or a shirt and tie, however our spy will mainly wear clothes that blend in as our film is meant to be a more realistic portrayal of a spy and this will be shown in our title sequences however there will be some characters with smart smart formal clothes to give the upper class, British spy look.

Plan for Title Sequence

My group and I group have created the narrative and what the shots will look like along with the continuity of it.

The start of the sequence will show British landmarks which will act as iconography and then there will be a slight faster pace of shots with close ups inspired by Se7en.

The sequence introduces the characters and their roles in the film. It doesn't show its fully clear as the title sequence isn't meant to show the whole plot of the film, its meant to be very vague.

The sequence will overall show Michael Caine (The Protagonist) helping Agent X while Morgan Freeman (The Antagonist) tries to catch Agent X and imprison him, even though Agent X was framed by Morgan Freeman.

Throughout the title sequence we see Morgan Freeman slowly start to find Agent X but the audience realises at the end that he is failing to capture Agent X.

Our Title Sequence Idea

My group and I have furnished the main story and ideas behind our title sequence for our film. We have created a brief narrative for our film "Agent X", depending on our genre, we have also looked at the cast of the main characters as well as the director. We have chosen Paul Greengrass as the director as we feel he is best suited to direct this genre as he has directed similar films like Bourne Supremacy (2004, Paul Greengrass). We also looked at the budget of our film and we have compared it to various other films that have a similar genre to ours, films such as Bourne Identity (2002, Doug Liman) and Bourne Supremacy (2004, Paul Greengrass). This is all mentioned on our Pitch which was done as a powerpoint presentation.

Our title sequence will start with the introduction of the main characters, Josh Bowman and Michael Caine but no faces can be seen in the title sequence and this gives the mystery of who the spy is to the audience. The title sequence will then show various establishing shots in pans, time lapses and long shots, this will introduce the film to the audience as well as tell the audience where the film is set. It will feature big London landmarks such as Big Ben and Parliament House and it will mainly feature the MI6 Building which shows the audience that this is a british spy film. After the establishing shots the title sequence will show close up shots of various props which introduces the background story of the film and helps the audience understand briefly what the film will be about. The title sequence mainly consist of close up shots and establishing shots instead of shots which show the characters but this may change as we develop the title sequence further and when we start creating it, we may add more shots.

Throughout this title sequence the audience will see the basic storyline to this film and they will understand the characters briefly and the roles they play in the film, Agent X (Josh Bowman) as a protagonist and Morgan Freeman as the antagonist. It will shows how the characters are linked and will show what the film is about.