Second and Final Draft

Martin Oursel from edmundsmedia on Vimeo.

Here is the second and final draft of my media project.

I was quite happy with the results, especially for the music that, I though, fit pretty well with the first and second part of my opening scene. I had also do redo some of the titles and shorten some scenes from the first part of my opening.

Evaluation Activity 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I think that my media product doesn't really challenge forms and conventions of real media products because I  realised that challenging the conventions of today's media products would mean finding a brand new idea. After a month of research on how I could try to challenge them, I decided to focus more on the media product itself than on finding an idea, which would have take much more time.

In my opening scene, I used some common shots such as the first shot (which shows the protagonist leaning on the window in the car with the background moving) or, in general, the second part of my movie, composed of a lot of very simple and quick shots. On the other hand, I didn't reproduce the exact same things by developing them by, for example, combining shots from the inside and the outside of the car.

Finally, I didn't really the conventions of drama because one convention of this kind of genre is that the opening scenes often sets up the situation (whereas, in an horror movie, it is possible that the action starts straight ahead). I think that I developped a little bit these conventions by getting the spectator really in the situation by showing the location (with the panel, then the front of the college).

I have chosen 9 shots from my opening sequence that are, according to me, the most importants shots.

(I couldn't put the shots in the usual 9 frame combined picture because I didn't have access to the program that allows to do so).

Frame 1

This first picture shows the protagonist, Pablo Coleman, leaning on the left window of the car with the background moving. We can see that he looks like he is thinking about something. We can also see the credit "A Ravescence Production" in the background in the middle of the screen. The music starts at the begining of this shot.

Frame 2
This shot shows the Saint Edmunds' entrance panel. We can also see the entrance right behind it. The credit "In Association with Thunder Entertainment" is emerging at the top right. This shot is taken from inside the car in a way in which we can think that is seen from the eyes of the protagonist. The movements in this specific shots helps this effect.

Frame 3
This shot shows a car coming to the cameraman with, in the background, a part of the college and, therefore, the final destination of the protagonist. In this shot, we can see for the first time how the college itself looks like.

Frame 4
This picture shows the car stopping in front of the main entrance of the college. The transition between this scene and the one before it is edited in a way in which the dynamic of the car is not lost. This shot is very long.  We can also see on the right side the monument which is going to be the last part of this shot.

Frame 5
This pictures shows Pablo, that had left the car already, taking his suitcase and bag. This shots explains his situation : He is here to settle in the college. We can also see the credit "Edited by Will Trotter" which is synchronized with the opening and the closing of the car trunk.

Frame 6
This picture shows Pablo walking to the entrance of the college. We can notice that the car left the frameworl of the camcorder. We can see on the top left the credit "Produced by Louis Watkins". We can also notice that it is still the same shot.

Frame 7
This images shows the top of the cross (the bottom was seen in the precedent pictures) and the title "The Outsider" in black, to contrast with the other credits but also to contrast with the sky. The spectator might also understand that the college is catholic because of the presence of this symbol.

Frame 8
This shot shows the protagonist entering for the first time his room with all his stuff. We can see that he doesn't look happy nor sad, he just looks neutral and indifferent to the situation. Follows the settling of all his belongings in the room with the quick short shots part.

Frame 9

This is the last picture of my opening sequence. It shows Pablo closing the door to go out of his room after he put all his belongings in the room. I think this picture ends pretty well my opening scene and may open to a whole new scene. We can also notice that we took off his coat.

Evaluation Activity 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?


I decided to use Geoffroy for my main actor in my opening sequence because he has the exact thing I wanted to show in my movie : a simple nearly stereotypical year 10 boy. I chose him to represent a part of the actual population but also a memory to the older ones.


I  compared his character to Jake Tyler (Sean Faris) from "Never Back Down" because, despite the fact that my movie is not about boxing and their difference of age, they will both have to fight, physycally and mentally, to achieve what they want to. They will both have to discover a new world and be accepted in it. They are both determined to achieve their goals. Another similaruty between them is that they don't really show their emotions.


But, there  are still some differences between them. First, as I said, their age and "fight". But there is also the fact that one is more based on a physical way to fight whereas the other one describes more a mental way to fight. But perhaps it can turn out to have some more physical parts in my movie ... Finally, a major difference between them is that one is based on school whereas the other one is based on a campus, therefore, he is part of an university.

Evaluation Activity 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?


(0.0-0.10) These 10 first seconds are the Paramount Production presentation. I had to shorten it so that my opening scene wouldn't be too long. I decided to put this exctract in my movie because I thought that this company was suitable  for the movie I wanted to do and also to make the movie looks more professional.
(0.11-1.11) This big part of my opening scene shows the arrival of the protagonist in the college. The first shot shows him leaning on the window to insist on his feelings about what he is going to undertake. The second shot that shows the panel helps the spectator to understand where Pablo is going. The third and fourth one confirm the idea that he is going to a college and shows it at the same time. It also shows that he doesn't look really close to his father because he leaves his father for an undetermined period without really saying goodbye. The long shot based on him walking to the door insists on the fact that he is very determined to go into this college. The last part of this shot shows the cross of the monument to insist on the fact that the college is catholic and gives the title of the movie : The Outsider.
(1.12-2.26) This next part shows the settling of the boy in his room : First, he come in the room with all his stuff and put it all down. Then, he starts unpacking every stuff he has, starting with the laptop, then food, clothes, books ... We can see that he is really well prepared for this year with all the stuff he has. The dynamism given by the quick shots confirms again his will to be where he is. We can also see that he seems smart because of the important number of books he did bring. This part ends the opening scene by the shot where Pablo leaves the room.


What does a production company do ?


The Production company is the company that creates the film itself. For my movie, it is Ravenscence as it is written "A Ravenscence Production". 


What is a distributor and what is he doing ?


The distributor is the enterprise that is in charge of releasing the movie at the cinema or in DVD for example. They can also help financiating the film.


Where might the money come from to financiate the movie ?


To financiate the movie, the producers might use personal funds but also funds from the distributor.

Evaluation Activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is James Venter. He is 22 years old. He lives in London, near the Tower Bridge. He dresses like a usual 22 years old man : shirt, polo, jeans, sweat, shorts ...
He is in university studying Litterature, Music and Italian. 
He likes hanging out with friends, going to nightclubs or concerts. He enjoys watching movies because it gives him a rest after working. He also likes going to the cinema with his friends and then going to the restaurant to discuss about the movie.
He also got a part time job on the week-end at an Indian restaurant.
He enjoys listenning to Rock, R'n'b and Hard Rock. He doesn't really follows the "popular" music and prefers the classics such as Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones or AC/DC. He doesn't listen much to the radio, except for the news.
He likes watching comedy series such as How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and Friends but also Misfits and Smalville. He use to watch them on streaming on the internet.
He enjoys action movies but he prefers watching movies with "a real content" as he says it. He likes Drama such as Never Let me Go, Slumdog Millionaire or also Forrest Gump. He likes "intellectual movies" such as Lost in Translation or The Deer Hunter.


I think my movie would please to this person because he is typical of a specific part of the youngs adults. He might go to the cinema with his friends to watch this film and discuss it or just buy the DVD and watch it at home.

Evaluation Activity 5

How did you address your target audience?


For this specific task, I did an interview of Alexandre Wettstein that I filmed but the link to the video doesn't work. I am going to write down our discussion :


Martin : So, Alexandre is 17 years old and he just saw my opening sequence. What is your first impression on it ? 


Alexandre : First of all, I was surely surprised by how the music matched with the sequence. It thought it was an important point. I also found the story quickly understandable. 

Martin : Does it look like something you have seen before or it is, somehow, challenging what you know about opening scenes ?

Alexandre : I found that, in general, the movie was in the usual conventions of the drama genre. It was quite well done but it was still a bit usual.

Martin : Would you like to watch the rest of the movie ?

Alexandre : I would enjoy watching the rest of the movie, to know what is going to happend to this protagonist and how he is going to cope with his  new college.

Martin : How do you imagine the rest of the movie ?

Alexandre : I don't really know. I can guess that he will have problems to adapt hisself to the way in which the boarding works and the college itself. But I cannot really tell because it isn't the kind of film where you can guess the end. I mean, for example, in movies like Alien, we can guess that the alien is going to die but nt in this kind of movie. Or at least not only with the opening.

Martin : Is there anything else you want to add ?

Alexandre : Perhaps just the fact that the fast pace part well done. I guess it wasn't that easy to make. I also really enjoyed the last movement of the camcorder from the college to the the sky and the cross. I think that's all.

Martin : OK, thank you Alexandre.

Evaluation Activity 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

By doing this product, I have learned many things about how to create a movie and about what you need to do it.

On this picture, we can see that I am working on Corel VideoStudio on my project.We can see the library at the top right where we can download the clips. We can also see the timeline at the bottom of the screen, which is where you add the clips. The square on the top left is where you can actually watch both clips or project.

In this picture (not real good quality because it was a photo taken with my phone ...), we can see me using a camcorder which is putten on a Tripod.

The camcorder is used to record everything I want to. This Camcorder has also the option of taking pictures, zooming, looking at the records ...

The tripod is very useful while filming if you don't want clips that look like amateur. It allows more safety for the camcorder but also a recording smoother. With his extendable legs, the tripod could be adjust to almost every height you want.

Then here is the list of websites and programs I used.

KeepVid is a website where you can download YouTube videos. It helped me to get the distributor's clip (Paramount clip).

The Art Of Title is a website that helped me in many ways : it has a lot of opening scenes on it and gives a lot of advices about how to make your opening sequence better by adding the titles well. I also analysed the opening of Lord of War on The Art Of The Title.

Corel VideoStudio x2 is the program I used to edit. Because I had already used Imovie before, I didn't have any problems about editing. I found this program easier to use than Imovie.

This program allows to edit, add music, effect, titles and then, share.

Blogger is the website in which we had to put all all our work. It is possible to write posts, post pictures and videos. It is also very easy to use and, except some problems with pictures, I didn't have any issue with it.  

YouTube is a very famous website in which it is possible to share and watch videos. I mainly used this website to watch opening scenes of movie but also other AS Media Studies work and then post them on my blog by embedding them. By using KeepVid and YouTube, I was able to get the distributor's company clip.

Evaluation Activity 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

I am going to compare the techniques I used for the first time in my preliminary task with the ones in the final media project.

Match-On-Action :

For my first try with this technique, I found really hard to do the match-on-action without using many camcorder. For example, wih this shot, there was one camcorder outside, filming the shot we can see on the second picture and another one inside filming will coming to the door and opening it. Making this scene was easy because I had two camcorder at the time and two cameraman. I thought that this scene was a success because, after editing, it was quite smooth.

Shot-Reverse Shot :

In my preliminary task, I had to show that I knew and understood the 180 degree rule by filming a conversation between two persons. When I did the filming, I decided to benefit the fact that I had two camcorder again and I filmed the whole conversation in one try. For the editing, I decided to do like in almost every film : show the person talking then switching to the other one when he talks. I was also quite happy about it at the time I edited it.

Tracking Shot :

This is an example of a tracking shot I did in my preliminary task. For this tracking shot, Will gets up, walks to the door, opens it and leaves the room. This shoot was hard to execute because I wanted the filming to be smooth whilst following Will. It was the most challenging shot in the preliminary task and I had to re-do it many times.

These are some pictures of the techniques I used in my final media project.

Match-On-Action :

These two shots shows the car from the front and then, from the side. In the opening scene itself, the match-on-action keeps the dynamism of the car and makes the change between the shots smooth.

For this shot, I didn't use 2 camera because I did have only one. I had to de the scene while filming from the front and then, redo it but filming from the side. I am really happy with the result and I think I did edit well this part.

The second part of my opening is also full of match-on-action based on objects.

Tracking Shots :

This pictures show the Tracking shot I did on my opening scene. This tracking shot is looking at the Saint Edmunds' panel while passing by in a car. It was a really tough shot to do because I had to aim perfectly at the panel while being in the car (where there wasn't a lot of space). This shot is suppose to be from the point of view of the protagonist and we can see it by the way it moves.

Travelling :

The travelling is a technique I didn't use in my preliminary task but that I wanted to analyse because I think it was a good idea. The shot starts when the car arrives and the protagonist leaves it. Then, when he is starting to go to the entrance of the college, the camera is moving to the sky and stops on a fixed image of the cross and the sky. I found this hard to film because I had to move very smoothly the camcorder and, if I failed, I had to redo the entire scene which I definitly didn't wanted to. But, with the tripod, the filming was made much easier.

I think that from my preliminary task to my final draft of the opening scene, I had make much progress in many areas, in both filming, editing, using new technologies and planing.

Costumes and Accessories

In this opening scene, the main, and only seen, actor is Geoffroy Delpit. He is wearing "normal" clothes of a year 10 student (hoodie, jean ...) :

-A usual pair of dark jeans (just a little bit washed-out) :

-A blue hoodie with LIFEGUARD Pismo Beach California written on it (couldn't find a picture of it on the internet).

-A pair of grey Converse All Star :

-A navy blue reefeer jacket :

For this project, I used many accessories such as :

-A dark grey suitcase Bagol

-An Eastpak bag with leather :

-Many books

-Many other clothes

For the first part, I also used Mr Breese's car :

Actors and Team

For my opening sequence, many persons helped me by acting in the movie itself or giving me advices on how to film and how to edit well.

The main character in my movie is named Pablo Coleman. He is an american coming to a boarding school in Great Britain. The actor playing this protagonist is Geoffroy Delpit, a boy in year 10 in Saint Edmunds. He is in boarding which suited me well because it would be easier to work with him. He is the only character that really appears during the opening scene.

Mr Breese, my media teacher, helped me in many ways. First of all, he was giving me a lot of advices on how to use correctly the camcorder, how to edit ... He also drove the car in the first part of the opening scene and gave me tips while filming on, for example, what camera shots I could use.
In the movie itself, he is the father that brings his son to the college.

Credits of my Opening Sequence

My opening scene presented many credits in white (always put in a special place to be sur that it is seen) and the title "The Outsider" is in black to contrast with the others credits but also with the background image (the sky and the cross).

0.12 A Ravenscence Production
0.17 In Association with Thunder Entertainment
0.26 A Martin Oursel Film
0.34 Starring Geoffroy Delpit
0.41 Edited by Will Trotter
0.49 Art Director Freddie Sayer
0.55 Produced by Louis Watkins
1.00 Written and Directed by Martin Oursel
1.09 The Outsider

First Draft



This is my first draft, without the second part of my opening with the quick short shots. The titles are here and the music suits pretty well with the opening itself. But I still find the opening a little bit "empty" without the second part.

How to use Corel VideoStudio

In parallel with our lessons on the use of the program Corel VideoStudio x2, I searched on the internet for a tutorial or tips to help the editing.

At the beginning, to do my preliminary task, I was looking for a global tutorial that would summarise the way in which we can use Corel VideoStudio x2. I found this great tutorial to help me :

I found a really helpful tutorial on Youtube about titles :

Because I will not be using any kind of special effects such as blood in Will Trotter's work, I didn't look for any tutorial about it. 

By doing this research, I realized how easy it was to get informations and tutorial on the internet nowadays.

Drafts and Soundtrack

At the begining, I decided that I was going to do my opening scene in two parts :
-A first part, in which the protagonist arrives at the college in a car.
-A second part, in which the protagonist sets up in his room.
After I edited all, I realised that my opening scene was exceeding the 2 minutes allowed for the opening scene.
I decided to cut some parts of my movie (and the second part), I chose to get a calm piano song to link the opening scene with the melancholy that the protagonist might experience. This song is called "Humility" by Wim Mertens.

After watching the first draft, I decided that the opening was too "empty" so I decided to add the second part.

For my second and final draft, with the second part of the opening scene (with lots of short shots), I was more looking for a motivating song but still calm to help creating the atmosphere of someone coming in a new place. I found this song while watching the movie "Into The Wild". This song is called "Rise" and was composed by Eddie Vedder :

In both cases, the music was played right at the beginning of the opening scene, after the production company's clip.

Shots for the first part of my Opening Scene

The first part of my opening scene will be composed by very few long shots based on the protagonist coming into the college.
Here are some examples of the shots I did.

I might also shorten them, like the ones from the second part.

How the shoot went (Third attempt)

For the first part of my opening scene, I needed a car. To help me, Mr Breese accepted to drive his car whilst I would be filming.
I planned this third attempt a long time ago so I could easily film it and being sur of no having to re-do and also to get the filming done quickly.

For this scene, I also needed a good weather to get a good lighting.
This shoot went pretty well and was done in 30 minutes. Because Mr Breese is also my media studies teacher, he also gave me some advises to help the filming and to get better shots.

I was really happy of this attempt because it was done in a short amount of time and it was much better than what I was especting.

Health and Safety during the filming

Before I start filming, I had to consider the health risks that the actors or me could encounter while acting/filming.

The first part of the openning scene is the car scene and I filmed it from inside and outside the car. A scene that includes a car can be very risky : The driver may have an accident, his attention might be reduced because of the filming and he might be less focused on the driving itself. While filming inside, I had to make sur that the driver was not distracted by the filming to avoid any problems about driving.
While filming from the outside, I had to be careful to not put myself through the car.

There is no real risk in filming inside a building so the part of the film inside the college did not represent any danger for the actor and for the cameraman.

I also had to be careful about the equipment because :
-it is the school's equipment
-it is very expensive
For example, I had to the camcorder off the tripod when I was moving to take another shot.

Hopefully, no one was harmed and the equipment itself wasn't damaged either while filming.

Art Of The Title ("Lord Of War" credits)

Lord Of War (2005)

0.17 Nicolas Cage (main actor)

0.28 Lord OF War (title of the movie)

0.34 Jared Leto (actor)

0.40 Bridget Moynahan (actrice)

0.43 Ian Holm (actor)

0.50 Eamonn Walker (actor)

0.55 Sammi Rotibi (actor)

        Eugene Lazarev (actor)

0.58 Jean Pierre Nshanian (actor)

        Shake Toukhmanian (actor)

1.04 and Ethan Hawke (actor)

1.12 Casting by Mindy Marin. C.S.A

1.15 Music by Antonio Pinto

1.23 Costume Designer Elisabetta Beraldo

1.30 Edited by Zach Staenberg. A.C.E

1.33 Production Designer Jean Vincent Puzos

1.48 Director of Photography Amir Mokri

1.52 Executive Line Producer Ronaldo Vasconcellos

1.59 Douglas E. Hansen Co-Producer

2.05 Executive Producers Fabrice Gianfermi

                                        Bradley Cramp

                                        Gary Hamilton

2.15 Executive Producers Christopher Eberts

                                        Andreas Schmid

                                         Michael Mendelsohn

                                         James D. Stern

2.24 Producers Nicolas Cage

                         Norm Golightly

2.31 Producers Andy Grosch

                         Chris Roberts

2.35 Produced by Philippe Rousselet

                             Andrew Niccol

2.50 Written and Directed by Andrew Niccol

Shots that I rejected

While filming, you have to try many times the same scene to be sure you made it right. One bad movement, someone shouting in the background or a mistake from the actor or the cameraman and the whole shot has to be done again. This is not really important when you have to do shots that last 5 seconds but when you film a shot of 45 seconds and someone creates a problem, it is becoming a real problem.
Here are some examples of shots I didn't chose for many reasons : actor laughing, bad filming, mistakes of muntage ...

How the shoot went (Second attempt)

For my second attempt at filming, I planned every shoot I had to do or re-do, recharged the camcorder's battery and made sur that the actor was wearing the exact same clothes (or I would have to film again).

During this attempt, I filmed the missing scenes that were suppose to be filmed inside and I re-did the bad ones. It was not really hard and I found the filming much easier when the planing was done before.

The only problem I had, at this time, was that I still did not have an access to a car and the first part of my opening scene was supposed to be filmed from inside and outside the car. Whilst waiting to get the car, I could just plan to help the upcoming filming.

Portfolio for my Film

Film Title: The Outsider

Genre: Drama


Location/s: College

Characters: Boy, Father.

Brief Narrative: A young boy is moving in a new college and tries to cope with his whole new life.

Target Audience: 18+

Studio: Thunder Entertainment


Distribution: Paramount.

Shots for the second part of my Opening Scene

For my opening scene, I decided to do a part with very quick short shots. Here are some examples of the shots I did :

I am not sure about using these shots or not. I might have to re-do some to help the good quality of my project and shorten them to get only the important part of each shot.

Corel VideoStudio Lesson

We were given a task during a lesson about how to use Corel Video Studio 12. The task was to use the 5 pictures given in Corel Video Studio 12 and, by adding texts and effects, to create a story.

I found this task really hard at the beginning because I thought that a story based on 5 pictures would be too simple or also bad. I tried to find a link between the pictures and I finally designed a little story which tells the problems of a woman on Internet. And, because I had already used Imovie before, I didn't have real problems to edit.
With this task, I learned to use the effects of Corel VideoStudio 12 (even if I didn't use them in the movie) and also to be imaginative to get a story from almost nothing.
Another importqnt thing I learned by doing this task is how to use font and matching it with the movie : For this short story, I used one of the most common font ; Times New Roman.

I used this font because it is the font we are most likely to see on the internet so it will link directly to the story itself.

Choosing a Film Distributer

For my movie, I decided to choose the famous company Paramount because is is a company that distributes the kind of movies I did : for example, it distributed The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and also The Truman Show.

I think this logo is really appropriate to my opening scene because it is not noisy like the 20th Century Fox or impressive like the Metro Goldwyn Mayer : it is simple and calm.

Opening scene task

As part of our work, we had to choose randomly 3 opening scenes of movies (two that I know and one that I don't know).

For this project, I choose three opening scenes that helped me on my project but also that showed me what to do or not to do in my project.

I am going to start with the opening scene of Se7en (the movie that I didn't see).
The opening scene of Se7en is a really specific and original opening scene for one main reason : it doesn't tell anything about the movie explicitly : To really understand it, the spectator has to "go over the image" and think about the meaning of this introduction.
This intro shows hands doing a lot of different things : writing, crossing, cutting, sewing papers, turning pages of a book ... All those facts, if not related to the movie itself, does not show anything to the spectator.
This opening scene helps creating the atmosphere of the movie

These short cuts based on objects inspired me for the second part of my opening scene in which I am using short cuts that shows one action each.

This is the second opening scene part of my openning scene task.

It is the opening scene of the movie Eat Drink Man Woman.

The opening scene of this movie has many similarities with Se7en's opening scene : close quick shots on hands and on their work. But this scene also uses long shots on, for example when the chef put the water in the cauldron with the chicken (3m02s). Another important difference is that this scene is very explicit compared to Se7en's : we can easily understand that the old man is a chef, professionally or not, and that he is cooking for a special occasion.

An interresting part of the opening scene is the credit : the credits are presented very infrequently. For example, the first credit is presented at the 35th second (on a scene that lasts 4 minutes). They are presented in the original language (taiwanese) in characters. Only on 2m41 (C.S.C) and 3m02 (Tim Squyres), european font appears. This helps creating an atmosphere based on asian cooking. The credits are also shown during the scenes which helps to not interrupt the ambiance created.


For my last opening scene, I choose a really famous credit scene (it is part of the opening scene but there is a part of the movie before it) : The James Bond GoldenEye's credit scene.
James Bond's film are really famous for their opening scene : they always present a short action part and original opening credits with guns and girls, symbols of the movie.
This specific opening scene is based on a mix between real shots and computer images. For example, at 0m40s, we can see a "real" girl combined with a background created on computer. This is obviously a technique I cannot do by myself but it shows how important can be the opening scene.
The opening scene combined with the short action part creates a really good ambiance based on the main subjects of the movie : action.

All this work on opening scenes helped me in many ways but overall, it helped meto define some particularities of my opening scene :
-I will put my credits on a black background (not during the shots but between them)
-

How the shoot went (First attempt)

For my first attempt at filming my media project, I started filming the "short quick shots" part. I thought it was going to be easy and quickly done. I didn't plan much before I started filming.

During the filming, I realised that I had a hudge amount of shots to take (and re-take so that I could be sur about them) and it would take a long time.

Not planing creates some problems such as shots that I forget to do or problems of connection between different shots (stuff that appears in a shot when it is not suppose to). I also had to end the filming before I filmed all what I was especting to film because the battrey ran out of power (again because I didn't plan well enough and forgot to recharge the battery).



I did not filmed the part in the car because I didn't have access to a car at this moment.