Technology integrated in the pre-production process:

I used many different types of technology in the pre-production process to aid my planning and research stages.

 

Initially, I began my research by looking on websites and online applications such as, BBC News and Netflix. On BBC News I looked for current world issues and events that could provide any inspiration for ideas about the plot of my opening title sequence. I was immediately drawn to environmental issues such as; the damage we are doing to our planet and the dystopian side effects of our behaviour. The articles on BBC News about the environment inspired me to think about what a post environmental collapsed world would be like to live in, and so I stuck with this stimulus. I began thinking about what kind of effects this would have on our world. Would it result in mass poverty? Mass crime waves? Or panic and a fight for survival?

 

I also used Netflix to aid my research by looking at different movie trailers to see if anything gave me inspiration. I tried my best to move away from big budget Hollywood movies and looked at smaller, independent movie trailers. Although some movie trailers sparked some thoughts, I found that doing research on BBC News was a lot more effective. I believe this was because BBC News explores real world issues, and that is something I'm very intrigued about.

 

After our group had settled on what opening title sequence idea we were going to do I began researching in further detail. In order to have a realistic heist opening title sequence I had to research into, guns, real heists in the past and the props and costumes we would need in order to pull it off. I began researching about how to use guns and where to buy them as the group came to the conclusion that guns were a necessity for our opening title sequence. I began my research on YouTube about how to 'properly' hold and use different guns such as, assault rifles and pistols. YouTube was very useful as instead of just reading about how to hold and use guns, I was able to follow the video clearly and copy the person teaching. Next, I began looking for costumes and props such as, boiler suits, fake money and duffle bags on Amazon. Amazon was useful as it holds a huge variety of items to choose from.

 

Shortly after this, my group and I began researching about how to create story boards. We found the website, 'TheStoryBoardArtist' by Josh Shepard hugely helpful as it gave us clear examples of professional storyboards that helped us understand how to make one of our own.

 

After we had created a draft story board for our opening title sequence we were set the task to create a short movie at home using our mobile phones. I came up with a short idea and began filming. When I had finished filming I used iMovie to edit my videos together and add some background noises and sound effects. Using my mobile phone was challenging as I didn't have a tripod or anything to act as a tripod, however because of the size of my mobile phone it was very easy to move the camera around efficiently and quickly. iMovie is an extremely good editing software as it provides many different sound effects and explains how to edit very clearly. I had never used iMovie before this and I found it very easy to understand.

 

In preparation for our shoot day we had some camera and editing workshops in which we learnt how to set up and use the black magic cameras and how to edit the footage with Adobe Premiere Pro. For the first half of the camera workshop we learnt how to set them up onto the tripod and the basic settings for the lighting details. For the second half we began shooting a short sequence exploring many camera angles we thought we will be using on the real shoot day. The next day we had an editing workshop in which we were taught all the techniques we would use when editing our real opening title sequence footage on Adobe Premiere Pro. We also edited the short sequences we had filmed the day before. Adobe Premiere Pro is a very easy and clear editing software used by amateur and professional editors because of how easily understandable it is and because of how sophisticated and detailed the outcomes can be.