Typography- 'Lonely This Christmas'

For this task we researched what fonts we wanted to include for our titles within our opening sequence, to make sure that they created the sophisticated effect we wanted. 

LONELY THIS CHRISTMAS- Shot List

Third Edit of Opening Sequence

This is the third edit of our coming of age title sequence 'Lonely This Christmas'. As Emily was unable to make the editing session, me and Megan edited our last draft by re-doing the title as the writing didn't fit the elegant and sophisticated theme, we also re-ordered some of the footage so that there was a stronger sense of continuity throughout the opening sequence.



After receiving feedback we have decided in our final edit to remove the Paramount Pictures credit as it would be unlikely they would distribute our independent art-house film.

Filming Diary- 'LONELY THIS CHRISTMAS'

Throughout the filming process I wrote down what we managed to film and get done

Practice Shots- 'LONELY THIS CHRISTMAS'

Character Profile- 'LONELY THIS CHRISTMAS'

Name: Victoria Richards

Age: 40

Hometown: London

Class: Upper class

Relationship status: Single

Current family: Doesn't live with family, distant from them as she pushed them away as a teenager

Other close relationships: None

Job: Successful business woman

Dress style: well groomed, sophisticated, high end, up-to-date fashions 

Religion: Atheist

Past time: Shopping, fashion shows, work lunches

Favourite sports: None

Favourite food: Sophisticated tastes, high end restaurants, fad trendy diets

Personality: shmoozer, can convince people to do what she wants, manipulative, appears confident to hide her loneliness and desperate need to be liked, show off 

Temper: quite a high temper, especially when things don’t go how she wants them to, tries to hide it because of her past and to be liked

Consideration for others: doesn’t think much of anyone else of a lower class than herself as she was brought up this way

How other people see her: a bit stuck up, no one is really fond of her because of the past and how she treated others, friendly to her face but not friendly about her when she turns away, afraid to make an enemy of her

Opinion of herself: thinks very highly of herself because she is well dressed and polite and has been successful throughout her life, brought up being told she is the best of the best at pretty much everything, however she knows she is lonely 

Ambitions: already achieved everything that she wanted to achieve, in a top job, being paid a lot of money, wants to get married and have a family and be surrounded by friends 

Most important thing to know about this character: she may be rich and appear as if she has the 'perfect life' but she is in fact very lonely. Due to the mistakes and the way she treated people in her past.

Will the audience like or dislike this character, and why?: the audience may feel sorry for her because of what is going on in the opening sequence (people are turning her down and she's left lonely at Christmas) but that is only because they do not yet know the reason behind this which they will find out later on in the film, they audience may end up sympathising with the protagonist Victoria as they will see the pressure put on her by her family to be 'perfect' and get everything right. The young teenage audience we have targeted for this film will be able to relate to the theme of pressure to be what everyone wants. 

Learning Comment: Through completing other tasks such as audience profile and thinking of a concept we are able to create a character that will fit the genre and will be represented the way we had planned. Our character 'Victoria Richards' will relate to the target audience of teenagers as they may be able to either relate on a personal level or may know someone similar to the character. Our secondary audience of the parents of the primary audience will also be able to relate to the character as in the opening titles the character will be of a similar age to them. 

Sound- 'LONELY THIS CHRISTMAS'

For this task we researched and looked into different options of royalty free music for our opening sequence:

Song 1) This is a piano version of Jingle Bells, we liked this one as it fit the Christmas theme however we felt that it was too upbeat and had too much of a happy feel to be able to fit the sad atmosphere of the opening titles. Another issue with song 1 is that it is only 33 seconds long from the beginning of the music which means if we decided to use it in our opening sequence we would have to extend it which  may distort the music and make it seem out of sync.



Song 2) This song was upbeat and therefore doesn't fit the sad and quiet mood of the opening titles for 'Lonely This Christmas'. It also has a voice speaking throughout the music over the top and therefore we are unable to use this clip despite the music fitting the Christmas theme well.



Song 3) We liked this music and wanted to use it for our opening sequence as it fit the Christmas theme well however and wasn't too upbeat that it contradicted the atmosphere created through the opening sequence footage, however as the preview has a voice saying preview over the top we would have to buy the song which was £50.



Song 4) We are going to use this music for the opening titles as it creates a Christmassy atmosphere but isn't too upbeat that it ruins the sophisticate and quiet mood the footage for the opening titles creates.



We were going to choose the top music clip as that fit the christmas theme of the opening titles however it didn't fit the mood and when it was tested with a sample group they said it was overly christmassy and ruined the sophisticated atmosphere of the titles, In the end we chose to use the bottom clip of music for our final piece as it is quite soft and gentle and therefore fits the theme of the opening sequence well and the sample group said that it fitted in with the rest of the opening titles better.

Audience Profile: 'LONELY THIS CHRISTMAS'

Because we changed our idea for our final product, we needed to create a new prezi in order to identify what the new target audience will be. It is pretty much the same audience as was for our previous idea, as our sequence will deal with very similar themes and issues, but there are a few key bits that have changed.

Thinking of a Concept: 'LONELY THIS CHRISTMAS'

After having two attempts at filming the material we needed for our final idea, we have decided to reconsider and come up with a totally new concept. We have ruled out our last idea because the footage we could get was not of a high enough quality and therefore would not have gotten us the grade my group and I are aiming for.

So, our new idea for an opening sequence is a Christmas themed coming of age film called "Lonely This Christmas?"
This plot is about a lady protagonist who is organising her Christmas party for family and friends and one by one the people she has invited call her to make excuses why they can't make it. In relation to the main narrative, the opening sequence will only show the part that I have just mentioned, and the reason for this is that she made a terrible mistake in her childhood which caused her to fall out with everyone, and has left her with no friends now. The film itself will show the audience the mistakes she has made in her childhood which leave her in this situation she is in now, and how she deals with the errors she makes and leads to her isolation from society.


Some of our inspirations for this opening title sequence are Home Alone and Almost Famous, which are both very famous and successful coming of age films. The style of the sequence is what we liked from the latter film, and the Christmas theme and typography from the Home Alone film will also influence our decisions when it comes to production.

The opening sequence will be composed of a collection of cross-cuts to lots of different things associated with Christmas such as:

~ Candles
~ Christmas tags
~ Napkins
~ Baubles
~ Stockings
~ Bucks Fizz
~ Radio Times Christmas Edition
~ Christmas tree 
~ Tables settings
~ Presents 

However in between these momentary cuts will be close ups of the protagonist writing Christmas cards quite formally, so to people she isn't very close to, and also snippets of phone conversations where you can only see the bottom half of her face and hear her half of the phone calls with the people who are cancelling.
The credits will be placed among the ambient shots of Christmas things, and we will edit royalty free Christmas music lightly over the top of the scenes, along with a narrative of dialogue for the phone conversations.

Furthermore, the opening sequence will end with a bit of footage of her writing a diary entry with notes such as " I regret it all " and " I wish I hadn't done that " and then end with a clip that starts to go into a flashback, indicating to the audience that the opening sequence will then be explained.

Evaluation- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From watching the preliminary task after finishing our own coming of age opening sequence  I feel I have learnt a lot more about producing a more professional looking product and about how much goes into the production.

From completing the sound task and the typography task, I have learnt about how much thought and detail goes into the production and how little things that don't seem like a big part of the product such as the sound and the typography have a huge impact on the finished item and are the key ways in which the mood and atmosphere of the film are portrayed. For example if you were producing a horror film and the music was happy and cheerful, it would contradict the horror genre and confuse the audience. For the sound for 'Frayed Ends' we were planning to use two contrasting pieces of music to represent each of the characters however as the shots kept switching between each of the characters preparing for school, the music would have come out very confusing and rushed. This helped us when we were planning the sound for ' Lonely This Christmas?' as we decided it would have more of an impact if we picked out one piece of sound that created a clear sense of what the atmosphere of the film will be like.

Completing the character and audience profiles helped me decide what the final product should be like, as the audience have to be able to understand the characters to be able to engage with the film. By doing the planning for our target audience:teenagers  and the social representation of them, we were able to create characters the audience would be able to relate to and identify with.

Through doing the storyboard and shot list, we were able to know exactly what shots we were filming on each day. When we were planning for our first idea 'Frayed Ends' we didn't prepare a detailed enough shot list which meant that when it came to filming we weren't sure what shots we were doing in what order which lead to them being of poor quality and were rushed. From this, when it came to creating the shot list for 'Lonely This Christmas?' I put more detail into the shot list. This meant that we knew exactly what props, what actors, what titles were going to be in the shot and the camera angles and if there was going to be any camera movement, therefore ending up with more creative and interesting shots.

We used the things we learnt from filming the shots for the preliminary task to make sure that when we filmed this task it was done as well as possible. One of the things I learnt from the preliminary task was to make sure that I began recording a few seconds before the actors began speaking to make sure that we got all of the speech recorded as in the preliminary footage some of the speech was cut off. Another thing I learnt from filming the preliminary footage was to film each of the shots lots of times from different angles so that if there is something wrong with one piece of footage or isn't as interesting from one angle as another  we still have others to use. We used the tripod for every shot for our own opening sequence as this gave a more professional and finished effect to the footage than when we held the camera for the preliminary material. A technique I found that helped me get a smooth pan was to start the shot before the position where you want the pan to start from, I found this helpful as when I first began to move the tripod it would cause the shot to jolt therefore once I had the footage on IMovie I could edit out the shaky bit at the start so that the shot would be steady and to a higher quality.