My role on the opening sequence (Redemption)

Jay is a brutal thug from Germany who moved over to the UK a few years ago. He was living in a council estate with his parents. His mother was a drug addict and his father an alcoholic, Jay's mother died a few years later as result of taking huge doses of drugs. Jay was so depressed that he started to bunk school and taking drugs. With the age of 16 he left his father because he was really violent and not fit to be a father and started to live in a hostel and hanging around with wrong friends. Through the years he gained respect by others and he is a member of a gang of violent youths. Most of the guys are German and the gang is still growing and is getting popular for youngsters. The gangs signs are black bandanas and black clothes.

Things learned from the preliminary task

I have learned lots of things from the preliminary task such as keeping the actors in the frame while shooting a movie and also be organised and prepared for anything. I also started to realize that the planning is one of the main keypoints to make a movie. For the preliminary task we used the programme iMovie and after a few tries I got very confident with it and cutted the movie as smooth as I possibly could.

Preliminary Task 'Feed the fish'

Our team did a quite a good job in this task which we are proud of. It has lots of different shots and also a fade in it. The fade is used to create a flashback which all student in the class recognised. We used continuity editing which was a bit inaccurate at the beginning but we edited it more to make it more smooth.and at the end you could see the smoothness and continuity of the sequence. Our team looked at some student examples on the media drive of the school to get some inspiration which helped us a lot. We planned our sequence with storyboards and discussions as well. The only thing we had to improve were the shots because we zoomed to much out and you were able to see too much background.

Credits:
Danny, Kiran, Joe and Bailey.

What we still need to do for the opening sequence

• Add music
• Add titles
• Add credits
• Edit/ cut more smooth
• Do some research for the genre
• Make sure every cut is okay (if not we have to refilm it or think about how to fix it)
• Do sound recording incase the sound is not very neat

Individual response to the idea/ thoughts about group choice

We each had different ideas on the setting, I've had the idea to go to a park near our school but when we started filming we realized the place wasn't good to work with so we had o decide on a different setting. Daniel G. had the idea of filming in manor park, it was a good place to film but it was too far. On the way of finding different parks Kiran had the idea of going to Blagdon park in New Malden it was a good choice because it was near, quiet and easy to film in. The only problem with this park is that parents and children can come inside the park so we had to stop filming. We had to go to the park during school time where children and parents would be at work and school. We filmed on two different days but we had to start over on the second day because change in the weather. It was easy for us to decide on what the characters would wear because it's in music and we're familiar with this situation so we definitely  knew what types of clothes they wear. We also got ideas by watching opening sequences and trailers for props and clothes for example we used the trailer of Adulthood which can be viewed above. We decided to let Jay wear a black hoody, trainers, black hat and a Bandanna this shows he's not looking for attention from the crowd and for Curtis we simply used casual clothes. On the setting we needed to find a blunt object to be used as a weapon. This is a significant object and it could carry on a story.

Own initial idea submitted to group for consideration

My ideas for the opening sequence were firsty that we should use two characters in a school commiting a crime which is escalating and has no good end for one of the persons I also came up with the idea that in another story there is a pro- and antagonist in the story who are having an argument. We finally used this rough idea and had to develop it as we needed to think about the story, props and also the location.

Planning meetings stuff from week 3 (JAN 16-20)

On the third week we finished up our very final storyboard which included a setting,  actors and acting change and we planned every single shot in detail and tried to commit every ideas we got. After that we decided what props to use, we decided black clothes, black hat and a black bandanna for the criminal character, we chose to use the black bandanna because it represents Jay's gang. He wears outfits that could be seen as trouble kid or criminal just to be seen on public and gain respect. The other character which is a casual young man wears normal clothes. The story begins with Curtis entering the park and sitting down the bench. As he was playing around with his phone he recognizes a mysterious man who was dressed in a uncertain way that he couldn't tell but the audience could. That mysterious who is called Jay was walking up to him in a swaggered motion to show his status. Curtis didn't take him serious and answered Jay's question sarcastically. Jay didn't take too well to his response and he was getting aggressive towards Curtis. The situation escalated which Curtis couldn't control, suddenly Jay punches him and it was clear to the audience that Jay wasn't messing around. Already after a few shots Curtis was lying helpless on the floor. Jay was really serious and picked up a bunt object, he strikes at Curtis with all his strength and the shot fades out. Jay called someone and started to talk in another language we placed subtitles at the bottom of the screen so the audience knows what he's saying, then you can hear a zip and a car door which Curtis won't realize but the audience will. And this will carry on the story. We decided to call the movie "Redemption" because we thought about a complex story which is not easy to tell, can Jay clear his sins?