Special Graphics

When creating the opening I decided to challenge myself and create a visually stunning title to the movie. This would feature the bands name: The Disciples, with the film name underneath: Back On The Block. I researched many films and how their main title was portrayed. After enough research I found a type of title which would work best on our film.

This title I chose to create requires creating an image with a hollow title which would allow me to place a video behind the picture, creating the effect of a moving title.

To go about this I firstly created the template. A black background with a normal title on, as if it where a poster. The next thing I did was change the 'Back On The Block Title to as vibrant colour as possible to make the hollowing as easy as possible. Due to a tight schedule didn't have time to create the hollowed image on a program like Photoshop. Although it would create a crisper border for the hollowed text, I felt a faster creation would be more beneficial to our production process. I imported the image into PowerPoint and use the 'Remove Background' function. This allowed me to remove the vibrant coloured text leaving a transparent effect.

Once I had created this image, I transferred it to Premier. I then laid it over a video which I had chosen. Choosing the correct video was difficult but I felt it was essential to chose one that had frequently changing 'Disco' colours.

Film Poster

The next step in my process was creating a poster for the movie. This was much harder than i first thought it would be due to the difficulty with fonts on the Mac. The font i used as the primary title was native toWindows meaning i had to externally install it on the Mac. Once i had, i found it difficult to manipulate due to the slowness of the Mac comprehending what was asking it to do. Eventually i found a way to speed this up: by converting the text to a picture and changing it from there. The end product can be seen below. It draws inspiration for the Dark Knights film poster with aspects of it being imitated.

Planning

Timeline

Finished Opening

 Here is our finished opening. Connor made some alterations to the fonts and added in another few shots we decided to film, it helps people understand the storyline more and we got very good feedback from the class and teachers. We are finally very happy with it.

Synopsis Planning

What we will need:

• Gold Chains, Sunglasses, Bandana, Snapback.
• Green Screen, Lighting.
• Room to interview in.
• Microphone.
• Recording Studio.
• Sink, Tap and Mirror.
• Brink Wall.
• Pathway, Trees, Greenery.

Characters:

• Keith Abraham Lovesworth (Nathan)

In this I will be playing a religious, eccentric character who cannot sing but has made it big in the music industry with his singing partner C.DOT (Connor). He is a calming influence on Connor and the two are completely different personality wise but when they come together and sing, something just feels right.

• Callum C.DOT Flewers (Connor) 

In this Connor plays an offensive, serious person who finds it hard to control is anger. He is the one that has the offensive lyrics which offends Keith's church but Keith overlooks this as he sees good in C.DOT.

• Costume: 

For myself, the group felt as if he needed to always look formal, with various white or black shirts and formal jackets as we felt this would represent me as a religious figure, in one shot i dressed in all black with a white dog collar and a gold chain with with the symbol of Jesus to represent me as a 'Vicar' or 'Priest' which hopefully some people will find comical. Connor decided to dress in lots of gold chains with various hoodies, bandana's and snapbacks to represent him being from the streets of London which people will also hopefully find comical because it illustrates that we are two completely different people from different walks of life.

• Location:

Our film opening will be located in various different locations such as recording studios, walkways, brick walls, interview rooms and an almost bathroom looking area.

• Audience: 

We have pitched our audience to be between the ages of 15 and 30 however not excluding any ages over the age of 30. We did not think anyone younger should be able to view this because there will be traces of drug abuse and offensive language also our group envisaged our fans being older than 14 years or younger as they would be too young to be around when we was big. The film certificate is 15. 

Titles Research

To research titles, Nathan had to gather information on films from our given genre and analysis them. To begin with Nathan had to research past films like 'Micheal Jackson's: This Is It', One Direction's: This Is Us' and finally 'This Is Spinal Tap', all of them being movie documentaries about famous bands, and even one of them being a mockumentary, the specific genre we are aiming for. Nathan studied all three of these opening sequences and what I found in common with them is that the titles are simplistic and it shows a back story which is something we are aiming for.

The Disciples Comeback Song

You see a snap shots of this song being recorded in the first 20 seconds of the opening sequence. Although this has been written, some of the lyrics might have changed slightly. The name of the song is 'Live For God'.

(Nathan)

Live for God,
Shake his hand,
Praise the Lord for this Holy Band,
Live for God,
Shake his hand,
Praise the Lord for this Holy Band.

Like a bird soaring high,
Reach to God and touch the sky,
Thank him for the life we live,
And a passionate prayer I will give,
Thank God for this land of heather,
I just wish that I could live forever,

Live for God,
Shake his hand,
Praise the Lord for this Holy Band,
Live for God,
Shake his hand,
Praise the Lord for this Holy Band.

He took my dreams and made them true honey,
Gave me the fame and the life and the money,
Showed me love and showed me pride and made me funny,
Everyday he clears my sky and makes it sunny,
His son was born in December,
And on the 25th we shall remember.

(Connor)

Comin' up from the hood man,
Where the druggys kill each other for a tin can,
Mad 8 year olds cruising with they hoods up,
Drinking special brew from their old sippy cups.

If a boy ever threatens me they better run,
Cos a gangster never leaves his house without a gun,
Always wanted gold chain and some grey goose,
Now i'm in the club with 'em i'll set 'em loose.

Keeping it thoro i've never been a fake sheep,
On my own style like the boys mobb deep,
You clowns fuck around and die today,
Shots through you like a mother-fucking x-ray.

People ask me when the next album gon' drop,
They want that mixture of tight rap and hip-hop,
Paired with Chief Keith and his mad pop,
Next album Disciples Back On The Block.

Basic Script - Connor's (C.Dot's) Interview

Before this interview there will be a shot of Nathan and Connor turning to look at each other after Nathan's interview

Mel - people might look at the two of you and think it's quite an unconventional partnership

Connor - [pause] what are you trying to say?

Mel - Well it's a gospel singer and a rapper

Connor - Thats racist and there is no placism for racism in the music industry

After the interview it then goes on to the first film Logo coming up and the titles will start..

Basic Script - Nathan's (Keith's) Interview

Mel - So what have you been up to since the split?

Nathan - Prison mainly, it was quite therapeutic really. I found Jesus, shared a cell with him. Lovely lad, hispanic, went by the name hey-zeus. [pause] In all seriousness though, i did find the church. i was born again.

Mel - Weren't you born again before the band?

Nathan - Yeah but this was more like an afterbirth

Mel - Have you been in contact with C.Dot?

Nathan - [looks into the distance] I wonder where he is now

Childhood Pictures

Over the last few days we had been watching various opening scenes for movies that relate to our genre and plot, one of the most notable being One Direction's 'This Is Us'. After the opening credits, a montage of clips of the boys growing up can be seen with photos of the boys at various different ages being displayed. Connor remembered an old photo album full of pictures of him at different ages.

Newspaper Article

Today my attentions focussed around creating social media which I could include in our film, i felt this would play a strong roll in showing our characters comedown from the peak of society, to just another failed band. Choosing a popular Newspaper: The Sun, I created the below article.

Shooting Schedule

Second draft

Here is our close to finishing second draft

Moodboard

In this particular lesson Nathan was assigned a task to make a mood board consisting of all the sorts of things we would either like to show in our opening scene or something just to give us inspiration to work from it. A lot of the images are from other documentary films such as One Direction's This Is Us and Michael Jacksons' This Is It.

Final Logo Choice

In the end, my group decided to go with this logo Connor created. We chose this because we felt the other logo gave off a very 80's inspired look with the colours that was used on them and one thing we are not, are 80's tribute artist. This logo represents us as a band, sleek, modern and pure. The white represents the pureness and the black background makes the writing stand out more; whereas the other colours on the background of the other logos do not make the writing the focal point whereas this does that.

Synopsis Planning

Synopsis Planning

What we will need:

• Gold Chains, Sunglasses, Bandana, Snapback.
• Green Screen, Lighting.
• Room to interview in.
• Microphone.
• Recording Studio.
• Sink, Tap and Mirror.
• Brink Wall.
• Pathway, Trees, Greenery.

Characters:

• Keith Abraham Lovesworth (Nathan)

In this I will be playing a religious, eccentric character who cannot sing but has made it big in the music industry with his singing partner C.DOT (Connor). He is a calming influence on Connor and the two are completely different personality wise but when they come together and sing, something just feels right.

• Callum C.DOT Flewers (Connor) 

In this Connor plays an offensive, serious person who finds it hard to control is anger. He is the one that has the offensive lyrics which offends Keith's church but Keith overlooks this as he sees good in C.DOT.

• Costume: 

For myself, the group felt as if he needed to always look formal, with various white or black shirts and formal jackets as we felt this would represent me as a religious figure, in one shot i dressed in all black with a white dog collar and a gold chain with with the symbol of Jesus to represent me as a 'Vicar' or 'Priest' which hopefully some people will find comical. Connor decided to dress in lots of gold chains with various hoodies, bandana's and snapbacks to represent him being from the streets of London which people will also hopefully find comical because it illustrates that we are two completely different people from different walks of life.

• Location:

Our film opening will be located in various different locations such as recording studios, walkways, brick walls, interview rooms and an almost bathroom looking area.

• Audience: 

We have pitched our audience to be between the ages of 15 and 30 however not excluding any ages over the age of 30. We did not think anyone younger should be able to view this because there will be traces of drug abuse and offensive language also our group envisaged our fans being older than 14 years or younger as they would be too young to be around when we was big. The film certificate is 15.

Institution

The Island Def Jam Music Group 

The Island Def Jam Music Group (IDJMG) was an American record label group formed in 1999 when the Universal Music Group (UMG) merged two of its daughter companies Island Recordings and Def Jam Recordings. In 2011, Motown Records was split from the Universal Motown Republic Group and was subsequently merged into The Island Def Jam Music Group. Barry Weiss served as Chairman and CEO of the company.^[3] As of February 2014, artists on the IDJMG roster included Mariah Carey, Rihanna, Kanye West, 2 Chainz, and Iggy Azalea.On April 1, 2014, it was announced that Island Def Jam will no longer be running following the resigning of CEO Barry Weiss. The label will now be reorganizing Def Jam Recordings, Island Records and Motown Records all as separate entities. Being as our film is about a singing duo who is as big in the music industry as Rihanna and Kanye West, my group thought it would be ideal for our film to distributed by our 'record label' and a lot of films that are produced by music companies we have taken inspiration from, for instance One Directions movie and Lady Gaga's tour movie. We took a lot of our creativity from these two films in particular. One of the main reasons that we decided to chose this distributor is because they have had precious experience in producing films like ours. 

Interscope Pictures

Interscope Communications (also known as Interscope Pictures) was a motion picture production company founded in 1982 by Ted Field. Its divisions included Interscope Records (which was founded in 1990 as a joint venture with Atlantic Records).

Film Certificate

For mine, Connors and Melanie's film 'The Disciples: Back On The Block', we had to decide what film certificate to give it. When in the planning stages for our film, we decided that giving it an age rating of 15 would be most appropriate as from the outset we chose that our film will involve some traces of drug abuse and some scenes that younger viewers may find offensive, such as when Connor raps in the beginning of the open sequence, a swear word can be heard and generally his language when rapping is considered offensive. After doing some research i found that drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. I believe we do not do this however we do show this openly and talk about it.

Shot List

When filming we wanted to include as many different shots as we could. Here is a list of the shots we have chosen to film and hopefully include in our opening sequence:

1. Close up of Connor
2. Close up of Nathan
3. Panning shot (right to left) of Connor and Nathan in recording studio
4. Long shot of Connor standing
5. Mid shot of Connor sitting
6. Medium shot of Connor at the mirror
7. Close up of Connor looking in the mirror
8. Close up of hands by the tap
9. Medium shot of Connor washing his face
10. Close up of chain on tap
11. Close up of chain in sink
12. Medium shot of Connor and Nathan (at church)
13. Extreme long shot of Nathan walking towards the camera
14. Panning upwards of Nathan standing
15. Panning downwards/ birds eye view of Nathan lying on the grass
16. Close up of stepping in a puddle
17. Close up of Nathan's face
18. Long shot of Nathan walking towards camera
19. Close up/ panning left of Connor and Nathan

We will be adding more shots and we may not include all of the shots listen above in our film opening.