Evaluation: Part One

The brief I was working towards was finalising the title sequence for my coming-of-age movie “Fixated”; meaning she’s fixed on an idea/something, determined to achieve something good. I had to film different locations, scenes and angles along with focusing on the mise-en-scene, editing with Final Cut Pro and selecting the soundtrack. Fixated is about a financially unfortunate girl who lives in the suburbs of London, her environment is so poor that it drives her to dreaming of escaping. There’s a recurring theme of “dreaming” throughout. Her journey of improving her life begins; she travels to the city’s center surrounding herself with people she aspires to be; yet she’s out of place. Following her around London, you see get to see her dream as come true and the transition from the beginning. It finishes of on a good note where she finally gets to where she wants to be, a richer and happier state of mind.

The sub-genre is a “feel-good drama”, as you may feel good that you can see the juxtaposition from her being poor to rich and the improvement of how happy she is. The storyline and cinematography main goal is to be emotive, playing on the audience’s emotions.

Final Piece - "Fixated"

               

This is my final piece, containing the changes i've made over the months from typography changes, cast changes and even genre changes. All alterations have come down to this finale, i'm very proud of it considering I wasn't as confident with planning, videoing and editing all alone, but that made me want to achieve even more.

Intertextuality

What's intertextuality? The shaping of texts/films based upon another, using cross references.

I will be using intertextuality in my title sequence to help portray my narrative even further for the audience to understand. By using references to other films it can help the audience acknowledge similar patterns and work out the ending or what's going to happen next. As my genre is a coming of age the name gives it away, "Coming" a verb meaning something is expected. Ultimately, showing the journey of a girl wanting to change her life for the better - just like Audrey Hepburn:

Movies, especially before the new millennium, focus a lot on the journey from poor to rich. I believe it's down to the sense of theatre is the only place where dreams and inspirations took off and escaping reality for 2 hours was the best feeling in the world. Movies like Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961), It Could Happen To You (1994) and Trading Places (1983) 

 

With cross references, I will be using Breakfast At Tiffany's as one of many inspirations of mine, its iconic narrative, soundtrack and cast makes it one of the best movies ever produced. I've even gone down with using the protagonist's costuming to help symbolise, "wealth". In Breakfast At Tiffany's Audrey Hepburn is wearing a black hat when she becomes richer, once you see her on screen you can immediately tell she's blessed with fortune. With context from its time, you can see her elegance, high class haute couture fashion.

As well with smoking, Hepburn rejuvenates the look of smoking from my perspective in 2015 - normally linking it with a dirty habit; yet Hepburn makes it look classy and tasteful. I will be using the idea of smoking but in fact, I will be using in a different manor. I didn't choose this but it's the opinions of smoking in the present era that has already depicted it for me. In the 60's smoking was only for the luxurious, now it's very common hence why I will be using smoking to show how my protagonist still has that urban vein running through her.

Smoking In The Sixties

Furthermore, I want to alter the opinions of race and beauty in my movie. Movies like this contain such iconic beauty that nearly every girl looks up to, such as Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. We already have Hepburn make smoking look stunning and we've also had Monroe make curves like ravishing but it's time to show black culture in a more exquisite lifestyle. Perhaps it will change the perceptions of beauty for others, it will also teach the audience not to limit beauty to a specific race.

Why That Cast?

Director Change

After finalising my title sequence, I had a realisation that my director, Noel Clarke, wasn't much suited for my specific genre and narrative. Focusing on his previous work, Adulthood, Kidulthood etc. you can see his work is very gritty, realistic and uses a lot of dark lighting. Now comparing to my final draft, I believe it wouldn't be a project he would do.

However, when looking at Adulthood I can see similar scenes to mine which proves why I initially chose Clarke to direct my film:

Train scenes 

My scenes with graffiti.

Scenes with graffiti in Adulthood

Whereas, Richard Ayoade has done similar movies with the exact feel I want to portray. Especially Submarine the grainy effect, faded colours and the definite stress upon their teenage emotions and settings. I adore his locations, lighting and post-production - exactly what I want to achieve: 

Post-Production: Blank Space

On my time line I used a lot of black gaps in between most of my footage. Although they looked unintentional and unfinished, it was actually on purpose. I wanted to create an effect of my character blinking during a POV shot. I also liked the blank spaces because it gives more attention onto one clip. 

[video of blinking]

But after showing people, they said I should close the gaps. 

Post-Production: Smoothcam and Motion Blur

I chose the effect, "Smoothcam" to run throughout my title-sequence, I really like the effect of it as it reinforces the theme of, "dreaming" it's smoothing and motion blurring of the footage helps achieve this. Especially on the shot below, it shows her in the last state before she transitions to more sophisticated and wealthier.  Also, I didn't use much of a tripod whilst filming because it also aided into the weird motion I wanted to achieve.  This is it with smoothcam:

This is the scene without smoothcam:

In the scene above, I also added the motion-blur effect; I deliberately chose this clip as it will set the tone of the entire title sequence. The effect I was aiming to achieve is a go-pro over the shoulder effect, giving it that following + dreamy atmosphere. 

My favourite scene is the ending, it's the final two scenes that contain the smoothcam and motion blur; it really adds stress upon the "dream" theme: