TV CREDITS EVALUATIONThe task we got given to complete over 6 weeks was to create the opening sequence for A new original SIFI/fantasy British television drama which would air on BBC3.

We had to get into groups of 2 so that we would have help and support in producing the final video, I chose to go with Kristie as I think we are on the same level and would help each other in the process.

Make-up and costumes are part of the “Mise en scene," in film and television. They are a vital part of the pre production and production as they help establish the overall look and mood of the piece of media. As we knew that it was very important my partner and myself took great care in choosing the characters outfits and making sure they fitted the role in a way that the audience could sense what personality they were presented with before any words or actions had been taken by that character.

An example of where costume is made effective is in the British television Si Fi drama Misfits which is written by Howard OvermanIn misfits they represent each different character through their costume very effectively, because just from the opening section just from looking at the characters you gain a clear understanding of the disposition of their character therefore can predict what they will be hold for the series, which is important when making a television show because you need to keep viewers and the only way to do that is to keep the audience happy.

COSTUMES

Below I have I labelled the understanding which I received from each character before I got to know them.

SIMON: He comes across as a shy character for many reasons which are shown in the opening. Firstly his appearance, he has his hair all to one side, with a perfect parting, he also has his orange suit buttoned up to the top and sleeves all the way down his arms, this shows he likes everything to be covered and neat. He also stands in away which would suggest that he is not confident, hands in pockets and slouched back, keeping himself to himself unlike many of the others. His peers pick of this as well and call him ‘the weird kid’.

• KELLY: She comes across as a quite aggressive and disrespected member of the group because of the way she behaves, talks and dresses. I would group her in the class of a ‘chav’ as she has all the stereo typical elements which that would represent, including having her hair scraped back into a pony tail, accompanied by large gold hoop earrings and Adidas trainers with her orange jump suit. The way she is choosing to stand also helps the audience get this social image of her because she has both her elbow leaning backwards onto the bar, this represents to the audience that she's ready for anyone and anything. Overall she comes across as a strong and powerful character.

• CURTIS: Everything about Curtis reflects the fact that he doesn’t want to or even think that he should be in community service. This outfit shows this because he has it jump suit tied around his waist, while wearing a grey vest top which is only half his uniform whilst everyone else is wearing it up on their top half, Because he is in the vest top it shows how muscular he is which makes you believe he sporty and enjoys working out. He does come across as a confident character because of the “i shouldn’t even be here’ which shows he thinks he’s better than all the other young offenders and this is demonstrated in his body language when he is leaning away from everyone else on the bar.

• ALISHA: For the most past Alisha comes across as a stuck up, girly girl flirt. Everything she does in the opening scene reflects this assumption. Her appearance for example, she accessories her orange jump suit with a variation of things which will also compliment her figure more, she has the buttons undone so she can show of her cleavage and then a belt around the waist to give her some shape and finally she rolls up the ankles of the bottoms to make them skinny on her legs. The flirty side of her is represented while she is playing with her hair the whole time in a seductive way. She picks up her phone half way thought the opening and completely ignores the support working orders to hang up, this shows she's stuck up and cheeky because of her obvious disbandment of orders.

• NATHAN: Nathan all the way though the opening comes across as a cheeky, confident and strong character. He does this with all of his remarks and blatant answering back and trying to cause trouble within the group. He is also represented as the main character because of the editing of the shots, nearly every shot goes back toward him after each others of the different misfits. His appearance doesn’t really give away that much to do with his character apart from not really caring, because he has his hair which his messy and curly and his jumpsuit which is done up nearly to the top, he is also standing in the middle of the group with a few people on the other sides of him, this makes him seem to the audience as the main character.

• We wanted to create the same detail in our own sequence so we looked at costume in great detail. An example is with our character Tyler who is played by Tomas Mantle. He is wearing a Jack Wills rugby shirt, this gives off a number of impressions to the audience. One of them is that he is from a privileged background as Jack Wills is a expensive brand and is known for having a high class representation. Also because it is a rugby shirt it makes the assumption that he plays and enjoys sports which would put him in the stereotypical category of jock. He has also got neat hair and looks clean and tidy this shows that he takes pride in his appearance and cares what other people think of him. He is boat shoes which are a common fashions item which allows the audience to see that he have money to keep up with fashion trends.

PROPS AND LOCATION

• Props and location are often over looked when making a low budget project because they seem minor compared to script and other more important aspects of the production. However Kristie and myself did not want to over look props and location as they can really make a mark on your video for positive or negative. In preproduction when looking at where, when and how to film certain shots we always looked for the best location to make the scene appear as real as possible, we also always tried to bring in as many props to help add atmosphere to the scene, for example when we needed a car, we used our connections and had a car at college which we were free use willingly with access for as long as we needed. Examples of how we used our props and location scouting are below.

In this scene when the character Grace is packing her bag up, the location is key because she is in a bedroom which is styled perfectly for her personality. She is on a single bed which implies that the room is small and has a tatty second hand science textbook which both could imply that she has not come from a particularly wealthy family. The wallpaper and bed sheets both have flowers on them which gives us the impression that she is rather girly and sweet which also leans into the naïve part of a possible personality. The location of this room is actually in my house, it's my older sisters room and it's actually much bigger but you can't see it with the angle and the framing that we have done, this location was easy to get to but it looks effective rather than filming it at college, which looks nothing like a actual room would look like.

• In this scene the character Alexa who is played my myself, Lucy Taylor, is spraying perfume in her room as she gets ready for college. There are a number of props scene which I feel makes the shot more effective and real to the audience in reflecting the personality of Alexa. For example there are photos on the wall which shows that she young, popular and proud. The wall which the photos is on is green which bright which reflects her outgoing personality. She is spraying perfume which is a something that we wanted her to do as one of the actions in the opening because it exhibits her girly and self obsessed attitude towards herself.

An example in the media of location is the SIFI television series LOST which is about the survivors of a severe plane crash which ends up on a remote island.

The parts of the lost that are filmed in present day, which means on the island and not in a flashback to the characters past were filmed in the Hawaiian island of Oahu. However the producers of the show make the show look effectively like a remote island.

The location for lost is very important because the audience need to see that the island has no human life and will be a struggle and challenge to live on, and you wouldn't get that effect if it was all filmed in the middle of a New York street. Of course some of it was filmed its various studios and green screens across America for the most part it was filmed on natural habitats and locations.

CONSTRUCTION OF CHARACTER

• Construction of character is when the audience gets a image of what the character is like and knowing what there life entails. You do this by showing parts of the personality to the audience and opening the characters life up to them, so it seems like they know the character personally. In a opening you need to especially build up a character because if they like the first part of the series maybe the first episode then my will continue to watch and build up a supportive audience.

• In our opening we tried to construct our characters as much as possible so we tried to include scenes which could drop hints of what would follow in the upcoming episodes. One example of this is in the scene where the characters Tyler and Alexa are hugging and laughing. This shows that these two characters will in future episodes be getting very close and may even have a love story between them. This makes the audience hopeful and gives them something to watch for as in our survey that we took one of the aspects which they wanted to see in a programme was a love story.

The Simpsons is a great example of character construction because in there opening you get to know the personality of each character through the actions of them getting home. • The one which I am going to focus on is Bart

because in the opening you get to know him really well, first is him writing lines on a chalk board which makes us believe that he is badly behaved at school. We also see him skateboarding through the town, dodging people and being inconsiderate. People in the town also recognised him which shows that he is popular in the town for being a menace. All this information you get for very short clips which make up a big picture of this one character.

NARRATIVE• In television shows opening its important to show a clear narrative of

what the show will include and hint at some of the storylines of the show. This is because when watching the opening it should represent the programme in short thus make you decide whether you want to watch it or not. Many programmes don’t do this they simply just have a short credit sequence which shows the name and a little bit of motion from the actors.

• Such as Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries and HEROES

A great example of a show which displays clear narrative in it’s opening sequence is DEXTER.

Throughout the opening a man which you presume is Dexter getting ready for the day. However whilst doing so, everything becomes very violent and crude. All of the actions become vulgar and make you feel uneasy because they seem to relate to murder

As he cuts a grapefruit up, it is made to seem like flesh and the blood when he is shaving is portrayed as he is cutting himself. All this relates to the narrative of the show which is that Dexter is a serial killer. So from the opening you get a clear idea of what the show is going to represent.

• In, our opening we wanted to also just like DEXTER, show what our series narrative clearly. We did this by using a overlay effect in final cut to show the characters swapping bodies. We did this for all the characters together and then two at a time, this gave a clue to the narrative that it would just be the four of them swapping.

• Another narrative hint in this shot is that they are at college/school because of the computers and work posters in the background.

• I think it is important for this to include the narrative in our opening because otherwise it would just look like a teenage TV drama like skins or Waterloo Road and nothing like a SIFI drama.

CREDITS• In the process of making our credits

we knew that we wanted something different to what is on Final Cut or Photoshop, so we went to www.dafont.com and searched techno. Our search came up with a few and to really see which one looked the best we typed our show name and compared on a sheet.

• The one which Kristie both decided we liked best was TECHO LCD

• For all the names of the actors, actresses and production team members it was perfect.

However for the logo for the show ‘Switch’ we wanted something a bit different, so it would stand out and look for SIFI themed. So we decided to put a glow effect so it would better relate to a space/science effect.

On the switch logo title I created a new canvas and used the bucket tool to paint the background black. I then went onto the to text tool and I typed in ‘Switch’. On the layer of the text I right clicked and selected blending options. A window then appeared and I started to play around with the settings that were available. I added an outer glow, inner glow, bevel and emboss so the text looked like it was glowing. After creating the title I saved them on a transparent background on ‘save for web and devices’ and later imported them into final cut.

The friends credits are a inspiration to me because everyone knows the font is to do with FRIENDS when they see it, this type of recognition is something which you can only get with a great long running television show. With friends they also cut between original clips from the first season opening and then to current season clips Another great thing about the

FRIENDS opening credits is that the font is the same throughout, so credits of the actors and producers is the same as the font, this font is called Gabriel Weiss’. This works well because it makes the whole opening come together more as a whole and looks more continuous.

EFFECTSIn the E4 show MISFITS all the characters gain supernatural powers and Simons is that he can turn himself invisible when he is feeling ignored. The effect that is created when he is doing this to do with overlay on final cut on this face.This looks effective because it means that you can no longer see his face in the mess, he is also pulling a screaming face to show that he is in pain and doesn’t know what is going on. This looks good to the audience because he feels just as confused as he looks. It is sped up as well which makes it seem harsh and abrupt I also like that it doesn’t happen to the whole body and just the head is effected because that is where he is feeling ignored in his mind.

To do this we used Final Cut and created many of the same clip and overlaid then on different video tracks and them moved all of the them slightly along to cause a delayed video which over crossed each other. We also played around with some of the video filters to make the effect look slightly more trippy. The one which we decided on was just colour correction and only slightly made the 2 of the slips brighter so they clash with the others. Unlike MISFITS we kept ours the same speed because we wanted the audience to be able to see them effect clearly as it is not on screen for a long period of time.

In our opening we wanted to use the same sort of effect to what happens to Simon in MISFITS because we really liked the way it left the audience feeling confused as well.

However we did need to change the effect slightly as we wanted it to effect the whole body instead of just the head.

FRAMING OF CHARACTERS In this key frame you can see Alexa and Grace having a conversation with each other. The ‘over the shoulder shot’ is used to remind the audience that they are having the conversation with each other and not other characters in the series. The shot is looking at Grace’s reaction to what Alexa is wearing because its not what she would usually dress herself in. This shot works well because it is a conventional shot for any film or television show, therefore it does not look out of place.

TYPE OF ACTION Throughout our video you can see that the type of action is drama and humour, there are several hints at this including two characters hugging on the field which hints at a romantic relationship between two characters which from our focus groups and surveys found out this is wanted by the viewers and audience. More drama is shown when Tyler throws a paper ball at Edwards head, this would cause conflict which always results in drama between the group that you see forming in the opening. Humour is reflected when Tyler has been put into Alexa’s body and looks down her top, this is funny because this is what most teenage boys would do if they had the chance to so they can relate to the action on screen.

Which aspect did you find the most enjoyable?

The most enjoyable aspect for me was the research. This is because I have never really been interested in watching SIFI shows because I don’t believe in supernatural or space. So this discouraged me to taking a interest in any of the shows which I have seen be advised.

Before we started this project the only SIFI media that I ever watched was a few episodes of LOST, Twilight and Harry Potter.

However from researching shows such as MISFITS, HEROES and Vampire Diaries and finding our that there is more to SIFI than just Doctor Who and Star Wars I have really opened myself up too other types of TV shows other than the normal ones which I watch for example How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory.

So this project has helped me find my section of SIFI which I enjoy and I think that it has been reflected in the television show that we have created as I think it has the same audience as MISFITS rather than Star Trek, because of the light science fiction and teen references.

Which aspect did you find the hardest work?

• I found editing the hardest because in the past projects at in this course where we have had to do editing we were always working alone so if we came into a conflict we could solve it easily and quickly. But when you ate working with another person you have to check everything with them to make sure they agree otherwise they may not like it and then you have to go back and change it later on which is counter productive.

• The editing is also difficult because although you can both sit at the laptop with earphones, but only one person can be in control of the laptop this means the other person just has to watch and this can be very boring and tiresome. So the other person always ends up getting distracted and losing focus which makes it hard for the editor to consult them on the progress and changes throughout.

• One way which we did help this situation is that while I was editing Kristie made all the credits on the desk next to me and so she was doing something instead of just wasting her time and she was still next to me so I could talk to her about the editing process.

What problems did you face - how did you resolve them?

• During pre-production, production and post production Kristie and myself faces a number of difficulties and problems but we managed to overcome them all.

1. One of the first problems that we uncounted during pre-production is that neither Kirstie or myself had really watched any science fiction TV shows so we we’re stuck with what to type of show to do it on. To solve this we decided to watch a few that night that the first episode in order for us to gain a better understanding for us to actually make our own. It did really help because I gave us a idea of what counted as Science Fiction genre.

2. The biggest problem that we faced in production was that after we had filmed a few of the scenes with Doug who was supposed to be playing Tyler he fell sick and could not continue filming the next day when we needed all four of the actors. This caused huge stress because we only found out the morning of the day we were shooting.

To solve this huge problem we spent some time on the phone to our actor Thomas who was originally meant to play Edward but instead had to play Tyler. Then we had to try to find someone else who could play the role of Edward and we asked another boy called Harry but he was not free when we needed him because he had a lesson. So in the end we had to use one of our class mates Ed. However he was also busy making his own project so he could only film for a short space of time. So everything which we filmed with him was quite rushed and he was wearing all the same clothes which was something that we really did not want to happen. Luckily Thomas had more time available to film the parts which needed re-filming because Doug being unavailable, this made things less stressful and brought the quality of the video up slightly. In the end we did manage to get all of the stuff filmed on the planned day but it was a pain doing because of the cancelations

3. One of the last problems which Kristie and myself faced was that in post production we realised that we really did not have enough clips to make the video long enough to fit within the boundary. So during lunch that day we went out and filmed a few extra scenes that we could think of which included the both of us that would help us tell the story better. This worked quite well because I think we managed to get some strong clips which actually work really well in the final video.

How did you find working in a team? How did it help, or not?

• Working in a group of two had many positives but it did have its fair share of negatives as well.

• Some of the positives were that if you were ever stuck for ideas or you needed help someone was always there to help you figure what is missing from it or how to solve the problem.

• Another positive is that you could always share the work, so it got done much faster and still to a high standard. If there is part of the whole project process that you do not like or feel that its not your strongest part, odds are the other person will be good at it and enjoy it. So during the process with another person most of the time you get to do the bits which you are strongest at

• However there are some negatives. One of them being that you have to consult your partner about every part of the process and if you have a idea and you love it your partner may not which means that the idea has to be scrapped.

• Another negative is that you have to spend large amounts of time with your partner and if you don’t always get on with them that can cause difficulties because of the lack of communication

• One more negative is that if the other member of your group is absent you are quite often stuck for what to do because maybe they haven't brought the work in simply just haven't done it. That’s another problem if your partner is lazy and doesn’t have time to do the work, luckily that wasn’t a problem with me because Kristie is a very dedicated student like myself.

• Organisation with two people is easier because you can fit into into each others free time, however with Kristie and myself we both have very demanding jobs outside of college working all weekend and good number of nights during the week so we found organisation. So we found that sometime we had to give up some of the free time during lunch and after college to make ourselves available to meet up and do more planning to help us end up with a final product that we would both be proud of

• Over all having a partner was better than working alone because of all the help you can get and communication really isn't that hard between two people as long as they get on good together but I would not have wanted to work in a bigger group than 3 people it would have been too hard.

Legal and ethical consideration

As Kristie and myself get closer towards the draft copy of our edit, we bot decided that we needed to start thinking about which music was to be included in our opening credits and intro.We wanted the same style of music as Bands such as Green Day and Oasis, so in the genre of American punk and British Rock. This is because of the energy that this type of music gives off. We also wanted the music to seem upbeat but not the pop upbeat music which you hear in American sitcoms. I knew a band which sung, recorded and performed this style of music, that their name is Sterling, they have a MySpace and Facebook page which they post their latest music and performance dates.

I listened to all their available music and found two which I thought would be appropriate for the opening and style which we want to create. I showed both to Kristie how was at the time busy making the shot list and she liked one but not the other. The one which we both liked was Historia. The next step that I took was I contacted the lead singer of the band, Dale Taylor. I know him personally because I went to the same school and he used to teach me guitar, so I sent him a email via Facebook.

This was perfect because we got a great song that we really liked and suits the TV show perfectly and we got to use it without breaking any copyright laws.

COPYRIGHT:“the exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc.: works granted such right by law on or after January 1, 1978, are protected for the lifetime of the author or creator and for a period of 50 years after his or her death.”

Its important that we got permission before we used the song because, using someone else's content without their permission is illegal if they have not given creative commons on it.

Another ethical consideration which we needed to take into account is to make sure that we had a range of ethical backgrounds in our cast list to avoid being open to being judged for racism and other prejudgments.We did not purposely take action, however it so happened that we avoided having a all British white cast by having Kristie Cheng who is Chinese play the role of grace.

SKILLS DEVELOPMENTDuring this whole project I have used a variety of different computer systems, some of which I have used before and have learnt more from and others which were completely new.

One of the software that I used was Final Cut Express which I had used before in other college units and at home but during this unit I learnt some new skills which I feel will help me with future projects and tasks. One of the skills that I learnt was how important video filters can be to make your video more interesting to add some variation to the clips to make it more exciting and interesting. Even if it is just a slight bit of colour correction it can make a lot of difference.

Key framing was a vital part of our production, because it is what created the effect where they changed bodies and without that effect the whole opening would not have any meaning towards Science Fiction, it would just be a teenage drama like SKINS.

One software that I had never used before was NEED TO FINISH

CONCLUSIONThe target audience that we got given to create our product for was the audience of BB3 which is:MALE- 17SHOPS: TOPMAN, RIVER ISLAND, ARK, URBAN OUTFITTERS.FOOD: NANDOS, REDBULL, DORITOS, MCDONALDS, SNICKERSTVSHOWS: MISFITS, INBETWEENERS, FAMILY GUY, CLEVELAND SHOW.FILMS: STEPBROTHERS, ADULTHOOD, ROLE MODLES, HANGOVERGAMES: TEMPLE RUN, CALL OF DUTY, FIFA.INTERNET: FACEBOOK, TWITTER, YOUTUBE FEMALE -17

SHOPS: TOPSHOP, ZARA, H&M , URBAN OUTFITTERSFOOD:NANDOS, WAGAMAMAS, MCDONALDS AND STARBUCKSTVSHOWS: THE ONLY WAY IS ESSEX, SKINS AND MISFITSFILMS: MEAN GIRLS, WHITE CHICKS AND DEVIL WEARS PRADAGAMES: TEMPLE RUN AND ANGRY BIRDSINTERNET: FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND TUMBLR.

Overall based on the target audience I feel as though our show based on the opening is too young for the target audience and channel which we had to base it on. I think a better channel for it too be aired on would be CBBC, as it reflects the younger audience more. If I could change it I would make the whole opening darker and more gloomy to make it seem more like a teenage Science Fiction such True Blood or Heroes and less like the Sarah Jane Adventures. If we did this and also included a few more conventional teenage aspects such as parties, drinking and drugs we would gain a few years onto the target audience and bring it up to BBC THREES target audience.

The strengths of our opening are that the music is very power and has a catchy guitar hook which would get in people heads. Also a lot of the edits fit it with the music which is something we got advised to include as it makes the opening seem very clean cut and effectively sharp. Even though we muted the background sound in order to hear the music better it doesn’t look like a music video which is a success because that was something which we were nervous about

Another strength I think is that all the clips are off good quality, and look as they have been thought out before shooting. We produced a good variation of camera angles which stay consistent and do not strain the eye whist watching.

The credits which we produced looked great and suited the style of the opening perfectly, most of them were placed in parts which were easy to read and for the right space of time.

From feedback I have learnt that in the first section of the characters getting ready it is easy to determine between each character and their different actions which they are doing in order to get ready for college.

One of last strengths in a certain part in the editing when Grace is arriving at college, and she bumps into two boys because she is too preoccupied with her phone and it switches from a side view to a long shot just as they knock her this gives the audience a feeling of being knocked as well and is extremely effective I think.

The first of our weaknesses with our video is that we struggled to use many filters during the editing because we ran out of time and inspiration. I think this makes the opening seem boring and dull because most of it is in the same light and looks as though it had been filmed one after the other even though this is not the case.

Another weakness is that at the end of the opening the music and text just cut off, if I could change it now I would fade both to give it a smoother and cleaner ending rather than the abrupt one it has now.

The last weakness is that the opening lacks shots of the boys and especially Edward. Most of the shots are of the girls interaction with each other, this is because shooting with Kristie and myself is easier than figuring out when the boys are free and then taking them away somewhere to film. If I could change it I would have given us more time to film all of the scenes instead of just a week given us two weeks because then we could have recorded more with the boys and involved then in more of the shots.

Our original idea was ‘teenagers swapping bodies’ and I think that we stuck with that idea very well. At first we wanted to make it much like skins, which parties and drugs being a main aspect but that soon changed when we wanted it to be more family friendly and we may have gone a bit far with the family friendly as now its very clean of all that teenage stuff but we still have stuck to the same simple idea and with the same high school character conventions which we took inspiration from places such as ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Mean Girls’.

In conclusion I am very happy with how our final product turned out and am proud at how hard Kristie and myself works to get it too the high standard which we believe that it is at.