The film opening takes inspiration from various films in its use of narration, running scenes, and lighting techniques to portray social class differences. While conforming somewhat to conventions, the opening challenges norms by using original family footage from the 1960s-1970s and a poem for narration. The opening leaves questions for the audience and draws them in through its ambiguous nature. Technologies like Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro were used to add effects and layer footage, though some effects proved difficult to implement. Lessons were learned about lighting, audio recording, and taking creative risks rather than compromising vision from the preliminary task experience.

1. As media Evaluation
F Oe
ilm pning ' er D r '
Da ia y
By M rh Ru ne
a ta m y

2. In what what way does your media product...
Use develop or challenge...
I feel like I've conformed to some of the typical
such a huge part of the media, its almost hard not to. After Forms and conventions of
conventions of a film opening, when the film industry is
hard to come up with a completely original idea. I thought real media products!?
my original research I realised that it is in fact extremely
that the only way I could make my film opening interesting
and new, is by taking small ideas from a selection of many
different films from different genres and time periods and
adapt them using my own ideas. Luckily my film opening is
inspired through my own experience and events very
personal to me, this enabled me to draw upon my own
emotion, meaning my ideas where far more raw and
individual. After watching the opening of 'Nowhere Boy' I
got a lot of inspiration from him running at the beginning, I
liked how it was quite ambiguous and made the audience
wonder why/ what he was running from, also after
watching 'The Reader' I found a scene where the sun was
shining on a book whilst someone was writing in it, I chose
to try and recreate this with my own twist. Other films
such as 'Lovely Bones' and 'Never let me go' prompted me
to think about using narration, I found that within a lot of
films using narration in the opening sequence draws
audiences in immediately, I added a twist by not having
someone telling the beginning of the story, but by reading
a poem. This is something I haven't seen done much
before, so thought that it really challenged conventions of
typical films.

3. In w a w y de y u
h t a os o r
md po utrpee d frnt sc l g o p?
eia r d c ersnt ifee oia r u s
● The film opening that I have created for
● Seeing as social class was one of my key
'Dear Diary' I believe is interesting in the themes within the film, if I had been able
fact I've taken some original footage of my to create the whole film, I would have tried
mother, from when she was younger, to make it extremely apparent. The
these pictures would have been filmed original older footage seen in my opening,
from around 1965-1976, although its only would have housed the more 'upper'
eleven years, the social aspect of the 60's class, traditional family, whereas new
and the 70's were extremely different. My footage I filmed would have been more
mother was from a very middle class lower-middle class. Because I chose to
background and there were many clips I dabble within the two classes, and due to
could have used to demonstrate this in the fact the entire film was about how
my opening, such as school sports days parallel a mother and daughters life is
and Windlesham Prep School and Sunday even though they've been brought up
Hacks on Horses however I chose not to extremely differently I think it represents
use those pictures, I wanted to convey the social differences within class and history
innocence with an almost ambitious class very well.
and time period and I believe I have
managed to achieve this in my opening.

4. What kind of media institution
might distribute your media
product and why?
● There are many distribution and
production companies within
the film industry, there are 6
main conglomerates which
populate the majority of the
industry. However I wouldn't ● I would say that my film would be most suited to BBC
want any of the 'big six' to Films. I believe that British film houses some of the
distribute my film. I believe most influential and well made film. According to a
strongly in independent cinema, review by the Observer “British Film is a desirable label
therefore more left wing that should be marketed” After reading this statement I
independent distribution am assured that I think BBC Films is where mine
institutions. would belong. The BBC appears to house quality made
films, rather than things that appeal to mass audiences.
Films such as 'Glorious 39' and 'An education' really
inspired me when thinking about ideas for my own.
Also 'Poppy Shakespeare' a BBC production, which has
real depth and meaning encouraged me to choose a
topic that had meaning to me.

5. Who would be the audience for
your media product?
●
The audience that I would aim my film at ●
I feel like I have created a film for a wide age
would be Mainstream Plus. Mainstream range. Because of the two stories running parallel
plus audiences are primarily looking for and the characters being mother and daughter,
good films, however there are not afraid pretty much everyone can relate, as everyone
to try new things, that aren't similar to either is a parent, or has a parent, similarly they
the mainstream Hollywood blockbusters. are a child or they have a child. Again with using
Originally I would have liked my two time periods, it ensures that a larger age
audience to be Aficionados, however range would be interested. However I feel that the
after researching I found that I, audience would be predominantly female,
personally probably didnt have enough although this may not always be the case, I feel
knowledge needed to create something the gender cant always be defined, its more about
for an audience seeking more specialised taste and what genre someone likes.
films.

6. How di you at ract
d t /address your audi
ence?
●
After doing a lot of research into the kind of film I
wanted to be able to compare my film opening ●
The reason I made all those
too, I knew all the conventions I wanted to add. I choices was because during the
needed to have a relevant storyline which people research and planning stage I
could relate to. But using certain historical and found that the films that drew
social conventions to add a certain depth. I tried me in all had ambiguous
using dramatic music in my opening, which helps openings that leave you asking
to build tension, it makes the audience more questions. I dont think its
attentive because they want to know what's exciting when you get handed
happening. ● Also by having the girl running, audiences are everything on a plate as soon as
interested into why she is running. Is she running you click play. Let the mind use
away from something? To something? Is it its own imagination and come to
symbolic? Also because the voice-over is a poem, its own conclusions, this helps
not clear narration, audiences will be asking what it to draw the audience in.
means and what relevance it has.

7. What have you learnt about technologies
from the process of constructing this
product?
●
I found that I wasn't able to do this,
●
There were two main programs I used when editing my therefore I settled with a simple black and
film opening, Adobe After Affects and Adobe Premier Pro, white. I also wanted to make some of my
I also dabbled in using Adobe Photo shop. film slow motion, I found this simple and
easy to do. Using After Affects was slightly
harder than premier pro, it was much more
fiddly and there were many different
I already had a little bit of experience using Premier Pro, however it was a settings and process' that had to be gone
different, slightly older version, so my skills weren't that easily through before you could reach perfection.
transferable. However after doing the preliminary task and a few other When creating my ident on After Affects,
taster exercises I seemed to get the hang of it. Because I wanted my film
opening to look as professional as it possibly could, I really wanted to
experiment with as many effects and layering as I possibly could.
Originally I wanted to create a sepia effect for some of my film, however
after playing around with the effects on premier pro, ●
I had to create each part of my lettering
individually which proved to be
incredibly time consuming. I also created
my pencil drawing on Photoshop, which
was very hard, however I feel by using
Photoshop I created a good image that I
could be proud of.

8. ●
Looking back at my preliminary task, I've found that
I have a much greater knowledge. The filming and
editing in the task was extremely minimalistic and
Looking back at your lacked a lot of imagination, I found it helpful in the
respect that it gave me a tiny insight into what
creating my final film opening may be like. During
preliminary task, what the filming of the preliminary task I tried to keep
everything simple, I was under the illusion that if I
do you feel like you've tried anything too daring it would look tacky or
cheesy. However whilst editing I realised that by
trying to do everything simply just made it boring, I
learnt progression from realised that I had to go with my gut feelings, and
try and create my ideas as much as I could, rather
it, to the full product? then compromising the whole time. The main thing
that I learnt was about lighting, I needed to make
sure that filmed somewhere that had hight quality
artificial light, or there was natural day light, as
filming in darker spaces created a grainy and
unprofessional affect. I also found that if I was going
to have any characters talking, I should record their
voice and dub it over, as whenever you film their
voice with the action, its not very audible at all. As it
turned out, I didn't actually have any conversation
within my film, I just had the voice over, the
preliminary task helped me make that choice.