The document discusses a student film project to create a title sequence for a comedy action film called "Call Me Mr. Teddy." The sequence introduces the main character Teddy, who is clumsy but inherits a role as a spy. To attract their young audience, the students incorporated comedy through Teddy's clumsy actions and included typical elements of action and spy genres like fight scenes. Through the process, the students learned about applying genre conventions and targeting audiences in their title design.

1. Call me…Mr. Teddy!
The brief: Our task was to create a title sequence from an
upcoming production in which we had created
ourselves.We had to consider the narrative, underlining
themes, genre and our target audience.
Our film, Call me Mr. Teddy is and action/comedy film
inspired by existing productions such as Johnny English
and dumb and dumber.

2. Synopsis of the film…
Mr. Teddy is a clumsy man who is simple
minded and capable of nothing but failure
,but due to an inheritance from his nan he
now has to take on a new role as a top spy
‘Mr. Teddy.’ Teddy has to push his limits in
order to successfully be able to stop a bank
robbery, whilst dealing with problems within
his marriage as his wife is kept in the dark
about his new identity, and making his label
as a ’failure’ become a thing of the past as
he saves the day.

3. In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?

4. In order to make our title sequence we had
to consider the codes and conventions of a
legitimate title sequence in order to apply it to
our production. The main conventions we
focused on were introducing the cast, crew and
characters, setting up enigma's for the audience,
introducing the genre, and indication of time. All
these factors are essential for a title sequence
as this is where everything is being introduced to
the audience and the first impression of a film is
made.

5. As we are targeting a young audience
enigma's were essential to keep
them engaged especially considering our
protagonist is a spy, thus being mysterious
and secretive. One key enigma that was set
up for our audience was 'what is Teddy's
mission?' and this was done through the
mise-en-scene as it clear he has a goal as
he is being attacked by villains yet the
audience are unaware as to why.

6. As the genre of our film was action and comedy we had to focus on both area's
which have rather opposite conventions and input them into our sequence. We
focused mainly on the comedy aspect as this is the most gender neutral genres
of the two. This was firstly done with the cast choice as we picked well known
comedic actors such as Rowan Atkinson and Eddy Murphy, who are both known
for children's comedy such as Mr. Bean and Shrek, to play the lead roles in our
film. We also used a long, yet rounded, font to display our titles as this chosen
font looked very similar to the typography used for the pink panther titles which
shared the same genre as our film. We also had our protagonist performing
comedic actions such as using a gun incorrectly and spitting out his drink which
emphasized the humor. As for the action aspect we included guns and an attack
scene as these seemed to be present in title sequences of the same genre we
looked at for example Johnny English. The fight scene ,where Teddy is being
strangled by the villain helped to add excitement into our sequence as it showed
Teddy to live dangerous which is the general representation of a spy. We also
made sure that the soundtrack of the film would be stereotypical of the
sequences genre thus upbeat and jazz. To do this we selected a track from
audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk which had all these aspects and worked in sync with our
footage.

7. We managed to portray the time period of our sequence
through the use of lighting, camera and costume. The well
lit locations, alongside the flip camera, gave the sequence
a slightly artificial and digital look which is found in modern
films set in the present as they are filmed on digital
camera's for example James Bond. This worked in
sync with the clothing found in the present day, such as
business suits, to reveal the film was set in the present. We
also ensured not to add any filters which could obscure the
time period of the sequence for example black and white.

8. How did you attract/address your
audience?We made sure our target audiences opinion was incorporated into our sequence from the
planning stage we did this by handing out survey sheets to our audience to find out what they
would prefer to see in our title sequence. The questionnaires allowed us to pick typography and
colour comfortably as we knew our target audience had approved. With their opinion taken into
account it would make sense that they would be attracted to our sequence as their thoughts
have become a part of it. We also made sure to make our protagonist male as generally our
film would be more appealing to males aged 6-12 and therefore we needed our protagonist to
appear victorious so our audience could admire him as a character thus creating a bond
between the audience and the character. As we had analyzed other title sequences with
a similar genre and with the same target audience we knew what to include in order to attract
the audience. Johnny English for example made sure to include shots of the protagonist to
make him look humorous and shots making the protagonist appear successful. We ensured to
take this information and incorporate it into our sequence as it is what the audience would
expect and enjoy from a sequence. This was done through the mise-en-scene as we made
Teddy appear significant and successful due to him sipping on a martini, which is stereotypical
for a spy due to the James Bond series. To add to the humor we then had our actor spit out the
drink to contrast the seriousness with the comedy. The lighting also subliminally portrayed
Teddy as successful due to the lighting becoming brighter as Teddy changes into his suit.

9. What have you learned about
Technologies?
During the creation of our title sequence I have had to adapt to new
and unfamiliar technologies which challenged me through the production of
our sequence. Being the director it was my job to overlook the group and
provide help thus I had to be able to use all different forms of technologies.
The main challenge we uncounted were with the programme after effects
as no one had ever used it before. We made sure we did some research
on how to work the programme but even with this knowledge we still found
it a challenge to work with as we could never remember how to make the
green screen images look as realistic as possible. Due to the
unsophisticated green screens we produced we decided to abandon them
from our sequence as they looked to unprofessional for our sequence

10. Looking back at your primarily task , what do you feel
you have learned in the progression from it to a full
product?
Throughout the course I have learned how challenging it is to produce a title sequence
and that it to difficult to combine a whole groups idea's to become a single design. From
the planning stage the whole group had a range of idea's which made it difficult
to actually finalize a solid idea as there was to much to input into our sequence which
made it seem unrealistic and past our level of knowledge. This is were team work came
into our production as without it we wouldn't of had a sequence to submit.
We realized we all needed to work together to create something more simplistic which
would provide the same outcome and in the long run would be more appropriate for our
target audience which we managed to do.
Making our target audience the main priority was also essential for producing our title
sequence as everything we included we had to ask ourselves if it was appropriate and
appealing for our target audience. We also made sure this was the first area we
researched into otherwise our ideas would of gone astray as we wouldn't have anything
to build up our ideas around. With this mind set we managed to insert shots which would
attract and provoke a positive reaction for our target audience. We also had
to consider what was already on the market that our target audience enjoyed which is
why we ensured we had done plenty of analysis on existing title sequences.

11. Once all the shooting was done we needed to edit our sequence using final cut
pro. I was rather familiar with this software as I had used it many times before
but we were introduced to some new features which challenged our knowledge
of the program. The first new feature we had to understand was adding titles
which was really simple as all we had to do was go into the text option, add text
and input what we wanted it to read. However, we encountered problems with
the titles as the chosen typography wasn't appearing in our sequence and no
matter how many times we changed it back once converted the typography
would still be missing. In order to overcome this we seeked help
and informed ourselves more about titles which then encouraged us to remove
all the titles and try again and this time they all worked properly.
These programmed impacted our sequence dramatically as they allowed the
editing process to be done as quickly as possible, due to us being able to
remove and add whatever we pleased, which aided us as we had to re-shoot a
lot of our footage. This knowledge of all the digital technology was very helpful
as it allowed us to make our sequence as acceptable as we could in the time
given and it will help us in the future if we decide to develop our sequence
further.

12. I have also learned to importance of knowing the codes and conventions of our chosen
genre, action and comedy, and I am relieved that we informed ourselves on this at the start of
our production otherwise our title sequence would of been completely dysfunctional and lack
one of the main aspects of any title sequence, to introduce the genre.
As our main purpose of our sequence was to entertain our audience our continuity sequence
aided us dramatically as we all produced comedy pieces. This knowledge allowed us to show
comedy through the mise-en-scene to provoke laughter from the audience as our protagonist
was acting comedic. Without this previous knowledge we would of struggled to portray comedy
in our sequence as we didn't have the right mind set on how this could be done in way which
would appeal to a younger audience.
As a whole, the process of creating a title sequence has allowed me to gain both skills and
knowledge in production. I have learned how to use final cut pro properly to turn our ideas into
a visual representation and I have also learned how to successfully research into a target
audience and genre to prepare for our own creation. It has also become apparent that during
this process we have learned how to Incorporate our knowledge into our ideas and also
how everyone's roles are significant to constructing a title sequence as the best way to get
things done properly is to work together. Since our final production consisted of new footage
we had recently shot we have learned that in order to improve our sequence we need
everything to look realistic and simple rather than over thinking the footage and trying
to incorporate aspects of the narrative which would just confuse children of a young age;
Because of this new footage it has enabled our title sequence to be more genre specific as it
has more codes and conventions of action and comedy than our previous sequence.