Character Auditions

This is the video clip we created for the auditions we took.

Emily Wallace

Scott Collins

Popular Actors for Our Film Genre

Jonah Hill Feldstein was born in 1983. This photo was taken in 2007 as he portrayed his character Seth from the smash hit ‘Superbad’. This shows how good makeup and a shave can still make him look young and also geeky. His physical appearance fits perfectly of how we would want our character Bob to look like.  Also, his portrayal of his character Seth also fits perfectly with Bobs. However, Seth only cared about trying to have sex and Bob cares about the girl making one small change being necessary.

Michael Austin Cera was born 1988. He in most his films plays either the geek or the weakling. His physical appearance looks nerdy and weak, he also seems book smart what would fit perfectly with our worried intelligent geek Stuart. His character he portrayed in ‘Superbad’ (2007) was of a young nerd called Evan. Evan cared for the girl he liked instead of his friends who just wanted sex. He was shy, funny, smart and very sarcastic what would fit perfectly with our Stuart. His character Evan with a name change would make our ideal Stuart.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse was born in 1989. He has portrayed many lead role geeks. Two that stand out as sterotypical geeks was his character Fogell in ‘Superbad’ (2007) and Augie from ‘Role Models’ (2008). Both characters were nerdy however Fofell was dying to be popular and cool. Wanting just sex and fame. This would suit the character Tom as both long to be cool. His portryal of Augie however was fantastic bringing a nerdy fairy tale land geek to life. He would run round with a fake foam sword and fight other players in the park who would do the same. This character would fit Bob though we wrote he never played with toy swords. However, he likes World of Warcraft and I can't see why he wouldn’t want to adventure into a real life role playing world. The fault with Christopher is that his physical appearance does not fit the requirements for Bob leading to him not being able to play our Bob despite the life and atmosphere he could bring to the character.

Jon Heder was born in 1977. Though he may not look like a typical geek he played one of the most over the top geeks ever to be portryaed on a film, ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ (2004). A ginger boy who was simply a loser. Napoleon Dynamite is also like ‘Kevin and Perry Go Large’ (2000). Based on a tv series, it tells of two fifteen year old boys who want to be famous DJ’s but are really just losers.

Kathy Burke as Perry

 Kathy Burke was born in London in 1964. The interesting thing about Kathy is that she played a boy called Perry. The female playing the male worked perfectly as it just highlighted how unmanly and cool Perry really was. A woman playing Stuart could possibly work as he is the weakest and most feminine out of all the geeks. A woman playing his role would really help connote this fact.

Jim Carrey was born on January 17, 1962, and is regarded a comedy genius. In 1994, Jim Carrey played Lloyd Christmas in the comedy film 'Dumb and Dumber'. Lloyd Christmas is a stupid and easily amused geek. He doesn't fully understand the struggle of life and has a childlike approach behind his character. His friend Harry Dunne, played by Jeff Daniels, is the same as Lloyd in almost every way, making their petal arguments more humourous as they make no progress of winning throughout them. Both men love the same woman which is linked to our film. And the girl actually dates Harry Dunne. This is like when Stacey dates Tom, leading to the fall out between the friends. Both actors performed their geeks brilliantly. However, they are just too silly and rediculous to fit any of our characters.

John William Ferrell was born July 16, 1967 and is a very talented actor for giving characters a believable, humourous feel. I could write a long list of characters he has performed amazingly that could possibly fit our film, however, I want to focus on two. In the film 'Step Brothers' (2008), Will Farrell played a fourty year old geek living with his father called Brennan Huff. The man was hysterical to watch. His performance amazing and was believable. Though we wouldn't want a fourty year old man to play any of our characters, the arguments he has with his new step brother (once his father re-married) was brilliant and would fit well with the arguments our friends have with one another once fallen out in our opening. Here is a short clip of one of the earlier less violent argument from Step Brothers.

Cameron Diaz was born in 1972. She has had a diverse list of characters she has performed varying from an Irish gang member to a beautiful ogar from far, far away. I'm going to concentrate on her character Mary from 'Something about Mary' (1998). Mary was a beautiful, young woman who had several men fighting for her love. She was funny, relaxed and fun; the sort of personality traits required for Stacey. Mary however wasn't geeky, though she was attracted to them. Stacey should perhaps take some of the characteristics from Cameron Diaz's Mary for the geeky side on Stacey.

Kirsten Dunst was born in 1982. In the film 'Bring it on' (2000), Kirsten played a cool, young cheerleader called Torrance Shipman. She was the head cheerleader and, like other examples from this post, she falls in love for the geeky, nerdy boy. From this her geeky side begins to show and the young girl eventually wins the heart of the cautious geek. Her character is perfect for our geeky Stacey. She also has been seen as a bitch during other films such as the Spiderman sequals. She can be confrontational and during Spiderman One (2002) her character, Mary Jane, hid her geeky side by dating the school bully similar to our film.

Scott Collins

Purpose of Consent Forms

It is important that we receive consent forms from our actors as it confirms that they have agreed to act in our film. Although verbal agreement can also be obtained, a consent form can be kept for future reference and is visual evidence. Without a consent form, there is no evidence that our actors have agreed to be filmed, and would be the equivalent of a professional actor not signing a contract to be in a film. This would leave the character usage and film production purposes uncertain for the actor, meaning that consent forms are an important factor to creating an ethical and organised film.


Devon Dalton

Reconsidering Sound

As a group, we decided to use a different music piece to play throughout the film opening. Alternatively, we will be using a music piece played by a group of our friends who play in a band called 'Forgetting the Fallen'.

Although some of the music they produce is heavy metal and screamo, they have agreed to create a more energetic and up-beat piece of music especially for our film. We have obtained their permission through a consent form, which shows that they have agreed that we may use their music in our film.

We have chosen to use this type of music as opposed to our previous selection because, as a group, we decided that custom-made music is more flexible and can be shaped to the film in a way that premade sounds can't.

Music played by 'Fogetting the Fallen' is also royalty free as they have agreed not to copyright the music made for our film opening. Overall, we have decided that this decision is more benefical to the film and allows us to adapt the music to our specifications more easily.





Devon Dalton

Consideration of Sound

As we knew our opening sequence would have to include sound, we wanted to research into different soundtracks and effects. As a group, we learnt about the impact sound has on opening sequences. The most effective example we found was Dawn of the Dead.

Dawn of the Dead

This opening includes different types of sound including soundtracks and effects, a technique called layering. This is when more than one sound is used. For example, in this opening the soundtrack plays continuously in the background whilst screams and destructive sounds are played over the top. Through the whole piece, a rhythmic heartbeat is also used whilst a high pitched sound is quietly being played. This creates an eerie and suspensive atmosphere for the audience that reflects the genre of the film.

For our piece we need to have a soundtrack to play whilst the characters get ready for college. These are some possibilities for the opening music to our opening sequence:

Feelin' Good

The title of this stood out to me and the music is actually quite upbeat and feel-good. At about 0.32 seconds, it starts to kick in and again at 52 seconds it gets slightly more intresting and more intruments are used. This is good for our piece as the funny parts of our opening occur after about 28 seconds and this would add emphasis to them. We could make this work agaisnt our piece although the music then doesn't get any different or funner.

Welcome To The Show

This title also stood out to me as it's clearly for an opening. The pitch is very low, quite funky and interesting. Although saying this, its not quite rocky enough and we dont think it's catchy enough for our opening. The tempo doesn't quite match our comedy genre as other comedy films tends to have a fast paced soundtrack to set a happy atmosphere.

Rock on Chicago

This was the most suitable music  found for our piece as it was extremely upbeat and fun. It was catchy and matched the tempo of our opening well. Although as a group, we agreed we'd want to cut certain parts out and possibly play other bits over again because they did not give the same atmosphere.

Big Rock 

This was the last piece we looked at and this had quiet a good souund to it but we found it was to heavy for the atmosphere of our piece. It sounded like it could be from a horror rarther than a comedy and so we could not use it for our opening. 

These are the sounds that were found on the Mac; they are all copyright free. The sounds that we couldn't find on the Mac, we will simply record ourself by doing the action we wanted. We could use these in our final piece as they are exactly what we need and we only have to make the volume higher so they are more noticeable.

We also had the opportunity to use the copyright free tracks and sound effects from the Mac which is especially convenient as we don't have to search through different sites to find the soundtracks and the effects we want. However, though there is a variety of sound effects and tracks, there are not many choices for our genre and this limits what we can use. To solve this, we will record our own sound effects and look for various other sources to find the soundtrack right for our film opening.

Emily Wallace

Charlotte Morrison

Final Institution Logos

As a group, we discussed which logo to choose decided on these designs for our final institution logos. Since our audience is mainstream, our logos needed to be animated or filmed in order to replicate the same professional effect we want, as seen with the Universal or Warner Bros institution logo.

Emerald Productions (animated):

For the logo for our institution, we chose an animated film reel which would roll out and the name Emerald Productions would appear at the end of it. It would start as a close up and zoom out of the main reel to reveal the reel rolling and the production company name. We chose this as we thought it would be the most original idea that showed to the audience clearly that we were a film production company. The use of the colour green reflects the word 'Emerald' and the original name of our group (green productions). The green also connotes wealth to show we're a big institution and is bright and calming which connotes happiness and peace. For our final product, we used a series of images together. Unfortunately, it did not give the professional look we wanted as it was jolty and we did not have any other programmes available. In the future, we would investigate which tools and programmes we could use before making decisions. 

This is the logo for Wisecrack Studios (filmed):

As the second mainstream intiution was called 'Wisecrack Studios', we wanted to reflect the comedy genre through the logo to show the company specialises in comedy film. Also, as a unique idea and to show that the insitution is large and mainstream, we decided to film it to resemble it to other institutional logos, such as Universal. We used the juxtaposition of the dry weather and umbrella to create humour and the person holding on to the banner evokes humour as the girl riding the bike is oblivious to what's behind her. However, filming this 5 second institution logo took approximately 3 or 4 hours to create and so in the future, we will try to be more organised with our props as we thought it would take less time to create the banner.

These are the two logos at the start of the opening:



Charlotte Morrison

Institution Logo Ideas

As a group we had to come up with a name and logo for our institution to be shown in our opening titles. To help us create a institution name, we went through different words and phrases found in thesaruses to inspire us and create a train of thought. We also discussed ways in which the words could be presented in a moving image using various objects and actions.This is the spider diagram we produced as a group.. We found creating a spider diagram useful as it allowed us to channel our ideas into a visual form and expand on thoughts and opinions.

 

Finally, we decided to use Emerald Productions and Wisecrack Studios as our final institution names. We chose these names as Emerald relates to our group name, Green Productions, and Wisecrack is reflective of our film genre and represents comedy. As a group of four, we decided we would each create one logo for either institution and use parts of each of our ideas to create 2 final logos. As our target audience is mainstream, we will use animation or moving images to create at least one of our logos (like Universal or Warner Bros).

These are our logo ideas for EMERALD:

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Design 4

These are our logo ideas for WISE CRACK:

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Design 4

Emily Wallace

Charlotte Morrison

Devon Dalton

Scott Collins