Jelly Babies Activity

We completed a task in which a storyboard for a Social Realism Film Opening was created using jelly babies as actors, we completed this task in order to portray our knowledge of film openings and the generic conventions used within this genre; we converted this knowledge into our storyboards and also tested our creativity when thinking of a opening with an open narrative in order to not give the entire film away.

When completing the process we learnt the importance of different conventions and how they could be tweaked to suit different genres and needs, we also learnt how to craft a successful storyboard for our final opening sequence, this was a very helpful task for solidifying our past knowledge on the opening sequence in order to apply them well in our coursework, it was also a simple and fun way of working as jelly babies were used.

Difficulties arose when completing the storyboard as we experienced a few disagreements, although they were quickly diminished, with a group of four our creativity was huge and we quickly found an idea which we agreed with for our social realism opening, then using jelly babies to portray it proved a difficulty until we got the hang of our task, making the storyboard look legible when shots were shown with jelly babies needed practise but we overcome this obstacle in the end, apart from that we managed the task well and used our collective intelligence to understand the task.

Our group discussed which genre of film we would be portraying and after contemplating we decided to go for a Social Realism because the conventions used within these genre are helpful due to not having the need for high concept technology and special effects, we also believed that it would be simple to create effectively as a storyboard and would look good, we were discussing whether to do a social realism for our final piece and so decided to experiment with this task.

This task will be extremely helpful when we come to film our piece as it will prepare us for planning and when we create our final storyboard we will use it to it's full potential as we are now aware of how useful they are, it will help us to split up our filming correctly so we encounter few difficulties when filming, it will help us organise and be precise with our filming to get the best possible outcome out of our practical work.

Our storyboard tells a story of a young boy in a social realism who if fed up with his life, the cards he was dealt meant he is now in trouble with the authorities and he is seen to just block out his parents yelling, he then runs into another boy who is seen as a male antagonist within this story, they exchange strong words and the conventions of social realism in the form of modern slang is used, a fight ensues with the protagonist leaving triumphant to support Toderov's theory of equilibrium which is stereotypical amongst many genres of film, although is is really equilibrium, it is not glorified and after the opening his life is shown in more detail, almost like a documentary which is conventional for this genre.

The shots we used we very varied, as it was a storyboard the camera angles were focused upon heavily as this was the general idea, something for us to use as a tool for help when filming in regards to camera angles, scene managament and timings.
the close ups used are to show the emotions of our young male antagonists and protagonists before they fight, this is a conventional thing to do as violence is stereotypical within modern social realism films and this is a typically way of choreographing the event for this genre.

The Difference Between Trailers and Opening Sequences Research

A problem groups in the past for the AS media course have come across is not distinguishing the difference between the trailer to a film and the opening sequence, i have completed some research in order to gain knowledge of the two and to combat this problem.

What is a Title Sequence?

A title sequence is a scene or sequence of scenes, usually shown at the beginning of a film, to show the names 

of the key production and cast members, not to be confused with the credits. These titles are normally super 

imposed over a scene, allowing them and the scene to be viewed easily. These sequences may help to build up 

the story plot or show a crucial moment, building up anticipation and atmosphere, they establish a usually 

independent setting within the film, this is so people can question the film and make there own assumptions as to what the film may entail, they sometimes introduce to types of characters which may be featuring in the film,

to see some examples of title sequences and what they contain please see my other post titled

"Film Openings Research"


What is a Trailer 

A movie trailer is usually composed of a montage of scenes shown throughout a film, which allow the viewer to develop and insight of the storyline and genre. They try to convince the viewer to watch the whole film and therefore to find out what happens as trailers normally end on a ‘cliff-hanger’. Film trailers are usually much shorter than title sequences, so that they can be advertised in-between programs and in cinemas.
They're used to attract audiences to want to see the film, so the most exciting and attractive scenes are shown.

Here are a few examples of film trailers, they were all produced for the same reason, to get people watching these films!

THE HOBBIT (December 2012)


MEN IN BLACK (Summer 2012)


THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Summer 2012)