Production Company Logo

We decided to use different ways to graphically show the name of our production company - Happy Paper Productions. This is why we chose to use a chain of paper men as part of our logo. Also the painting in the background of the hill and sky, in a way relates the paper side of our production name. We decided to keep the logo for this production company more simple than the one for 'Grave Cat Studios', because rather than having two poor quality animated logos we decided to focus on one so that we could spend more time on it, making it better and also with one of the logos being a still picture it allows more time for the actual opening sequence.

We thought that we would use a child's handwriting because children often make paper chains, and because childhood is meant to be a 'happy' time in their lives.

Filming Changes

We have already spent some time filming the first part of the opening sequence. Some parts went well, others didn't.

The first problem was the fact that we did not use a tripod to film the 'toast' set of triplets. This meant that the camera was shaking while waiting for the toast to pop out and moved significantly when the toast was eventually ready. There was also a reflection of the cameraman in the toaster, which did not help the situation.

(insert screengrab of toaster here)

Somethings, however, went better. The scene in which the main character Mark brushes his teeth was, we think, very effective.

Another successful part of the filming was the use of mise-en-scene to show how Mark was struggling to cope.

Overall, we've filmed nearly half of our opening sequence - we are hoping to finish filming on Thursday (25th).

Production Schedule

We filmed our sequence in this order today.

-overhead shot of Mark

-mid-shot of mark sat on the bed

-mid shot of desk, camera swings left to mark sat on the bed

-close up of mark's face

-close up of mark's hand hitting the alarm clock

-close up of mark's hand moving away from alarm clock

-brushing teeth scenes

-making toast scenes

-eating toast scenes

-grabbing key scenes

-water dispenser scenes

It went fairly well, we hope to film the rest of our sequence in two weeks time.

In the next shoot we will film:

-mid shot of kitchen, marks roommate walks in

-mid shot of kitchen 2, mark is late for work

- bike scenes

- milk scenes

We will also re-film:

-eating toast scenes

-making toast scenes

Animatic

We created an animatic to portray the basic feel of what our first draft of our film would be. We took images from our storyboard and showed the rough time of each clip to deliver a similar imitation of the pace of our first draft.

Minor Character Profiles

As well as the two main characters in our opening sequence, there are going to be three other characters in it - however, these have more minor roles in the sequence.

Jason Greene & Kelly Thomas:

• Husband and Wife,
• Friends of Vivian,
• Jason works for Santander (this is how he knows Vivian),
• They have an overly positive view of life (environmentally-conscious, New Age couple)
• This attitude to life often annoys Mark.

Drake Cox:

• Mark's best friend (works with him at Optimum)
• Comes from Houston, Texas,
• Based on the actor Wayne Knight (pictured right)

Main Character Profiles

Here are character profiles for the two main protagonists in our opening sequence:

Mark Howard:

• Works as a Financial Advisor for Optimum Bank,
• Has worked for Optimum for nearly 10 years,
• Before that, he studied a Business degree at the London School of Economics,
• His father worked for Optimum for over 40 years,
• Although he is successful, he has often been overlooked for promotion,
• This has made him increasingly unhappy about his job,
• He feels that life is becoming more monotonous (as shown by his morning routine).

Vivian Ritter:

• Mark's girlfriend,
• They started dating five years ago when Vivian was Mark's secretary at Optimum,
• However, two years ago, she found a more successful job as a consultant for Santander,
• This means that she has to travel around Europe a lot,
• Vivian is more optimistic about life than Mark, but she is becoming increasing fed up with Mark's unhappiness.

Possible Title Fonts

As a group, we whittled the endless possible fonts down to a shortlist of 4 (from the top down):

Tall Dark and Handsome
Headline One
Mentone
Franchise

All of these fonts are available to download in the Basics category at www.dafont.com

In the end, we decided to go with the first font "Tall Dark and Handsome" this is the font that encapulates the film's idea. It is simple, clean cut and office worker boring. It also is ironic due to the fact that the protagonist isn't any of the adjectives in the font title.

Storyboard

This is our storyboard created in pre production. It was created as a visual reference allowing our group to see how the frames follow one another. When we come round to shooting our sequence, this may not be an exact replica of what the final result will be due to which location we decide to film at.