Alterations...

After doing our initial opening sequence, and despite the positive feedback we gained, we realised we had some alterations to make...

• Firstly our opening sequence was four minutes long, so we decided that although we liked all of the content, we should cut it down, as we felt it was a bit too long for an opening sequence.
• When cutting the sequence we decided to take out the whole of the first minute, because although we liked it, it wasn't essential footage.
• We redid one of the voiceovers because it was hard to hear, and in fact the one we replaced it with was much better in terms of clarity.
• We put the credits towards the end of the 3 minutes, rather than at the beginning. We also made sure that that we only used the four main credits...staring, directed by, produced by, music by...
• We tried to make the cuts flow better and cut a second or two off a few clips
• We changed the ending of the opening sequence so she didn't die and instead said 'if only it had been that easy' we felt that was a better way to continue the film.

We've created an opening sequence *high 5*

We've created our opening sequence. However we didn't follow the storyboard/script to plan. Nevertheless I feel it was better that way, as we made more interesting creative choices and had new and more practical ideas when filming it...

1. We took out the school scene as we felt they made the piece drag, and didn't add much to the sequence.
2. We changed some of the dialogue at the dinner scene, from the original script, because we improvised when filming it. Then edited it all together.
3. We moved the screaming into the pillow part to straight after the dinner scene.
4. We removed scene with the Father standing in the doorway, because we felt it was too subtle and the viewer probably wouldn't understand what we were trying to imply.
5. We created a different ending of her sitting on the sofa with the tv, but just thinking instead, then taking paracetamol to try and end her suffering.
6. We finished with the mum coming into the room and finding her dead.

We are now going to use audience feedback to try and adapt our opening sequence, to improve it...

La la la...Music and Sound!

I composed a piece of music - which will be the theme tune - with my brother, Chris. Then we recorded the piece of music. It was a duet. So I played the piano, whilst Chris played the brass instrument called the baritone.

We also decided to use the beginning of a Leona Lewis song 'Homeless' as it is a sad, emotional piece of music and seemed to fit very nicely with some of the dialogue.

Furthermore we have also used a voiceover, with Sophie talking. It shows her thoughts, probably from what she has written down in her diary. Nevertheless we had some difficulties when recording with the microphones, as you could hear the affects of using a microphone, so we had to try our best to edit out the microphone noises and turn it down when necessary.

Character Representation

The main character in the film is Sophie. Sophie is a 14 year girl, suffering with the illness depression. She is struggling with dealing with life and so self harms to release the pain. She has nobody to turn to so uses her diary as a way to express her feelings. She has become very down and can see no hope she wants to commit suicide and often has suicidal thoughts.

Her Father is very strict and uncaring where Sophie is concerned. He can not understand her behaviour at all and has no symphathy for people sufferign with depression, including his own daughter. And gets very angry and frustrated with her lack of eating at mealtime and lots of other things she does. This doesn't help Sophie at all. He is cruel and may be one of the causes leading to Sophie to be depressed.

Her Mother is more reserved, shy and timid. She is a peacemaker and wants everyone to be happy in her home. However she is very frightened of her husband as he overreacts and can sometimes lash out at her and her daughter. She doesn't want to upset him, so she dislikes Sophie not obeying his orders and seeming so down.

Location Location Location

We used two different houses when filming Sophie in her house. We filmed some of the scenes and Kay and Sam's house and some scenes at my house.

These are the pictures taken at their house along with a description about why we filmed the scene there.
Sam and Kay's house

This is Sophie's bed, we filmed a scene with Sophie screaming into her pillow on this bed

This is the desk area, where Sophie writes her diary entries.

These are the stairs which Sophie storms up after a row in the kitchen with her parents.

The outside of Sam and Kay's house just to show the location, however we will not film outside in the actual opening film sequence.
My House

This is the bathroom, where Sophie cuts herself


This is a picture of the sofa in the living room where Sophie takes the pills


This is the kitchen where the dinner scene occurs

Storyboardy...

Credits

We have worked the credits into our opening sequence.
First of all we decided to have all of the following credits in our opening film sequence:

Starring...Lucy Formby
Written by...Ruth Halliday and Kayleigh Protheroe
Directed by...Samantha Protheroe, Kayleigh Protheroe and Ruth Halliday
Produced by...Samantha Protheroe, Kayleigh Protheroe, Lucy Formby and Ruth Halliday
Camera Operators...Samantha Protheroe, Kayleigh Protheroe and Ruth Halliday
Costume Manager...Kayleigh Protheroe
Prop Managers...Samantha Protheroe, Kayleigh Protheroe, Lucy Formby and Ruth Halliday
Make-Up...Lucy Formby and Kayleigh Protheroe
Music - Lucy Formby and Chris Formby
Special Effects...Samantha Protheroe, Kayleigh Protheroe, Lucy Formby and Ruth Halliday
Edited by...Samantha Protheroe, Kayleigh Protheroe, Lucy Formby and Ruth Halliday

Despite this, we decided that there was too much, as it seemed like an overload of information for the viewer, and took away from the contents of the film. So we changed it into something more simple.

Starring... Lucy Formby
Produced by... Lucy Formby and Samantha Protheroe
Directed by... Kayleigh Protheroe and Ruth Halliday
Music by... Lucy Formby and Chris Formby