Analysis of AS Opening Sequence

'When Two Became One'

Our AS opening sequence was a romantic comedy based around two protagonists waking up. There are many things that worked well in our production, however, there are also many things that I would change if we had to do it again.

The first thing I think worked well is our location. We took a lot of time making sure our location reflected the themes of our opening sequence and tried to include as many connotations of a rom com as we could, which we got from our research.

We made Lily, the female characters, room reflect her personality, a creative, tidy, girly character, through props and mise-en-scene. We did the same for Joe, the boy chracter, portraying him as a musical, messy, more boyish character.

Although our original location was Oxford City Centre, I think Woodstock worked well, using a rural setting gave the opening sequence a romantic feel.

Using Woodstock as our location also shows Lily and Joe's middle class background.

Although our location was quite successful, there were a few things that could've been improved, such as, making it less obvious Lily was exiting from a public toilet, which was supposed to look like her flat, and making it slightly closer to where they worked.

I also think our soundtrack and voice over was successful. I thought our ideas were conveyed through the vouce over, helping to introduce our two main characters and making the story line obvious to the audience. To improve the sound of our opening sequence I think we could have added some foley sound.

I think the main improvements that could have been made to our production is the framing and camera shots/angles. There were a few scences which were badly shot, where characters either had their heads cut out of the frame, or were given too much head space. This distracts the audience from the significance of the shots.

We could have also improved the scene where the are walking to work. Where Lily and Joe cross paths, both chracters are situated at the bottom of the frame, and the store names are slightly cut out of the frame, we could have improved the scene by lining up the short more precisely. We also could have used a wider variety of camera angles and shots.

The continuity of our production could have also been improved. The scene where Lily is walking down the stairs her hair is tied up, but for the rest of the production her hair is down. There is also no car when Joe first crosses the road, but when shot from a different angle there is suddenly a car in the scene.

Although we had a few christmassy props in both characters room, the christmas theme generally failed throughout the opening, due to weather and lack of props.

Some scenes also had different colour saturations than others. For example where Lily is coming down the stairs and putting her shoes on, the colour is very light and has an orangey wash over it, whereas, the outside scenes have a natural colouring. This made it obvious that we had adjusted the colouring.

To see my full evaluation of my opening sequence please visit my AS blog: www.camillepierrart.blogspot.com