What I intend to do:

For my title sequence project I intend to undertake Greed. I believe this is a sin which leaves space for a lot of creativity. There are a lot of connotations and metaphors that could be used such as eyes changing colour to suggest the way a character is thinking or feeling.

I am aiming for it to be a drama rather than documentary as there is more room for creative control being that drama can be fictional, at times and taken in a different direction. For the running time I am aiming to keep the sequence within the 90 second time frame. This will allow me to be more creative with the time I have got.

I have the idea of using silhouettes of people demonstrating several acts of greed. These will also relate to other sins thus, in a manner, solving the problem of not taking on all seven sins. I want to use a lot of metaphors as these can extend the span of your own artistic style.

For example, I am considering making one of the silhouettes throw a knife or fire a gun at another person and blood sprays out but then turns to money. This, obviously, representing them betraying others to steal their money.

For the background, I am considering using shots of water and shots of different surfaces and materials. I am aiming to create moving patterns and, overall, each different background event merging.

As well as the live-action work I intend to use a lot of effects with text. For example, words moving in an obscure fashion or appearing from behind one another. Seen as my theme is greed I may even show text consuming other text or being eaten by a silhouette.

Jumping further ahead, I am aiming to create my own opening theme as well using software provided at home. This could take maybe an hour or so and will be completed outside of college hours. I will blend string instruments with drums and other percussion instruments to generate a heavy, slightly disturbing tone for the opening sequence. There may be a few notes which keep repeating themselves in the background or, something I considered before going into planning, I may use seven notes and repeat them in the background whilst other instruments are introduced.

How I intend to achieve it:

For the blood sprays I intend to create my own stock footage and then apply it to listed shots. This could be done either at home or during college hours.

For the pattern backdrops I intend to shoot most of this at college both in and around the area.  I will then import this footage into After Effects and then add colours, filters and effects. I will even experiment with shapes and movement to create patterns for the background. I may use cityscape shots and merge them with moving shots and panning.

For the text I will also use After Effects as there are a range of methods I could use to animate the text and create a more artistic effect rather than simply having it fade in and then fade out. I will use key frames to animate the text and even use a solid layer to make text appear from behind objects.  This may only be used for when the actual title of the programme appears.

Equipment Required:

Of course, the first thing I will need is a camera, more specifically the Canon 550D along with a tripod to mount it on. Also, I will require a portable green screen for when shooting elements and shots requiring further editing.

I will require a room to shoot all of this in which will probably be the photography studio with bays 3,4 and 5. Additional equipment is provided in those rooms however may not be necessary depending on the complexity of the shots I aim to achieve.

I may require an extra battery to avoid the unlikelihood of the battery running low or simply failing to work at all. Depending on how I intend to make the shots looks I may require an extra lens such as the focus lens however this may not be relevant to my initial ideas.

Potential Problems and the solutions:

One of the main problems I may encounter is the green screen; Often, if lighting is slightly uneven and shadows are cast upon the green screen when it comes to keying out the background you will find actors begin disappearing and some sections of the green screen remain in-shot. This is a common problem and is easily solved; To overcome this problem I will constantly refer back to the camera set up to see if the lighting is all equal and there is no green reflecting on the actor(s). Also, I would make sure the positioning of all lights was sensible and not too close to the actor.

Sometimes, using several of the same effect can lessen the chance of actors being cancelled out of shot; rather than selecting the colour key option once select it several times if there happens to be different shades of green still in shot after the background is taken away.

Actors:

In terms of actors I will look to myself and my work mates for help as it is simply the task of acting out different scenarios which could be considered acts of greed. Everyone will be silhouetted so as to fit with the artistic style therefore they will not have to worry about facial expressions and ‘getting-into-character’.

There is still room for the actors to inject their own creativity into their performance however they will not necessarily be noticeable so this could leave doors open for duplicating layers to make it appear as though there are crowds of people rather than just the one person. I would approach this with the pen tool and the colour keying effects. This way there is a solid colour for the actor and yet their outer profile informs the audience that they are looking at a person and not a shape.