Evaluation

Research/Pre-production
After we were shown the various opening sequences in class, we went and looked at some of our choice to help decide on what film's opening sequence we wanted to re-create. We looked at several films, including Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence Of The Lambs and V For Vendetta. Personally, I really liked the opening to the film Se7en. I loved the macro shots, depth of field and overall mystery of what was going on. The sequence is very dark and sinister and grips the audience's attention throughout the whole sequence.
I think when you look at our film, you can see that there's been some influence from 'Se7en' just by the way that it's shot.
In the end we decided to go for Hot fuzz. It was a film we'd all seen before and really enjoyed and thought we could have some fun with.
In class, after watching the opening sequence, there was one scene, later on in the film, that stuck out in my mind which acted as the sole inspiration for our idea. I later wen t home and watched the whole of Hot Fuzz to make note of the filming style and for inspiration on how we were going to film our version. I revisited the scene that first gave me inspiration whilst I was drawing up the storyboards to make note of how we were going to do our shots. We wanted to keep the shooting style similar to the director Edgar Wight's, so, if it were the opening sequence, it would fit in with the rest of the film and wouldn't look out of place.
I think our research efforts were quite effective and important in shaping our entire project. We knew we wanted to focus on the juxtaposition of the two characters, so focussed on them whilst watching the film and took aspects of their personality to put into the opening. I think we did enough research for this project, as we looked at everything that we wanted to and got what we wanted from it, too.
Production
When it came to filming there was a mix up with the room. We ended up in a room a lot smaller than what we had planned. It also only had one desk, where as the one we were planning to use had two, which meant a set switch around. We used a cloth to disguise we were using the same desk and got a different keyboard for the computer and stuck up some cute animal pictures on the computer screen to for the shots of the character Danny. It was quite a time efficient shoot. We had organised two hand actors, which we were quite happy with and didn't really run into any problems throughout the shoot. We managed to wrap up after a few hours and took the footage to transfer it straight to a hard drive. Looking back at our rushes, we were quite pleased. One thing I would change during the filming process would be the second mug. We had two identical red mugs which wasn't what we had planned. We were planning to have one rather sensible mug for Nicholas and a more humorous one for Danny. If we had had time, I would have went to find another, but because we were borrowing people to act out of their own time, we decided to just crack on with the filming. I think the two similar mugs make it had to dictate that they belong to two different characters. I don't think we realised the importance of the different coloured mugs fully until it came to post production, when we saw the shots side by side. Overall, I was very happy with the shoot and extremely happy with the rushes. Although some of them could have been better, I think it represented Edgar Wright's shooting style pretty well and kept the shots quite interesting to look at.
Post-production/After Effects
As Lucy was our editor, we left most of the editing to her. As the director, I told her what it was that I had in mind and she edited it together and then asked opinions on what she had done. We told her what we did and didn't like, and what worked well and what could be changed. I think the further we got into the edit, it became more apparent that our ideas about the edit varied a little bit. Our initial idea was to have split screen and have shots related to one character on one side, and the shots of the other character on the other side. We soon decided that we didn't want to go down that route, as it didn't seem right for the project after looking at the footage. We then decided to have the Nicholas and Danny footage intertwined, as it was a strong way of juxtaposing the characters and their personalities. Personally, I think the final edit of the footage was a effective way of representing the characters and genre of the film. I think Lucy edited it very effectively and efficiently and it came out a lot better than I had hoped.
When we were finished with the edit, we moved on swiftly to After Effects. It took some time to get to grips with the software, but after some practice and fiddling about, I came to actually enjoy using the programme. We didn't want to go too overboard with the titles, and make them too complex, as the footage we had was already very fast paced and we didn't want it to be too much for the viewer to take in. The first two titles for the production company we did in colours representing a police siren (Blue background, white text, red beam). The next three titles for the actors and director we decided to use a spotlight, representing a spotlight you may find at a prison. We went through several different types before agreeing on one as a group. The last titles, the name of the film, were the hardest for us to agree on. We went for 'Hot Fuzz' written in text, and it gradually falls apart. Although I liked this idea,  wanted to do something bigger like the text blowing up. My main reason for wanting to do this was because I thought it would represent the film as a whole quite nicely, as it would be quite over the top and cheesy and typical of a Hollywood cop film. Eventually we went with the falling over text, as I was over ruled. I still think it works quite well, but I'm not sure if it was perfectly suited for the start of the film. Overall, I am quite happy with what we have produced. It's far from perfect, but for the time we had and for a first try at after effects, I think we did a pretty good job. I am thinking of remaking the titles at some point to try to make them 3D and more technically proficient, as that's one thing I would spend more time doing, if we had it. After using After Effects and learning the vast possibilities it provides you with, I will definitely try to use it for every project, where possible. Once I got into it, and started figuring our how all the layers worked and what you could do with them, I actually started to enjoy the process, although, under pressure, it was stressful! This project has made me realise the importance of title sequences. Prior to this, I think me (and I think a lot of people in the class) didn't really give much thought to title sequences in our films. We just stuck some text over a pretty shot, or the first shot of our film, rather than gathering footage specifically for the title sequence, which seems ridiculous when there's a programme like After Effects which allows you to do so much more.