Convention of a Feel Good Drama: My Film Vs TBEMH

Throughout this project, I always had to remember the codes and convention of a feel-good drama when making my title sequence. That is one of the reason what I analysed other films relevant to my chosen genre. I have decided to compare my film with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (TBEMH), which is the film most similar to mine.


The first thing I looked at was the cinematography. In this genre, one convention is to have multiple close up in the film, so the audience can tell how the character is feeling. Both my film and TBEMH have done this.

Another thing I looked act is the iconography. As both of these film have a theme of India, they have to have objects to do with the country. One thing TBEMH used is the buggies, which is a popular mode of transport in India. My film used multiple objects such as an a floaty dress which Indian colours and patterns. orchid (Indian flower), Indian travel guides, etc.

Improvements Completed

We filmed the new shots for the title sequence yesterday for me to edit in today. I remedied the lighting problem by using massive photography lights to help the scenes get brighter and cover over the top so it looks more natural; compared to before where it was all natural lighting. the shots look much better and now you can see everything. However, when we did the elevator shot it was much darker then before so the lift had its own light on; this meant we had a bright yellow glow at the back of the lift which we could not remove. We were also going to have a close up of my face as well as the lift close but unfortunately some all those shots were unfocused; however my target audience said I should still add the shot in as it finishes the sequence off, whereas the long shot makes it look like it is still going.  Overall it looks much better then the previous one and now it is finally finished.

Editing From Feedback

I have now started to make the improvements for our title sequence. I have now removed the bus at the start of the sequence and went straight to the office scene. I have also added sound for when the pop up comes up as I think it looks and sound better when both is paired together. The sound I used was on Sounddogs and called 'interactive alert tone 26'. I have also changed the colour of the typography to a yellow gold colour as the audience thought the bright yellow was a stereotype of india and 'too bright'. We have redone the checklist shot so it was more clear to the audience and redid the closeup so my whole face is in shot. I have also added extra shots of me packing a suitcase and leaving the house, which I think adds a bit more of the narrative to it.

Update on Editing

I have now finished the editing process of the title sequence and have added sound and text. We are now ready to show the rough cut of our title sequence of exhibition to the class. We will be doing this on Wednesday 4th March.

Soundtrack Addition

Whilst editing the sequence, I realized that there was no sound for the office scene; and needed to find a melancholy soundtrack to show how miserable Louise it at work, without the audience feeling depressed. The soundtrack we have chosen for the office part of the title sequence is called "Way of Life", which Michael help find. It is a gentle, soft and quiet piece, which creates a sad atmosphere, which we feel would suit the office part of the sequence.

Smile Productions

The production company for our film is called Smile Productions. We have chosen the name of Smile Productions as it suits the genre of our film, which is a feel good drama.  I have chosen the background as black and the text as yellow as they are the colours contrast each other, making the logo stand out more. There is a curve below the words "Smile Productions" to resemble a smile, as if the logo is a face.

Update on Title Sequence

Currently I have started the editing process on the title sequence and should finish the rough cut by next week. We have converted all the videos through MPEG Stream-clip and now I am working on Final Cut Pro to bring together all the clips, edit them and eventually to add the sound. I had one small hiccup with the footage as some clips were getting cut off in Final Cut Pro. To sort it out I had to reconvert the footage and now all of it is fine. Michael is currently designing the Logo for our film company, which we have decided to call Smile Production.