Copyright

Copyright is the protection of intellectual property, this can be any form of media from songs to literary works. The use of said property without authenticated permission from the owner is breaking copyright and law.

This is no issue of ours as we are creating all the logos, film and sound ourselves. I have proof of this in terms of music as that is all we have produced. This proof documents me writing and recording the piece. We also intend on doing this sort of thing for all other pieces that we produce.

Studio Name and Animation

From the beginning of the storyboarding process, we have established that our company name is SMAX studios. We tried to play around with logos but we didn't really want to stray from the initial design shown to the right. This is because it looks classic and is a quintessential logo design. We couldn't come up with any other drafts that we were any happier with. We knew we wanted to adapt it but we couldn't think of a way to improve upon it. Max came up with the idea of someone shooting something to complete the x and we were given time to think about it. I created this picture to show him what it would look like:

This is when we started playing around with the idea of a live action sequence. We started to think about starting the film with a clip as most studios do. This is when I said it would be much simpler to create using animation rather than live action as we would not need to use green screen and we could always go back and edit minor details whereas live action would require filming again. We then drew up this storyboard:


This adds a bit of fluidity to the beginning of the film as well as establishes the genre. The easiest way to carry this out would be to animate it. I know someone that could produce a high quality flash animation for us or I could attempt it myself. This depends on the time I have and commitments to other sections of the production of the film. I still feel that if I tell the Animator exactly what I want and give him a detailed description of the look of the models as well as the storyboard, it will still be considered our idea and work.

UPDATE: I have chosen to get my good friend Ben Lynch to animate the opening, I briefed him in the video here: 
https://vimeo.com/82369598

This is the first draft he sent me a day after I briefed him: 

I sent him feedback and he quickly returned with this: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByI99hlaIcanQ1pHdnYwX2JjdWs/edit?usp=sharing

An addition that he came up with and informed me about was the light movement and it add a slight feel of realism as the light would definitely move if shot.

Continuity Task

We were given the task to produce the video below. The specification is detailed here:
http://asmediastudiessamshepherd2013.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/the-brief-continuity-task.html
The planning post can be found here:

This is the final production that we are presenting. I am quite pleased with it so far despite the lack of sound effects. I think they may not need to be added and the piece definitely works without it.
Continuity Task from Sam SheepDawg-OEight on Vimeo.

Genre

This video explains genres, hybrid genres and sub genres and how it affects audiences as well as institutions and industries.

Genre and Sub-Genre from Sam SheepDawg-OEight on Vimeo.

Double Indemnity (Improved)

Double Indemnity by Billy Wilder is a classic example of the Film Noir genre and was originally distributed by Paramount pictures. This film was made in 1944 and was an adaptation from the novel by James M. Cain (written in 1927). Singer Kate Smith ran a campaign against seeing the film on moral grounds. This film was nominated for seven awards (Including best motion picture) but didn't recieve one.

This film can be found on the British Film Institute website.
http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_282.html

A scene from the film can be found here:
Double Indemnity (1944) from Kinoteatro on Vimeo.

This film has been a classic example of film noir for many media students to study and an example of a remake can be found here:
Title Sequence for Double Indemnity from Lizzy Barrett on Vimeo.

This is a clip from the opening of Double indemnity:


Here is a video in which I talk about the film, genre of Film noir and how I am going to apply what I have learnt into my OTS:
Double indemnity from Sam SheepDawg-OEight on Vimeo.