We shot our prelim task back in November with very little knowledge and only basic understanding of technical and creative skills when filming. Between the preliminary task and our main product, there is an improvement in our editing and shot choice.
Preliminary Task
Shots are very basic and not particularly creative with little mise en scene.
Main Product
A more creative approach, making use of CU shots to cause tensionand un-ease.
Additionally I was in charge of the music for both our prelimiary task and our media product itself. I used Soundtrack Pro software to do this.
Preliminary Task- I used the simple ambient sounds of the room to create a more naturalistic effect.
Main Product -
I made use of eerie soundscapes to create the build-up of tension and fear.
Audience Feedback
We made a short questionnaire about our thriller product and distributed them out at random to students and adults.
The questions we asked were;
1. What genre would you place this opening sequence in?
The majority placed it under the genre of 'action' or 'thriller'.
2. What did you think the film was about?
Every participant guessed the storyline.
3. What stood out most to you in the opening sequence?
Most common answers:
The shattering glass.
Streaked mascara running down female's face.
The extreme CU shot of the female making eye contact with the camera.
The shot where the female drags her bloody hands down the photographs.
When the toy is ripped apart.
The match cuts.
The music.
4. What were your impressions of the couple?
People said:
'The couple looked realistic'
'The contrast between the two characters worked well and was interesting to watch'
'The girlfriend obviously loved her boyfriend more than he loved her'
'The girl seemed really infatuated and went way too over the top with the whole issue. Bit un-realistic'
'The female clearly had some issues!'
A weakness on ours seems that some participants might have wanted a more realistic/narrative storyline.
'Yeah it looks really good, i'd never find myself in this kind of situation so i'd love to see what the consequences are!' -16 year old female student.
'If the couple were in say their 30's or 40's I would more likely go and see the film'- 50 year old female.
Our product has clearly attracted the right target audience - females similar age to the one in our thriller sequence.
Our target audience are most likely to be teenagers who appeal to a darker nature and theme to film. Here are some screenshots that might help to heighten this idea.
Sharp object images of shattered glass
Teen smoker in our opening sequence will appeal to other teens who smoke
Image ofbloodappeals to darker tastes
CU image of fire creates a strong sense of danger, appealing to darker tastes
My target audience for my thriller sequence is most likely to be aimed at femaleteenagers, somewhere between the ages of 15- 18. Considering the first two actors you see in the sequence are around 17 years of age, we are most likely to attract the attention of this generation for longer than others.
The story focuses on a typical relationship break-up between a couple, but how the obsession of young love can turn to something quite sinister and dark.Considering relationship break-ups are fairly frequent within this age range, it is interesting to see how something so common can lead on to something very intense and powerful, as the female character begins to plan revenge and murder on her ex partner. Thus it is possible we will more likely attract a female audience.
However, our opening is not so much focused on the actual love itself, but it contains lots of confusing close-ups andintense, uncomfortable shots. There are images of bloody, cut hands dragging across pictures of happy memories and shots of jagged,dangerous glassfragments. There are additionallyintense,close up shots of fire burning. This opening sequence therefore might attract specific teenagers who appeal to a darker nature, such as classified 'emo's' . However, our audience may probably appeal more to ordinary, everyday girls who have had their 'heart broken'.
An audience who enjoyed watching films such as 'Se7en'and
'Black Swan' which involve strong themes of psychological disorder, suicide and self-harm may enjoy our opening sequence 'Ready Or Not'. Our audience might listen to music such as trip-hop, which is dark in style and lyrical content. The band 'Massive Attack' may be a good example. Our audience, however, are likely to listen to evocative music which enhance the artists' feelings through both style and lyrics.
I think Warner Brothers Pictures would distrubute my media product. The product itself is very much targeted at a teenage audience, and considering they control the majority of cinema screen viewings, it is likely that the product would become successful because of this.
Warner Brothers Pictures have always aimed for and released big budget Hollywood productions, hoping for huge profits. They are therefore likely to be interested in releasing my film because it targets key audience members who will bring in most of the profits.
It is likely that Warner Brothers would distribute our product with New Line Cinema productions, considering this company distributed the film 'Se7en'. Considering there is a similar 'dark' theme in 'Se7en' as there is with our thriller product, the same distribution company may be interested in releasing our product too.
I also think Vertigo Films might distribute our product because they are very diverse and work with many different genres of films, and broadcast to many different age groups. For example, they cater for children and adults.
When representing our male teenage character in the opening sequence, these pictures are most likely represent his social group. He is quite a laid-back, chilled teenager, but we suspect there is something darker about him as he has hurt the female character in some way.
From these nine screengrabs, it is clear that the female has more power and dominancein the plot. There are not only more screen shots of her to indicate this, but;
The screen shots of her are uncomfortable CU shots.
These CU shots additionally let us identify with this character more than the male.
The typical idea of men having more power over a situation has been subverted, as the female has more control and instead it is the male who is vulnerable.
We used elements from the film ‘Se7en’ in our thriller opening sequence.
Similar elements we included were;
·Uncomfortable CU shots
·Dark, moody colours
·Extreme CU shots of an object that makes you feel uneasy (e.g scissors)
In our opening sequence we used a similar idea, whereas instead of using sharp images, we used fire to bring tension to the audience.
Before shooting our thriller we discussed what our plans for the day were and what target deadlines we were going to meet. This would help make our day more efficient and smooth running so that we would have time to finish all the shots we wanted to have.
We took half an hour to set up lighting and the mise en scene of the room before shooting. We then spent a further half an hour planningwhich order we should shoot them in. This is something we could have planned before the day and we wasted valuable time here. Additionally this meant that our first few shots took at least two hours to film.
After a few takes we got a rhythm as to how we should be working together as a group and got used to filming with the cameras. Each one of us took charge of a particular role so that we could work more efficiently. For example I took the most sequence shots for our male character and directed our characters through each plot. Courtney took charge of mise en scene and make-up, Nina made lists and notes of our shots and Richard was also our cameraman and my assistant director.
We learnt along the way that mistakes can happen – but that they do cause some benefits! One of our shots was meant to show our leading female character about to smash a mirror, but due to health and safety reasons we would let our teacher do this separately. However, when we shot the scene, she actually did manage to smash the mirror. The landing and positioning of the mirror was good though and smashed well enough to create an effective image of her looking down at her broken reflection. We additionally decided we would use the diegetic sound of the smash in our sequence when editing.
Towards the end of our shoot day we were beginning to get tired and our focus was beginning to lapse. I knew I had to make sure that we got our final shots done to the same standard as before, so I decided to take charge to make sure we would finish in time. On the whole we did work very well together, but I think we needed to have planned well in advance before hand and focus more on the project itself rather than think of it as ‘a bit of fun’.
Casting our actors
NameRose Salvage
Age17 years Height5ft 5 Eye colourBlue/Grey Hair colourBlonde/Brown
I cast Rose as our leading female actress because she had the 'sweet girl next door' type of look that I wanted. Additionally I knew she could act well, so I thought Rose would be the perfect choice.
Name Jake Cecil Age 17 years Height 6ft 3 Eye colour Lght Blue Hair colourLght Brown
Jake has a laid back type of look that I wanted. He is portrayed in our media sequence as lazy and a 'bit of a player', and I thought Jake would be able to play this character as he can act in this style well.
We had many different stoyboard versions for our thriller. My group and I found it difficult to decide what order we would want our shots to follow in. Here is our final storyboard for our thriller.
Below is a word document explaining in detail our intentions for various shots.
I was placed in a group where by we collaborated and shared ideas for our thriller opening sequence shoot. I had now researched a sufficient amount on thriller and horror and watched many other opening sequences which helped to give me ideas of my own.
Idea one
My first idea was possibly to show the kidnap of a young, vulnerable teenage girl. The sequence develops later as she tries to escape from the small room she is kept captive.
Idea two
I had also really liked the idea of using a psychological thriller opening sequence. For example, when I saw the opening sequence to Karl Cooper's 'Se7en' I really appealed to the dark nature that came across. So I thought that perhaps it would be interesting to have the main character portrayed as having a psychological disorder, like the one in 'Se7en'.
I considered the main character possibly suffering from the disorder anorexia nervosa, and the opening sequence showing the girl wanting to kill herself. But we came to the conclusion that this would be difficult to show as we would need special effects to make the actor look slimmer than they really were.
Idea three
We additionally had another idea for a psychological thriller. Using a similar scheme to that of 'Se7en', we would concentrate of having the leading character as the one with a mental disorder. The shots would show someone cutting out various newspaper articles with pictures of victimized teenage girls and then blu-tacking them up onto a wall. Furthermore the mysterious character would then begin to put on a cross over the pictures of the victims. Viewers would understand that the person doing this is clearly the murderer, only later to find out the murderer is in fact a female and not stereotypically male.
To get a basic understanding of the horror genre, I watched a documentary on how horror and thriller had developed over the years to what it is today. It additionally lay a foundation of how these two genres first began, and spoke about when film was first brought to screen in the early 1900s.
The documentary spoke about several different classics that have been shown over the years. For example, the programme commented on Carl Laemmle's 1925 film 'Phantom of the Opera'. It starred the famous Lon Chaney who made his name playing the masked and facially deformed Phantom.
Here is a famous clip from Laemmle's 'Phantom of the Opera'.
The documentary also commented on James Wales' 'Frankenstein' featuring Boris Karloff as the leading star role. The film was made and released in 1931 and went on to have two other sequels. 'Bride of Frankenstein' which was released in 1935, and 'Son of Frankenstein' in 1939.
Follow this clip to see Boris Karloff come alive as Frankenstein (3:27-4:05)
Before building on ideas for my thriller opening sequence, it was vital that I thoroughly researched into the background of the horror and thriller genre. I watched several different thriller opening sequences to get an idea of how a typical opening should be structured. Some thriller openings I watched included;
Se7en Directed by Kyle Cooper
This was an expensive Hollywood budget film which had a very dark opening title sequence. Its opening sequence helped to set the mood and gave the viewers an insight into the theme of the film. The opening credits gave this impression through the use of dark, moody colors and confusing, blurred close-up shots.
We also saw some disturbing mise en scene images of someone grazing the skin off their fingers and then bandaging them up. Additionally there was obsessive note taking and constant flicking through books. This first sequence immediately tells us that there is clearly a psychological problem with this character we are being introduced to. It also helps to enhance the dark natured theme of the film.
Please refer to video link below to watch the opening sequence to 'Se7en'.
Dead Man's Shoes Directed by Shane Meadows
This was a cheap budget production film, simple, yet very effective. It's opening sequence was subtle and clever, and I was impressed with how the basic still shots created such meaning. I felt I could recreate this opening sequence easily using the facilities at my college.
After analysing some thriller sequences, I was then asked to give a presentation to my class on a chosen opening sequence. I decided to present to the class the 'I Am Legend' opening title scene.
Please watch the video below.
The vocal at the beginning sets an immediate idea of the storyline - and the black, empty screen helps us to concentrate on the meaning of what the character is saying. It is obviously of some significance.
In addition the quote given is an important message to the viewers. The fact that the quote has been stated by 'a survivor' also hints to us that a possible catastrophe has taken place, and that someone has fought to survive.
I spoke about how I found the still images of the empty, abandoned New York effective as it sets the scene and we develop understanding that something bad has happened to cause these images. The backing music is also evocative and helps create a mood and feeling to the audience. I found this particularly a strong element in the opening as the music drew me in and I felt involved with the storyline.
However the credits and titles were very difficult to see. The font used was not particularly clear and the color that was chosen blended in with the rest of the still images. Additionally the positioning of titles and credits was not presented well. I found that I had to replay the scene over and over to actually search for some of the actors names - a lesson learnt!
Make sure any titles and credits are clear, well-presented and positioned well.
I created a mood board which helped me to come up with ideas on what things particularly scare me. I might use some of the above ideas to help me create my thriller sequence next year.
Today we learnt how to use 'Final Pro Cut' software. It enabled us to edit and re-arrange the shots we had filmed when creating our scene.
All the clips we shot were placed in what is called the 'Rush Bin'. Here we could access all the original takes we first shot.
As a group we watched all the clips and then selected the best shots. We would use these later when putting together our scene. We placed the wanted shots into what is called the 'Log Bin'.
We experimented with the camera shots and angles, and how they could represent our actors in the scene. For example, we felt that we wanted the audience to empathise with our female actor and have our male actor portrayed as menacing.
We conveyed this message subconsciously to our audience by having;
Longer close-ups on the girl to encourage an intimacy between her and the audience.
By using a high angle shot looking down onto the girl to suggest she has lower status than him - showing her weaker side.
We had not just used longer camera shots on the girl to signify her importance, but we had also thought about the use of lighting and how it could represent the characters in the scene.
To display the boy's threatening attitude, we allowed lots of contrast of both shadow and light on his face to create a mysterious and foreboding atmosphere. Both a mixture of low key lighting and high key lighting was used on his face.
However, to demonstrate the girl's innocence, we used some strong high key lighting which helped enhance her vulnerability. This also portrayed a 'god-like' nature.We become subconsciously aware that the girl must be the protagonist.
Here are some examples of both low key lighting and high key lighting.
Storyboarding is an essential part of film making. It provides the film makers with basic shot ideasand gives the cameraman an idea of what the producers and directors want.
A storyboard additionally gives information as to how long each shot lasts, and this will be very important for the editor to know considering he/she will want to create editing through meaning.
Now that I understood how to use and set-up the video cameras, I could take on a practical task of shooting a basic scene. I was given a storyboard and had to film the same shots that the board portrayed.
The scene involved two actors.
Person A walks into the room.
We are then introduced to person B who has been waiting in the room for A.
There is some dialogue between the two.
Person A then exits and leaves person B in room.
How did we shoot the scene?
My group and I shot the scene in a studio and thought about the use of lighting, props and positioning of camera angles.
We set-up the studio with a desk, which person B sits behind. Person A later leans over the table and speaks dialogue to B - then exits. We also had some realistic props such as a standing lamp in the background and some filing cabinets to demonstrate an office-like room.
My group and I also made sure that we didn't break the 180 degree rule. We made this mistake before when performing a practice run and this made it confusing to watch. I concluded that breaking the 180 degree rule would work better for possibly a thriller or horror scene.
My group and I began with one wide screen shootall the way through.
We then;
Shot over the shoulder of person A.
Shot over the shoulder of person B.
Shot person A all the way through.
Shot person B all the way through.
We couldn't find anyone willing to take part in our preliminary task at first, so instead two of us from the group got involved by both acting and directing. We filmed each of the following above at least more than three times to create our desired shots. Additionally we found that the lighting needed to be fixed as the image looked too dark.
After this we added a few of our own touches such as a big close-up (BCU) on our actors' faces and close-ups (CU's) on significant props which were used in the scene. For example, we did a close-up on a mobile phone. We also used some point-of-view (POV) shots in one character's perspective.
By taking part in this exercise, we learnt that it is best to plan what we are going to do more efficiently before filming as we wasted a lot of time deciding where to place the camera to get some good shots. This task provided good experiance for us all and helped my knowledge develop during the session.
Shots are very basic and not particularly creative with little mise en scene. 
Preliminary Task - I used the simple ambient sounds of the room to create a more naturalistic effect.
My target audience for my thriller sequence is most likely to be aimed at female teenagers, somewhere between the ages of 15- 18. Considering the first two actors you see in the sequence are around 17 years of age, we are most likely to attract the attention of this generation for longer than others. 
The story focuses on a typical relationship break-up between a couple, but how the obsession of young love can turn to something quite sinister and dark. Considering relationship break-ups are fairly frequent within this age range, it is interesting to see how something so common can lead on to something very intense and powerful, as the female character begins to plan revenge and murder on her ex partner. Thus it is possible we will more likely attract a female audience. 
However, our opening is not so much focused on the actual love itself, but it contains lots of confusing close-ups and intense, uncomfortable shots. There are images of bloody, cut hands dragging across pictures of happy memories and shots of jagged, dangerous glass fragments. There are additionally intense, close up shots of fire burning. This opening sequence therefore might attract specific teenagers who appeal to a darker nature, such as classified 'emo's' . However, our audience may probably appeal more to ordinary, everyday girls who have had their 'heart broken'. 
I think Warner Brothers Pictures would distrubute my media product. The product itself is very much targeted at a teenage audience, and considering they control the majority of cinema screen viewings, it is likely that the product would become successful because of this. 
Warner Brothers Pictures have always aimed for and released big budget Hollywood productions, hoping for huge profits. They are therefore likely to be interested in releasing my film because it targets key audience members who will bring in most of the profits.
