example 5
- 1. Evaluation of movie opening Unauthorised16
- 2. I worked in a group of three with Bethanie Cundy and Alicia Hatfield. We made a thriller film opening entitled Unauthorised16. The genre of the film is a thriller. We split the film making into 3, allowing each of us to take charge of directing and camerawork in turn. We edited jointly. Bethanie made the ident; Alicia, the title; I designed the credits. We used a variety of programs: iMovie, Premier Pro, Adobe After Effects, Audacity I took specific responsibility for filming the third scene and editing the third scene, also for putting the music onto the film.
- 3. My genre research included studying many film & TV drama openings: Knight And Day (James Mangold, 2010) The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher, 2011) Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973) Zen (John Alexander, 2011) We watched these for inspiration. These film openings gave us a variety of approaches: Don’t Look Now used symbols like red, a metaphor for death, with match cuts linking the daughter’s death to blood on the slide. We saw how different camera angles worked, such as in Dragon Tattoo the opening ECU shot of a man’s hand unwrapping a parcel; later, Lisbet is first seen from behind walking away from the camera: this creates enigma. We learned how film lighting must be really good to convey quality drama. •From these I’ve learnt that a thriller must have enigma & suspense, that timing is essential and that music is key to creating tension.
- 4. I studied how film opening title sequences work at http://www.artofthetitle.com/?s thriller the website Art Of The Title. On this site I studied the title sequence of ‘Buried’(Rodrigo Cortés 2005), which is very origional. I also looked at the title of the film The Pacific (Van Pattern 2010 TV series, HBO) and how it was unusual, in that it realtes images to moving picture, but it worked well with the film. The third title sequence we analysed was Dexter (John Dahl 2006): the camera angles add eeriness and suspense whilst at the same time showing the smallest of things. Zen (John Alexander 2011 BBC), the detective mystery, conjured up a Roman atmosphere through Italian colours, iconic buildings and Fiat cars. Its CUs of the Questura, guns and keys established its detective genre. Haunting music made it enigmatic. I noticed that the different fonts have different connotations, such as big bold red font connotes to blood
- 5. Audience profile: our target audience is likely to be both genders aged 15+ They are likely to have seen these films recently: Halloween (dir. 2007) Zombieland (dir. Fleischer, 2009), Shutter Island (dir. Scorcese, 2010) Inception (2010, Nolan), London Boulevard (dir. Monahan, 2011), Anuvahood (dir. Deacon, 2011), Sanctum (dir. Cameron, 2011) They are likely to go to the cinema once or twice a month as well as see recent films of different genres on DVD and downloads on their computers. Audience figures show how popular the thriller genre is. Box office returns for films similar to mine show the following figures (source Box Office Mojo): Shutter Island ($294,803,014); Inception £ 292,576,19; On the next slide you will see my viewer/audience profile which I made by taking into consideration what my audience would like.
- 6. I made a viewer profile based on the things I believe that the viewer who watches our film opening would like. I included various restaurants, programmes and devices that I feel the viewer would like.
- 7. We chose Twisted Pictures as distributor: this is a real company distributing films like: Saw Callous Productions was our production company we made. We originally got the idea from the word callous meaning unfeeling - insensitive – heartless. Film openings have to have clear titles and be well presented. Titles have to go with what you have filmed, and fit in with the project as a whole. Our title is very original and went well with the thriller theme. Our film Unauthorised16 because the girl hosting the party is 16 and initially not allowed to host it. The Mise-en-scene created the atmosphere of the whole film. The film wouldn’t look good If the mise-en-scene was bad, you wouldn’t get the desired effect from the audience, The location is a main part in filming. The mise-en-scene we chose is a very realistic scene, making the beginning look like a pent house. We also went to great lengths to make sure that the cellar location actually looked like a cellar location. The costumes add to the atmosphere of the film. Adding costumes to the film it adds to the realness of the film.
- 8. Sound throughout the opening creates excitement making the film interesting. Breathing and background sounds inevitably make the film better as the sound makes the film attention-grabbing. Music is what adds suspension and drama, it sets the scene. The music sets our party scene really well by using Concrete Jungle, when it suddenly cuts to very eerie tension filled music by Wolf Suite, the audience instantly knows that something bad is going to happen. Atmosphere is created by both the music, film shots and camera angles such as the party atmosphere and the drunken haze created by the blurred effects to make the camera blink. Suspense is created by the music that is played in the background of the film, it is also formed from the camera angles we shot in such as point of view shots. Enigma is produced by the camera angles that withhold information, they are made in a film to create questioning from the audience.
- 10. I think that out film was very successful as a film opening as it revealed the genre of the film without giving to much away. The film contained things that you associate with a film opening such as who directed it, who edited it and who produced it. It also came up with the names of our main characters. We were able to capture the audience, making a good film opening by grabbing their attention, I feel our film opening does this very well because it’s a thriller. The audience have to identify what genre the film is, we achieved this with the use of music and footage, our film opening also tells you one of the storylines in the film, to try and give the audience a taster of the narrative. We have also used a variety of different techniques from fast paced editing signifying a flashback to catchy music. The element of suspense is also very high. We used a variety of cinematography by using a variety of different shot types, angle and heights to add to the effect of our film opening.
- 11. The whole project answered the brief very well which is ‘opening sequence from a new thriller with storyboard’ we created the thriller opening and even used different software such as Premier Pro, where we where able to create a better effect by overlapping some of our sequences for an eerie effect. We made our storyboard on sticky notes but scanned them onto the computer to make a video transaction between all the different pictures. We answered the brief very well, by having all the things a movie introduction needed to consist of such as a title, directed by, filmed by, produced by and edited by. We also put in the names of our main characters. Younger audiences will also be able to relate to our film opening because of the party scenes, whereas older adults might not like the film as a result of this.
- 22. THRILLER THRILLER THRILLER THRILLER THRILLER THRILLER THRILLER THRILLER THRILLER PSYCHOLOGICAL scary terror terror terror terror daunting blood- curdling vulnerable ENIGMA spin-chilling thrill FEAR INTOXICATION REVULSION shock shock suspense intimidating tension mystery ANXIETY secretive drugged eerie eerie APPREHENSION horror creepy creepy peculiar unnatural scream uncanny sinister excitement ominous baleful menacing alarming CLIFF-HAGER RANSOM looming REVENGE HEIST HEIST HEIST kidnap portentous stalking ill-omened whodunit obsession hostile deadly death-trap antagonistic crime illegal unreceptive
- 23. Ali’s green house Claremont Fan Court School kiln room Lisa Dewar's Car