New Opening Sequence

After looking back at our first opening sequence we have decided to film a new one as we are not fully satisfied with the end result. The reasons are:

- Different camera quality which does not fit in well with each other
- Bad lighting
- Music seems to get annoying easily
- Seems too much like a trailer
- Gives too much away about the whole storyline rather than it just being an opening sequence

Due to this we will be making a new opening sequence however, we will be using a few clips from our previous opening sequence because we are going to be doing the same genre so this will fit in.                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Naming Our Opening Sequence - DOLLS

After much thought and discussion with my group and the class, Tasnim and I decided to name the title of our film "Dolls".
Dolls, in general are an extremely creepy prop to use in films such as thrillers, and are effective, which has been shown in the past through other films, such as CHUCKY. Looking at the picture below, I see that there are certain features of mis-en-scene including the dolls make-up and clothing, which helps add to the atmosphere and indicate that the doll is not meant to be a symbol of innocence, which they generally are, as they are associated with children.
I find that the name "Dolls" fits in with our synopsis without giving too much away. The audience will obviously know our film is supposed to include something about dolls but they won't know its role.

Costume Planning For Opening Sequence #1

We are going to have our character, who's face will not be shown, wearing very casual clothes that wouldn't usually attract any attention. However, we will be drawing attention to stains such as paint on his trousers in quick flashing images to emphasise on the messiness more. The audience will wonder what he actually does and what his significance in this film is.

We want the male to be wearing dark colours such as blue/black and have no watch or jewellery on. He also have plasters on or possibly clear medical gloves if we can find any.

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Font Analysis #2

We can often tell that a film is a Thriller partially because of the font used in the title. What is different is that it's not similar to that of a romance/comedy which will usually use bright or pastel colours. Also, these genre's tend to use more artistic or imaginative fonts. Thrillers however, often have a bold slanted font that is simple. This could mean that the film has something dark behind it, mystery and suspense, and cannot be interpreted as "happy". The use of red in the title is also a connotation of danger and is most commonly associated with blood and death. This co-insides with the use of the black background, which could imply death, sadness or misery.

This dvd cover uses a fairly simple font that is the colour red. As stated before, red could imply danger, blood or possibly even love but most likely not in this situation. The word "window" is in bold and stands out in comparison to the first word "secret". This makes the audience think about the window more than the secret and it puts emphasis on this certain part of the title. Also, the last for letters in 'window' are slightly distorted. This looks almost like its moving when you look at it for to long, which is slightly disturbing and uncomfortable, which is possibly what the person who created this title wanted it to do.

This is the title of 'Final Destination 3' at the beginning of the film. What strikes me is the 3, which has a font used that is usually seen in circus's. The words 'final destination' however, contrast with this because the font used is big, black, bold and looks rather daunting. The fact that all of the letters are in capitals is almost overpowering, and it creates a kind of image for the audience. The use of the colour black is important because again, it is conventional for this genre.

 Similarly, this title is also written in black, and uses a simple font that doesn't give anything away to an audience. It is suspenceful and whilst the audience may know from watching previous films what to expect from a film using this type of font, there is still an element of mystery included as there is no blood dripping off the title like you might find in horrors.

Camera Shots Which May Be Used

Racking focus is the practice of shifting the attention of a audience of a film or video by changing the focus of the lens from a subject in the foreground to a subject in the background, or vice versa. I will be practicing this technique first so that I can perfect the shots I am going to be filming. If I master it to a satisfactory level, I will be using it to show the dirt on the floor in the garage and then changing the focus to the silver bolted door and back again.

Here is an example of a rack focus shot and I think this will be extremely interesting and effective to use as part of my opening sequence as it is mainly about the surrounding and objects around the character who's face is not shown in the sequence.

Font Analysis

In order to create the right atmosphere for a thriller, using a font that fits in is very important. There are many ways to do this for example, using childish writing or bold italics. This can easily make the audience feel uncomfortable and set them in the correct mood for the genre of the film. By doing this, it indicates that the film is suspenseful therefore draws the audience in.

The colours of the fonts are often dark to fit in with any pictures or background images that are also on the poster. The fonts used for thrillers and horrors are very different to ones used for animated films and comedies. These types of films have more colourful and bright fonts.

Inspiration By Alfred Hitchcock

http://borgus.com/hitch/openings.htm - This link was a godsend when it came to finding out what the master of thrillers himself used in his opening sequence and gives us an insight into why he includes these things and how I can incorperate these points into my own opening sequence.

Some key points I took out of this page was the use of skylines or headlines. I initially wanted to use the garage and only the garage for my opening but after reading this information, I have found that the use of a daylight or outdoor surrounding accompanied by light hearted music (which in our case is going to be the whistling of oranges and lemons) is an interesting way to open a thriller of any sort as the contrast itself causes suspense.

This is a screenshot image from the opening sequence of the thriller, panic room. It shows an ordinary American city and there is no indication as to what is going to happen or that there is any suspence involved but in the clip below, you will see how music is used to make some suspence and create an atmosphere for the opening of this film.


Another interesting point I came across was the use of written text. I am going to be editing in titles to my opening sequence during the editing process and am going to be using a font simular to the one used in the film 'SE7EN' as is going to be showing mise-en-scene related to the objects around the character including books (leather) and the tools and weapons we are going to be showing.

Sound Recording

We decided to use the nursery rhyme _____ as a background sound to our opening sequence as mentioned in a recently posted blog.  Here is a photo of Mr.Ayres practising his whistling techniques into the microphone.

Below is a picture of Mr.Ayres and my group trying to perfect the sound recording using a recording software on the Apple Macs. We shortened the recording to fit our video. 

Editing Process

As there are only two of us remaining in the group to make our opening sequence, we have been working on the editing process together in order to make decisions faster and get it done faster with the help of Mr.Ayres. 

Here are some pictures of Tasnim & I editing our opening sequence and adding posts onto the blog. 

Filming the Establishing Shot

As adding the establishing shot to the opening sequence was a last minute decision, we decided on going up to the school roof terrace to shoot the scene. Mr.Ayres, Sarah & I all took turns in filming and after a few practise shots, used a tracking shot to shoot the scene we wanted. It was very successful and we were extremely happy with the outcome.

Here are some photos of us filming and some of the scenery we were trying to capture:

DOLLS - Draft #2

·      Change lighting- from light to dark during editing.

·      Change music- whispering/kids laughing

·      HD camera

We could dress a child/children as doll – representation. To show hidden meaning.  In between, follow someone from different windows of school.

Tip.  Zoomy shot thingy where subject stays still – ZOOM OUT WHILST WALKING TOWARDS SUBJECT.

-children

-hd camera

-wheely thing- chair?

-costume

Health & Safety

Due to the nature of our opening sequence, we had to use threatening tools and weapons to demonstrate danger and suspense. The kind of tools we included in our shots were pliers, hammers and knives, however during the production we had other tools around that were hazardous. To ensure that we were safe and to prevent accidents, we had a briefing about safety regulations we had to follow e.g. any exposed weapons were to be put away straight away or straight after the shots in safe places.
As well as the weapons and tools, we used a ladder and a garage door which could have been potentially dangerous so we again, were careful with these and had people supporting the ladder whilst we shot the scenes.