Sound

Sound

For our groups opening sequence we have to chose a soundtrack that may relate to what we are doing me and my group went onto a website called free play music which means that they are copy right free so we can use them for our work. The following clip we have chosen is fast paced and relates to our opening sequence as it is fast paced, however we have said that we are going to make it less loud. The sound track that we have chosen would make the audience feel anticipated, as it plays in the first few seconds of the sequence itself. We chose this soundtrack because it is fast paced and creates tension, and it will make the audience want to continue watching. The sound will be likely to be used through the whole opening sequence, unless we decide to change the soundtrack to fit the clip.

Shot list

Shot list

Below are two drawings that I have made, these two drawings link to shots that we will include in our thriller opening sequence, I chose to do these two shots because I believe they are key moments that must be included in the opening. 

In this image that I drew you can see that there are going to be two people the one with the bag is going to be our main character, this shot is when the teenage boy is leaving school to go home, and then the bully of the school bumps into him, although it is going to be a quick scene, it shows you the status between our character and the bully and how he is an outcast to other school students. This shot will be a long shot so we don't see the characters full identity to begin with, which starts to create questions on who he is and then makes the audience want to ask questions.

This shot is the end shot, we are going to have a shot of a coin spinning on top of a draws or a desk, this is implying that it is in an average house, however with what has happened the clip before the boy is thinking, and the coin shot represents the penny dropping, which means that he has figured something out, however as it is the end shot the audience are left with no clear answers, and it still remains a mystery. This shot is likely to be done as a close up because we want the audiences attention fully on the coin and what it could be representing. 

In this shot we can see that the boy will be walking through the woods on his way home from seeing his friends, the fact that it is set in the woods emphasises isolation from the outside world, in this shot will be a long shot again reinforcing the idea of isolation from the stereorypical teenagers. Also it will be set at night showing a slightly eerie feel to the clip, to tell the audience that something isn't right.

 

This is a key frame of the boy who when he gets home he changes his identity to a goth, this is an important shot because this is when the audience start to understand a little bit more about his identity, the shot will be a close up of him putting his masacarra on, this shot will still hide the identity of the boy, but the audience will gain more information.

 

In this shot we can see that the boy is on his bed in his room, we get a full view of the room, we can see that there are rock posters up on the wall which emphasises the stereotypical view of someone who is a goth as being depressed, however in this shot it will be a long shot because we want to see the room. Also in this shot there will be a voice over, of what is going through the boys mind since he has just over heard two men talking about hiding a body. The shot is made to make the audience feel sorry for the character as though he is alone. 

This shot is an extreme close up of the characters legs, one the boys and two of the mysterious men who are in suits, this is telling the audience that something isn't right in the scene. Also the close up is hiding the identity of the men, this is important because we don't want to much detail given away in the opening scene. This shot also prevents us from understanding the scene to much as we want because a convention of a thriller film is to create questions in the audiences mind, and this shot help enforce this.

Audience Research - Voxpop

Voxpop

Me and my group decided to do a voxpop this is were we filmed some people who are in our target audience to find out what they want from the questions that we missed through doing the questionnaire. 



                        

From our voxpop we found out similarities through the questions and the audiences response, an example would be the question "What setting would you expect to see in the opening of a thriller film". The response we go was based upon dark settings for example, a forest, which was a common choice. My group have chosen to use a forest for the setting however we are going to put a twist on it, as we don't want to have a stereotypical chase sequence, therefor we have decided the twist will make the opening sequence more interesting. We then asked how you think the main character would feel in the sequence, we had a majority of answers ranging from scared to worried, our group then decided that the main character would be nervous and tense which is a mixture of all the emotions, this will be important so that the audience realises that they should be worried for the character. We are going to use a lot of leafs crunching (which was said in the voxplot) the use of leafs crunching makes the audience feel weary of what is going to happen if you have the sound of leafs crunching in a quiet forest is creates suspense, this is why we are going to use it in our thriller opening.

Film synopsis

 Film Synopsis

 

Aidan seems like your everyday common teenager who goes to school and then goes home, however in this film we are challenging the stereotypes, the main character who is a teenage boy is at school, we will have a birds eye view possibly of him working at a desk, however under his sleeve we see a clue of a spiked bracelet which could be hinting his true identity. He is always smartly dressed at school, however the boys friends are outside of school, he hasn't got many people who he can talk to. As school has ended the bell rings the boy goes home, however when leaving the school a bully pushes into him, we don't see the full identity of the bully because he isn't an important feature to the film, it is just telling us who he is an outsider to other school groups as he is intelligent but doesn't like to show it.

He then goes home and avoids walking with people, when he is at home he changes out of the school uniform and changes into stereotypically Gothic clothing: Rocker jacket, dark jeans, boots and bracelets. He isn't very close to his family he likes to keep himself to himself and dwell within his thoughts, and the stereotypes of a goth is depressed and always listening to rock music. The boy then goes out to meet his friends who are also goths. Whilst on his journey he decides to cut through a back route of a park, however we don't know much about his full identity yet, as he is walking he sees two men talking, however it is obvious that they are out of place, as they are in suites in a forest, as the boy is walking through he over hears them talking, what they say maybe something about a body which then  remains in the boys mind. The two men identity is hidden as they will be an important part of the film. This then fades to the boy sitting in his room, there will be a voice over, emphasising his thoughts as the line of what the men said sticks in his mind. We then hear a radio report on someone missing.

The boy then decides to raise the subject to the police, the police decide not to listen to him as they don't believe the him because of his stereo type, the boy then decides to take it upon himself and tries to figure out what is going on, he searches around the area until the men catch back the area and start to question him. He then decides to go to were they said the body maybe hidden when he arrives at the scene, however when he arrives at the scene he sees that the men are also there, when he is scene there is a chase scene between the men and the boy. The boy (Aidan) runs into his friends who  become part of the action.

The action then escalates through movie, where the characters life's are always in danger, the bully himself is sons of the two antagonists, however he is unaware of what is going on between his father and his friend (The two antagonists) as the action escalates, however as the movie is coming to an end, we are left on a cliff hanger, on who will survive in the fight off of a life time

Task 1 - Initial thoughts for thriller opening sequence

SPIDER DIAGRAM OF INITIAL THOUGHTS FOR A THRILLER OPENING SEQUENCE

Audience Research 1 & 2

Audience Research - Task 1 

As a group we decided that we are going to be carrying out a questionnaire for our research into what people would like to see in a Thriller opening sequence and what our audience would expect to see.Me and my group have decided to chose a thriller as our opening sequence, we are aiming that our target audience will be around the ages 16-24, as this is what most thrillers are rated as. We wanted to find out more information about the target audience. To do this me and my group worked on making a questionnaire which was 10 questions long. The questionnaire that we made was to give us more detail into what kinds of people like to watch thriller genres and to see if there was any link between the films they like to watch and the results we gained. We made 30 copies of out questionnaire, so the members of the group would each have 10 to hand out. The fact that we have 30 questionnaires filled out gives us a wide range of responses to the questions we asked, they were both a mixture of male and female. This was done so that we didn't get biased answers. 

Here is examples of the questionnaire that me and my group made, I am showing you the two pages so you can see all the questions. Through doing my questions I found out that most people like to watch horrors as it creates tension, this was common through all of mine and my groups results it was a common feature. Also I found out in the mis-en-scene questions, the audience would like it to be a dark setting, this is what me and my group have chosen to incorporate into our opening sequence, because a dark sinister place such as an abandoned warehouse would create a atmosphere which the audience have said they would like too see within our groups opening sequence. However another interesting thing me and my group found, most of the people who answered our questionnaires chose the lead role to be the same gender as them, however not all did.

Below you can see our overall results put into pie charts, we chose the three most important questions, and I put the results into a pie chart.

This is the second question on the questionaire, we tried to keep it as equal as we could, however you can see that there is slightly more females than males, this could make it bias however it is unlikely that the following questions. 

This was out sixth question on the questionnaire, you can see that there is a equal answer, this is showing that  people don't mind where the movie comes from, as some people may not know if they are watching a British film or not.

From this we can see that most people like to go to the cinema to watch movies as this was chosen to be the most popular, we can then see that DVD is the second important, this is interesting because the people who liked going to the cinema had action or thriller as their chosen genre, this is a correlation that we see through my groups questionnaires. 

From this chart we can see most of the people we asked often watch movies, this means that if we were producing a real film, people are more likely to watch it, also from our results we see that no one chose never, because are target audience is age 16-24 it shows that they all watch movies at some point. Around 60% chose often in our groups questionaires. 

This question was for the benefit of what we could include in our groups opening sequence, we found that Low key lighting was the most chosen option (which is dark lighting) this feature is popular within many opening sequences of Thriller films. The props that were chosen were mainly weapons which are things such as knifes and guns however, we aren't aloud to use these props in the opening sequence that me and my group are going to make. An interesting result that we found out was the dark costumes one, because people told us that they seem mysterious and gives you a sense of curiosity with who the characters are.

Overall I think from the questionnaire that me and my group carried out, we are going to include dark lighting this is a because we want the audience to feel on edge, also it was the most popular feature of mis- en -scene chosen by the people who took the questionnaire, so we have decided to include this in our opening. We also decided that we will have a slow paced soundtrack because we as well as the target audience think that it would fit the genre of thriller well because it is building tension and creating a mysterious atmosphere which is a convention of a thriller opening. We then discussed if a thriller opening has a specific target audience, we believe that thrillers aren't commonly aimed at females or males, so we have decided to keep our thriller opening sequence so that it appeals to both females and males.

Conventions Of A Thriller Opening.

Conventions of a thriller opening sequence.

Mysterious:
A convention of a thriller opening sequence would be that it has to be mysterious, by mysterious it has to confuse the audience members especially in the genre of thriller, this is to prevent them knowing too much detail about what the film may be about, a mysterious opening will make the audience want to continue watching, and it will put them on edge and make them curious about what the movie will be about.  

Props:
The props used in the opening sequence of a film would mainly be, knives and guns or harmful objects, having the harmful prop will create questions, and make as though there is intent to hurt someone, however we don't know if there is a motive, however it starts to give the audience an idea of who the antagonist and protagonist is. Also the props used shows who may have more power over the situation, giving the audience and idea, however they remain unsure, an example of the movies which are thrillers where a weapon is used are: Sherlock Holmes and Memento. 

Here is a screenshot from the opening from Sherlock Holmes - We see a prop of a gun- Creating a sense of danger.

Here is a screenshot from the opening sequence of Memento - We see the man holding a prop gun - Showing someone is in danger.

Making you think: 

 Another convention of a Thriller opening is that it has to make you think, by making you think the opening is confusing you and you have to put things together to understand what is happening, such as in the opening sequence of Memento, the clip is in reverse which will create confusion for the audience members. So the audience is going to become confused by this, also in the clip of Now You See Me, we don't know who any of the characters are so we have to guess who they are and what there purpose is, which makes us the audience think.

           The opening sequence  reverse shot in Memento, to create confusion to the audience.

Costumes and Makes you ask questions: 

In an opening sequence to a thriller film, we mainly see that the characters are either in two types of costumes, which are smartly dressed or causal dressed, the costumes are made to create a sense of normality, however by the costumes we also see who may have a higher status in the film, because in the opening sequence to Now You See Me, the first character is wearing a suite, however after we see the next character, they are in casual wear, the costumes can tell us about the characters personalities such as smartly dressed, may mean stereotypically they are smart (which is another convention of a Thriller opening sequence) as the characters in a thriller needs to be stereotypically smart and attempts to figure out a mystery, however this is normally shown in the opening sequence, because the Director drops you in a scene of action, it is done in the movies: Memento - Where the scene is in reverse - Now You See Me -Where we see a magic act being performed- And Sherlock Holmes - Where it is a chase scene - The fact that a thriller opening sequence drops you in the middle of the action, confuses the audience and makes you ask questions to what is happening.  

This is taken from Sherlock Holmes, this shows that the man is wearing a costume which is a suite, to emphasise that he may have authority, and making the audience wonder who he is. 

Lighting and Camera angles:

In a thriller opening sequence, you would normally see low key lighting, this is purposely done so that the setting hasn't been given away or to make us the audience think. Low key lighiting can also be used to hide some of the characters distinctive features, such as what they look like. By using low key lighting it makes us the audience want to know more about the situation or what is about to happen. Low key lighting in a thriller opening is normally used to make it unclear what is going on, examples of uses of low key lighting would be: In Brick, the opening sequence was darkened and as though the light had be taken away, the use of low key lighting in Brick is used to represent death, however we don't know how the women died. Another example would be in Memento, the low key lighting is also used to represent the death of the man. However in The Sixth Sense opening sequence, the low key lighting is used to create a scary atmosphere to put the audience on edge. 

Low key lighting used to cast shadows in The Sixth Sense, creating a on edge atmosphere to a Thriller film.

The camera angles that are used in a Thriller opening sequence are usually: Close ups, extreme close ups and long shots. The Close up and extreme close ups are used so that not to much information is given away to the audience about what is going on in the opening, because if you give too much information away the film isn't worth watching, examples of where the close ups have been used: Brick, where the womens hand is in the frame so we don't know much about her identity, which makes us want to know reasons to why she maybe dead. Another example would be, the close up of the light turning on, creating tension to what is about to happen next, however telling us that the basement is old, telling us that something isn't right. However in thriller opening sequences, they can use Long shots, however not as often, a long shot is usually to show a loose frame, which means that the character is alone or isolated from other people, this was used in the film Brick. 

Loose frame in Bricks opening sequence, to show how the character is isolated from others around him.

Sound: 

Lastly, in a thriller the soundtrack in the opening sequence tends to be slow paced at first however, when the action increases the pace of the music also increases, this is done to set the atmosphere that the movie is going to possibly be fast paced or to gain the attention of the audience. There are examples of this such as in the Sherlock Holmes, at the beginning it is slow paced and calm, however once the action begins the pace of the soundtrack increases.This is also shown in the opening sequences of other thriller films such as The Sixth Sense, Now You See Me and Memento.

My Genre 2: Thriller

Sherlock Holmes Analyses Opening sequence 

Camera work

To begin with we can see that there is some sort of pan shot across the floor, this is already making us wonder where the film will be set and why is it set here at this specific locations, we then move on to see a long shot of carriages being pulled by horses, the long shot here is used to emphasise the era that the movie is set in, which is olden times in England, the use of a long shot implies that it is a richer part of London because there are buildings there and horse pulling carriages, after this we then see a track shot towards the carriage, the track shot is telling us that the carriage has something significant to do with what is about to happen however we don't know yet. Then we have a close up of a shot gun, the close up is used to prevent us from seeing who exactly is in the carriage. However we don't know the motive for having a shot gun, whether it is going to be used to hurt someone. We then see close ups of horses running past the cameras, the close ups are used to create confusion towards the audience which is what the director wants to achieve through the camera work. 

Use of a tracking shot, following the carriages.

Editing 

Editing is used in the Sherlock Holmes clip to confuse the audience, so that they don't fully know what is going on in the movie at this point in time, an example of this would be when the men are in the carriage, and it cuts to a shot of one holding a shot gun, then to the other male character holding a pistol, the editing is showing that the men could be dangerous, however no other clues are given to why they maybe dangerous, we then see match on action, this is when the carriages are chasing after a man, we can see him running away and then it will cut back to the carriage again, this happens a few times, to emphasise how close the man is to getting caught, this is already putting the audience on edge, and therefore drawing them into the movie making them want to watch it. 

Use of the cross cutting.

Sound

In the opening sequence of Sherlock we hear the soundtrack to begins with, non-diegetic sound, so the actors and actresses can't hear it, the sound track has a medevil feel to it, so this can be telling us that the film is set in old England. Also the soundtrack is the only sound you hear during the opening sequence, however as the chase scene pics up momentum we notice that the pace of the soundtrack is getting faster, this puts the audience on edge and makes them want to continue watching the movie. Also there is a sting, which is on the character who is being chased by the carriages every time he is shown on screen, the stings sounds slightly more higher pitched than the music, the sting could be used to emphasise that the character is of high importance, however we don't know it yet.

Mis-En-Scene

In the clip we see that it is set in old England, from the props of the horse and carriages   they are specifically chosen because you wouldn't see a car chase scene in early England, as they weren't invented then. The costumes chosen suggest that the men in the carriage have money as they appear to be in well dressed suits, suggesting that they may have authority over other people. There is also use of low key lighting, this is done purposely to make the scene more intense because if it was in the middle of the day it would not create as many questions in the audiences mind, such as, "Why are they chasing that man" and "Who is that man". The low key lighting helps keep the scene a mystery from the audience there for making them want to carry on watching the movie to find out who the men are.

Use of low key lighting to keep the characters identity from the audience.

My Genre 1: Thriller

Now You See Me 

Cinematography: 

When we first watch the opening sequence to now you see me, we see mainly extreme close ups of the man performing the tricks, and example of this is when the male is showing a card trick to the female, we see that the camera work is mainly focused on his face and the cards, by using a close up here, the director isn't giving too much information away to the audience such as, where they are and who they're with, this is creating a sense of tension as you want to carry on watching to find out more about the movie. We then see a extreme long shot when the trick is reaveled to the audience, the extreme long shot can be also used as an establishing shot as it is showing that it is New York city, the Director has now shown the location, this can be telling us that the rest of the movie is set here, or that he is here on a holiday of some sort, the establishing shot does create alot of questions in the audiences minds, such as to why are they there and what is going on. After this we then see a high angled shot on the audiences reaction, the high angle shot could be representing that the magic act performer has a higher sense of respect now, compared to what he had before. After this we then see a zoom out of the poster of the next performer, this is showing that the two magicians could possibly be related in some way, or that he is going to perform a magic trick also. 

Close up of the actors face, emphasising that the location remains a secret
and that the clip is going to be fully focused on him.

Editing

In the opening sequence it is slow paced editing, this is shown when the actors are talking to the audience, the slow paced editing may be used to may sure that the viewers of the film are going to understand what's going on in the scene, and are able to fully focus on what the man is saying, this is shown in the card trick part at the beginning as he is talking it is slow paced, however as the end of the "magic trick"  is getting closer the pace of the editing increases, this is showing that the action is increasing as well as the tension of what is happening. The Director has done this so that us as the audience is drawn into the  movie already, and that we are going to know that it will take allot of concentrating to understand what is going on. We then see a shot reverse shot when the next man is performing my hypnotising the wife, when the husband and the hypnotist are talking there is use of, shot reverse shot. The shot reverse shot is used to show the facial expressions of how the husband is reacting to what the hypnotist is saying, in this case we can see that the actor appears surprised  the editing has been purposely done this way so we get a good understanding of what's going on and how each of the peformers (Magicians) have their unique capability, this then draws the audience in, so that they want to continue watching the clip.

This is the shot reverse shot that is used in the opening sequence.

Sound

In the clip now you see me sound is used to show tension and build curiosity of the audience, we can see this as a sting is almost used when the act of the magic trick was coming to an end, which is then building tension to see the magic trick when it is revealed to the audience, the sting stops, the effect of this is that it is telling us that something is happening which we should focus on. Also the sound track that we hear is non-diegetic sound, and is high pitch and slow paced to begin with, however as the trick happens we hear drums and the sounds pace picks up, almost to relate to how the audience is feeling about the trick. The dialogue used by the Magician, is a calm tone, compared to the audience, who have a high pitched voice to show that they are excited for the trick.

Showing the Magician and the audiences voice differences

Mis-en-scene

In the clip from Now You See Me, we see that the costumes the characters are wearing are casual, so their not dressed up for any special occasion, showing that it may just be a street show, the lighting used is natural lighting, because it isn't a bright atmosphere however it isn't low key lighting either, we see that the setting is set in a town which looks to be as though it is New York, we can see this because of the tall buildings in the backgrounds, the fact that it is possibly set in New York suggests that it might be a street show, I think that the Director has chosen this specific location because it is busy, and the opening sequence suggests that it is going to be about performing tricks, so the setting is purposely New York. The props used are the cards, the cards are important to the clip, as they are showing what the character specialises in. The prop of the cards also helps the audience to tell us what type of character he is and what his personality is like. However when we see the next clip it is day time, and there is use of high key lighting, this tells us that the clip is set in a completely different location, and the prop of the board with the mans name on it suggests that he maybe trying to promote his tricks, compared to the street performer

The Prop of the Cards in focus.

 The prop of the sign which is used by the second man.

Opening sequence clip

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Location Research

Setting Research

I am doing research on settings for certain genres, the genres consist of: Action Adventure, Thriller and Romantic Comedy. I have taken three pictures for each, as examples of where they could be set if filming.

Action Adventure

This is on a field.

Main road

Forest

I have chosen the three settings above for Action Adventure, this is because we firstly have a open field which is where people could run through, which is where action could take place. The field is also outside although, not as an exotic location it can create a sense of danger if there was a chase scene happening. We then see the Main road, I have listed this as a possible setting as there can be alot of action which happens here such as mugging scene or car chases, this will then be a convention of an action adventure as it is conflict through violence. This is why I thought that it would be a good location for action adventure. I then took a picture of a forest, I think that the forest can be classed as action adventure as it isn't a usual location, showing normality, because if your filming in a forest the audience would instantly think that something is unusual, for example the leafs crunching under your feat, would put the audience on edge, where the action would take place.  

 Thriller:

Old garages

Abandoned building

Alley Way

The three locations above I chose to set a thriller. Firstly the old garages, because people wouldn't usually go around there on a day to day basis, which creates an eerie feel, also the fact that they're abandoned which would also create a dramatic feeling as the audience would not know what is in the garages.  I then chose an Abandoned building, the abandoned building is also a weird setting because you wouldn't expect people to be inside of there, however with thriller you could have action happening and the abandoned building will emphasise how low key lighting works to build up the tension, and it could create loads of shadows. I then thought a good place for a Thriller would be an alley way, because at night they have a off putting feel to them, especially in this alley there is only one light, which would then be classed as low key lighting, and if you were to put someone walking down the alley at night on their own, which could possibly create anticipation in the audiences view.

Romantic Comedy

Benches in a park

Museum 

London

I have chosen these three locations for romantic comedy, firstly the park where there is a little walk way with two benches, I have chosen this because it's a clichéd setting, as though your not going out on a date, you have to sit in a park, especially if your elder adults. Also depending on the weather it would be high key lighting, which emphasises happiness  Also the general public are there and walk through, which would possibly make the scene funny. I then went up London, you can see there is a museum, a museum tends to be seen as boring, however you could use it in a romantic comedy, to make it funny, such as getting lost. I then took a picture of a well known area in London (South Bank). I think this would be good in  a romantic comedy as it is romantic, however if something happens such as getting lost or something clichéd happens, London would make a good setting for this.