Opening Sequence Titles

Titles at the start of a film make it very clear to the audience that they are watching the opening sequence. Films vary the titles they use some choosing to break up each shot with a title on a black screen whilst others use to have the titles fade in and out over the shot. We have chosen to go for the latter in our title sequence. Here is a list of the titles we potentially plan to inlcude:

• Production Companies
• In Association with...
• Screenplay adapted by
• Director/Producer
• Actors
• Music
• Casting
• Film Title

Adding these titles would give our current rough cut the feel of an opening sequence.

Mike

xxx

(and jennifer)

more inspiration (sort of)

Still browsing through the Robert Smyth School media website and found a video about a boy on cocaine, seeing as we have this in our thriller tohught id check it out and basically its very different to why we included drug taking in our thriller- to create a more weird atmosphere, and to isolate the viewers from the protagonist, but also to anchor his state of mind. Whereas in this video it was entitled joy and it shows the people on cocaine having fun and despite the fact that they are alone they dont seem isolated and unpredictable as in ours.

Seeing as i cant upload the video this is just the link to the video:

http://www.rssmediastudies.co.uk/video/06as01.wmv

Here is also a link to the website and a couple of the short videos:

http://www.rssmediastudies.co.uk/main/prowork6a/

Jake x

INSPIRATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was browsing the Robert Smyth School media website looking at video productions and chanced upon i relly good video with intense attention to detail that we have decided to emphasise in our thriller. And also, the ending made me laugh

Jake x

party scene

We shot the party scene after school yesterday in a house. I think the shots were ok. we are capturing them now and overall they look good except perhaps a couple of hitches. the room we were in was very bright and this may look wierd considering it is supposed to be a party, we have put it in black and white however, and i think when we start chaning contrast and coulouirs etc. it will be ok.

I think a shot which works well is the one were the guy looks up from the table. it is good because we see that he is in a busy atmosphere with people around him which anchors the fact that it is a party.

we will not be able to propperly see if anything needs to be re shot until we have incoorporated the shots into our rough cut, but at the moment they look fine.

nathann
x

Capturing our extra shots and Re-Takes.

on a larger computer screen shots tend to look different so it is important to make sure we quality control when we are capturing.



Overall the quality seems good and we have a lot of useable shots.



some of the extreme close ups look a little strange but i dont think there was anything we didnt have useable footage of, we could definately use at least most of our shots.



thanks

nathan

xxxxxx

Extra shots evaluation

Despite hazardous weather conditions this weekend we still got all of our reshoot shots and extra shots done. It rained too much on saturday so we just filmed sunday when it stopped raining 5pm-7pm and planned in starbucks again 4-5.


Extra Shots

CU on cigarette and lips- Seemed a bit too sexual, won't be used for shot by itself, maybe part of a continuous sequence on as a very quick shot.

CU on eyes/top half of face- Possibly used with above shot, useful for wider range of technical shots.

CU on rubbing legs- Again, good for wider use of technical shots.

Shots from different sides and angles- Good, will definately use.

General notes from fridays lesson

In our lesson periods 4+5 on Friday we fully assembled our final rough cut put to temporary music. However, we did decide on several changes, mainly more CUs and ECUs to exaggerate our protagonist’s actions and to give a wider range of technical shots but also what shots to re-shoot and slight editing changes.

Extra shots

When the camera is facing him from the front of the bench we decided on several variety shots in order to break up the MCUs and MLSs:

-CU on lips and cigarette
-Possible CU on eyes
-CU on hands rubbing legs (possibly not needed as we have the tilt but will shoot anyway)
-A shot from the right hand side to see half of his face (experiment with left and right)

We also talked about a shot of him then getting up off the bench after we have already seen him walking to link the two together as if cross-cutting but in different time frames and seeing him walk up to the path we have seen him walking on.

When our protagonist is walking towards to murder scene we want to exaggerate his ‘mash-up’ state similarly with exaggeration to detail using more CUs and technical shots:

-Handheld shaky POV
-CU/ECU of shoes as he stumbles or falls (several shots in quick succession but as one sequence)

Re-shoot shots

-HA tilt from behind (cigarette dropped more clearly, possibly mike leaning back more?)
-Cigarette dropping from behind ^^^ continuity
-Cigarette picked up from front ^^^ continuity
-Pan across, mike walking in and out of frame, care with shadows
-Mike falling over after witnessing murder (both shots- without breaking 180 degree rule and so having Rachel just in shot)
-Mike cutting up cocaine with bank card camera on table from his left hand side
-Mike snorting cocaine camera on table slightly behind him so that cocaine is just out of shot
-Mike leaning back in chair after taking cocaine closer on his face than before (CU)
-Mike MLS walking towards camera
-Mike MCU reverse track ^^^ shot in between so slight change in distance doesn’t look weird, and make sure same walking speed.
-OTS witnessing murder (costume issues)

Editing issues

-Exaggerate fades, maybe used with slow motion and much longer than previous.
-Experiment with non-additive dissolve rather than additive dissolve
-Use colour wheel for black and white with emphasis on midtones rather than standard black and white effect.

cool x

Re shoot weekend

because our shooting weekend went so fantastically we don't have any footage that we didn't film. however upon watching some of our shots it appears we have to re shoot a couple of things.

we need to re-shoot the 'party' scene. This will take a couple of minutes but we need to make sure we do it well.

We have other individual shots that didnt work so well which we will discover as we become more intimate with out material.

the party scene is indoors but if we need to do any out door shots ive checked on the weather.

Generally it was:

11°C
Mostly Cloudy
Wind: W at 26 km/h
Humidity: 76%

There will also be a spot of rain, occasionally more heavy during the evenings,

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

we will need to take warm clothes.

nathan
xxx

Killer Swans!

One problem we did not anticipate on our shoot was KILLER SWANS!!!!
Unfortunately they seemed to think we were there to attack their babies, so they stood guard throughout our filming and terrified one of our actors. We filmed a short terrifying sequence of these heartless killers and will try and put it up on the blog soon.

Mike
x

Lighting

After the complete disaster that was our test shoot weekend, (i'm joking, on the whole it went very well) we realised that our shots looked very dark. The vast majority of our shots are filmed outside at night, where ther is very little light. We tried to overcome this problem by taking another light on shoot with us this weekend. After looking back at the footage, we believe taking another light with us was very helpful and made our shots look much better.

Mike
x

Possible Problems

Before our shooting weekends, we drew up a list of possible things that could go wrong for us as a group. We did this so we could anticipate possible problems so they would not occur. Here is the list of thingsb that could go wrong for us.

1. Weather
2. Planning correctly and sufficiently (shot lists & logs)
3. Take still photos of us on shoot
4. Not sharing the boring jobs
5. making sure equipment return paperwork is correct
6. Not listening to eachother
7. Our actors getting bored and cold
8. Poor lighting
9. Poor Sound
10. Continuity errors
11. Actors late or absent
12. Being Rude or Abrupt
13. Making it Personal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mike
x

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Opening Sequence

For me this film was a sort of inspiration for our idea. In the opening scene the characters are established well as druggies and I believe there are many interesting techniques used in this film that i believe we could try and adapt to our own project. I really like the narrated voice-over throughout the film, as Johnny Depp's hallucinations are explained to us although we do not always see them ourselves.

There is a lot of eerieness created by the weird characters that I belive could also work well in a thriller, since it could create a lot of enigma and suspense around our main character.

I really like the very last shot of this clip. It is a Close-up of Johnny Depp's face and it actually looks quite scary because his character is on so many drugs. Therefore I think with darker lighting and possibly some sinister music, this could really work well in the Thriller genre.

Mike
x

Potential Actors

Before we started shooting, we decided to take photos of our potential actors so we could see how they look in front of the camera. They include (in order) Louis Dresner - possible Murderer/main protagonist, Nick Malster - possible Murderer, Michael Rodgers - possible main protagonist and Rachel Smethers - Possible Victim.

LOUIS:


NICK:

MIKE:






RACHEL:




Mike and Nathan
x

Shooting Weekend 1st - 2nd December

Our filming this weekend went much better than our test shoot weekend. We met up 3 hours early to plan our shot log and make sure we were really ready for the shoot. The shot log made filming much easier as we knew exactly what shots we were taking for each little part of our sequence. This meant our filming was more structured and organised. We made sure we rotated who did sound, lighting and filming. We did all of our shots apart from two which we can do easily during the week which means that we just have to focus on our re-shoots on the weekend. This also means that we are able to start editing and produce a rough cut of our shots. Everyone in the group made effort over the weekend and there werent any problems with communication or lack of effort.
Overall the shooting weekend was very successful.

Jennifer

xxx

Shot Log

1. Long shot from behind of man on bench
   
2. CU of character’s head and shoulder (from behind)
   
3. HA, tilt from behind to front showing character drop cigarette
   
4. Low level shot from underneath bench to see man pick up cigarette ( try from both sides, front and back.
   
5. MCU of character’ face with cigarette as if character just picked up the dropped cigarette
   
6. Back track, from characters face to seeing his whole body
   
7. Long shot of character looking agitated, rubbing hands on legs etc.
   
8. CU of character “cutting up”
   
9. (Same as shot 7)
   
10. CU of character sniffing (camera behind character so sound is the main focus)
    
11. MLS of character walking
    
12. CU of characters face when walking
    
13. MCU reaction shot of character after sniffing
    
14. Low level shot of character walking into shot (1st half)
    
15. Low level shot of character’s feet, sitting on the bench
    
16. Low level shot of character walking out of shot (2nd half)
    
17. Low level shot of character’s feet, sitting on the bench with pan up and smoke blown down
    
18. ELS from behind, walking on path to murder scene
    
19. MLS from bank side
    
20. OTS of character walking toward murder scene, female character walks into shot
    
21. VHA of character walking past female character
    
22. Handheld from behind showing female character grabbed then a struggle as she is thrown on the floor to the right of the shot
    
23. Low level shot as female character falls on the floor
    
24. Handheld, HA, OTS straddle
    
25. POV strangle
    
26. Low angle, “over” murder at character witnessing the murder
    
27. OTS, character killing female character and looking up towards the camera
    
28. Character collapses on floor
    
29. Low level, MCU as character falls into shot on the floor
    
30. Tilt, Bend, Zoom out of character to female character

Not all of these shots worked and we will re-shoot them this following weekend. Some worked better than others and look really good, we also added in a couple of shots as we went along. Doing a shot log before filming made it much easier to film our shots and meant that we prevented a lot of time wasting.

Jennifer

xxx

Shooting Weekend Pics

These are just some shots we took on our main shooting weekend.

Costume + props

We need the murderer and the witness to be wearing similar, if not the same clothes.
The character is meant to have just been at a casual party/gathering and so should be wearing clothes like jeans and a hooded jumper. The hooded jumper will also be useful for the murder scene to conceal the identity of the murderer.

The victim will be wearing 'nice clothes' under a quite big coat. She needs to look quite vulnerable.

We need a distinctive object to link the murderer to the victim and for this we will probably use a ring. Although this may look a little strange it will anchor the story very well.

Our character will probably be smoking so were gonna need cigarettes. we may also need a can so that he can be drinking. We will also need fake drugs.

Nathan

Test Shoot Weekend

At the weekend we went to Hampstead Heath for a test shoot. Despite a couple of hitches with equipment i think the weekend was quite successful. We had a fierce battle with the elements but due to careful planning and consideration the weather did not prove a challenge (apart from the temperature!).

The footage we took was of mixed quality. I think we were perhaps a tad rusty with the camera and there was definitely positive correlation between the time out and the quality of the footage. We took a couple of out of focus shots and a couple of perhaps undesirable handheld shots.

Although the natural sound is not a particularly important feature for the sequence we had interference caused by a rowdy gang of ducks and two killer swans. Despite the winged worlds attempts i think that the sound was quite successful. the boom mic proved immensely valuable because it allowed us to exaggerate sounds we wanted to focus on.

The mise-en-scene of our shots were mostly fine. we had a couple were we weren't happy with the positioning of characters etc. but we re-shot all of them.

I think if we focus on pre-shoot organization such as shot logs and also make sure we correctly log all of our shots the next shoots will run very smoothly and we should get very good footage to use when editing,

best regards,

Nathan.

Music Update

We have now asked a friend of ours to compose a piece of music for the thriller. This means we can have a much more individual piece of music and one that fits the sequence a lot better. A good analogy would perhaps be a hand tailored suit from Gieves and Hawkes compared to any old outfit.

Hopefully we will be able to make an arrangement that works,
nathan,.
x

The Opening sequence of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

The group gathered for some inspiration the other day. We watched a selection of opening sequences and i was designated to write on Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

It is quite a funny opening sequence which sets the scene for the rest of the film. It introduces a lot of the main characters. The narration is an idea that we have considered using, we think it would help to anchor the story line which would be helpful for the viewer.

Although it is a different style of film i think there is a lot we could learn:

-The film has a very British feel which we need in our opening sequence. I think this is achieved through the setting and the accents.
-The mise-en-scene is very important in the opening sequence to set up the correct atmosphere and this is something we need to focus on.
-The scene is outdoors and this is similar to ours so we could look at the type of filming techniques used to inspire us
-And much more as well.

The use of music is good in the sequence. it builds up throughout the clip and reaches a climax towards the end. i think we need to achieve something similar.

Thanks.
nathan.
xxx

Opening Sequence Analysis - Hannibal

The opening sequence of this film starts convetionally with the universal studios brand image and the mgm lion. We see a black screen and piano music starts playing a soft and slow tune. A black man's voice cuts in as a voice over as we continue to see a black screen. This makes the audience wonder who is speaking and why we are just seeing black? The non diegetic music doesn't get quieter as the man is speaking over it, instead his voice is just loud and booming. We then hear another voice of a white male so the audience is able to establish that we are hearing a conversation. As this new voice appears red letters listing the production compay and other credits start to appear. Red might have been used as it has the connotation of blood and death. As we watch the titles appearing and dissappearing a small screen shot becomes visisble and gradually gets bigger showing us the people talking and their location. This shot appears in the right hand side in the middle of the screen and gets bigger to fill the whole screen. Whilst this is happenig both the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds are continuing. As the shot gets bigger we etablish that its a long shot of what could be a library in a persons home. We can see three men two sitting opposite each other whilst the other one stands. We also see that one of the men is in a wheelchair and we wonder why. The mood of the room is quite dark and there isn't much lighting making the room look quite brooding.

The camera slowly pans round from right to left to have a straight shot of the men facing each other. The next shot is a CU of the white males face which is very very damaged. We can see he has no lips and permant scarring all over his face. We can also see that he has one eye and thin grey hair suggesting that he is quite old. We then cut to a medium close up of the black guy responding to what the other character has just said, a reaction shot. Then we cut back to the white male and then back to the black male before the shot changes to a long shot of the white male in the wheelchair and the 2nd white male standing beside him. This gives the audience the opportunity to see what both men are wearing and what they look like. We then cut to a long shot of the black picking up a pink box. We then have an extreme long shot from far off so that we see the profile of the black male as he presents the box to the white male in the wheelchair. The music in this exchage between the two characters has become softer and quieter and the diegetic sound has become more dominant. The camera zooms in on the white males face when the black male opens the box to show him whats inside. The voice of the white male is really raspy and we can hear his deep breathing in this part of the scene. We cut to see whats inside the box from the perspective of the white male in the wheelchair, POV shot. The audience is able to see that it is a mask inside. The camera zooms in closer and closer entering the box then the shot fades to black with the title Hannibal written in red letters. The music has become louder again as the voices are no longer heard.

Jennifer

xxx

Meeting 19th November

In our meeting today we finalised our idea properly and made sure we knew exactly what we are doing such as who was responsible for what props. We also decided what the main shots were that we wanted to practice in our test shoot weekend. These were:

• The opening shot of the protagonist sitting on the bench watching people walk past.
• POV of the killer strangling the victim and then seeing the protagonist
• Flashback shots of the night before when the protagonit was getting intoxicated

We arranged the details of our meeting tomorrow at Jake's house. We plan to watch at least 4 opening sequences for inspiration and ideas on our thriller. We will analyse these and later blog. We will also have a meeting to finalise the details for our test shoot weekend.

Jennifer

xxx

Meeting 19/11

Change of idea!
We will keep the original beginning idea, but change the last few shots.
The idea is that there is a long shot of the murder from druggie POV, and then a POV of the murderer strangling the girl(we see his hands with ring seen previously in the sequence). Then back to the long shot of the guy watching the murder.
We may see the ring before when he is sitting on the bench possibly rubbing his legs. The shot would not obviously be a CU of the ring, but the ring should be dominant in the shot without making it too obvious we are trying to show the ring.

Mike
x

Actor Contract

I made contracts for the actors to sign so they have agreed in advance for us to use them on certain dates. Here is a sample:

Actor Contract-Group 1D


I agree to attend all shooting sessions including re-shoots over the following weekend dates:

Saturday 24th – Monday 16th November
Saturday 1st - Sunday 2nd December
Saturday 8th – Sunday 9th December

(Shooting will not be on all days and will be told to you by group representatives)

Most shooting will be done in the evening or at night but meeting times will be told to you.

Print Name __________________________________

Signed ­__________________________________

Mike

x

Music

We need music for the sequence that builds up suspense. we originally thought that we could use an ambient orchestral soundtrack because we thought using a song sounds tacky and overpowers the film.

We are now perhaps going to use a more ambient style of music with a beat because this would fit better with the drugs theme. Ideas we had for some of the sequences music are these:

Butterfly Caught - Massive Attack :

This song doesnt have particularly understandable lyrics and sounds quite 'druglike'.
It has an eerie ambient feel which fits the overall theme.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aXx3qb4H0po

(embedding did not work)

We listened to a variety of Massive attack and agreed a lot of them would work well.

love from nathan.

Layout

Yeah liked this layout thought it looked very thriller even though the film its from isn't a thriller.
Hope everyone else likes it.

Jennifer

xxx

Meeting Summary - 16th November 2007

The aim of today' meeting was to finalise all aspects of our idea and start the script/storyboard if possible. We were able to finalise our ending, decide on our actors and arrange a meeting to watch more opening clips. We will start our script/storyboard in the next meeting.

The initial endings we had included:

• The intoxicated guy sees the murderer and the camera zooms in on a significant part of the murderer (maybe a ring, tattoo - we are unsure about this). We would then cut to the druggie/drunk collapsing on the floor then a shot of the murderer's feet next to the druggie/drunk.
  

OR

• A shot of the druggie/drunk collapsing then we cut to a bloodied garment of the victim then we pan back to the druggie/drunk on the floor with the murderer's feet next to the druggie/drunk.

OR

• The intoxicated guy could witness the murder then the screen blurs and we hear a lot of noise and movement but we don't really know what' going on. Then a shot of the murderer and victim both dead then we pan to the druggie/drunk covered in blood and end there.

FINAL!!

The ending we decided on eventually was an adaptation of the first one. The druggie/drunk sees the murderer then we see a significant part of the murderer, maybe a zoom in or a simple close up. Then the intoxicated guy collapses and we then cut to a shot of the significant part of the murderer now on the druggie/drunk, who is slowly waking up. We would also include a shot of the victim.


We also decided that the film rating would be a 15 but our target audience is females and male in their late teens and early twenties.

We also had ideas about the kind of titles we wanted to include. We didn’t like the idea of black title screens breaking up the shots. We gained some inspiration from watching Seven which showed a clip first then they had a montage of different shots with the titles. We decided we wanted our thriller to include this style of opening, so that we didn’t have the opening shots broken up by black title screens.

As for dialogue within our clip we are looking into the idea of a voice over as narration of what is going on in the druggie/drunk guys head. For inspiration we are planning to watch Fear in Loathing and Mr Brooks which use this very effectively.

Our next meeting will be in our next media lesson on Monday 19th November. We are also going to watch as many opening sequences a we can on Tuesday 20th November after school we will hence have a meeting after.

Jennifer

xxx

Music

We decided we werent going to use music with words but i think Vicious Tradition by the Veils could be very useful in our thriller especially the ending of the song as it does build up tension and suspense as the music gets faster and louder. We could use it at the beginning when we see the druggie watching the people go by and everything is blurred. I don't know how to create a playlist ting lyk the other group so heres a youtube video with the song, its clips from Mr Brooks.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skmWRMSliiE


I alo think the Testament - Road to Serenity instrumental would be quite good as it also sounds very thriller. Theres a lot of intense emotional moments which i think would fit with our thriller idea.

Trapped by Jeffrey Michael is also very thriller there are a lot of pauses and parts where the music slows down so the audience feels a lot of suspense and tension which i think would be appropriate for our thriller. Also good songs by Jeffery Michaels would be Voices within Suite and The Scarecrows. They are examples of songs that we could use in our thriller as they don't have words and create a strong sense of suspense. They have previously been used in thriller and horror films so are made specially to create a sense of tension within the audience.

Jennifer
xxx

Today's meeting

We had a meeting today at lunchtime to bring some more of our ideas together.

We talked a lot about music and Nathan showed us a good possible piece by Massive Attack. And we are all going to research the music in more detail at home. We all agreed that we did not want a piece with lyrics since it could detract the audiences attention away from the action of the scene.

We decided we will start work on our script/storyboard in our media lesson tomorrow and will carry on with it in Monday's lesson, so we should have at least a draft version finished by then.

Nathan and I are going to start taking photos of our potential actors so pictures should be up on the blog soon.

Mike
x

Music

I've been thinking about potential muic for our thriller and had a few initial ideas.

Alone by Colin Newman - i think would be good as it is quite melancholic and slow. It would make the mood of the scene seem very dark and depressing.

Discovery by Elmer Bernstein - This would be very good as it is very tense and would be appropriate to use a there are many parts that would fit the some of the initial scenes we have in our idea.

Jennifer
xxx

Hampstead Heath - Location Shots

A lot of places in the park looked very thriller and there are a lot of paths and footway for our druggie to walk down and look around. As we plan to have a lot of point of view shots this location has given us the opportunity to see lots of picturesque imagery.

Ok basically these are the notes on our idea from the meeting

Idea (so far):

Boy our age shown drunk or on drugs by mixture of fast or speeded up shots and slow, distorted or blurred staggering shots. Series of short distorted flashbacks to a party with lots of people and them taking drugs or drinking, all of the flashbacks could have a red tinge or something to distinguish them. Tension builds up as they walk through deserted areas in the dark highlighted by occasional streetlamps possibly? Quietness occasionally interupted by loud car and beeping or something to show the sensitive state of the character. Then they witness a murder and we are undecided over whether the murderer sees them and they run away and are scared for their own life. Or whether they pass out and are not really sure in their own mind what happened.

Potential actors:

Murderer:
-Louis Dresner, boy in our year good at acting, was in a year 13 music video.
-Connor, hench
-Nick, experience of acting

Witness:
-Mike
-Oscar

Victim:
-Rachel Smethers, small, good for a victim

Camera shot ideas:

-Slight blur
-In and out of focus
-Spining or turning camera
-Lots of POV shots
-Slow rhythmic shot changes
-Distorion either in editing or camera shots achieved by breaking of camera rules
-Long shot of character sitting down, on bench or floor with their head in their hands for 10 minutes or longer then sped up so that the shot only lasts 10-15 seconds so that they seem to be moving very quickly and jerking due to their slight movements in the 10 minutes.
Could do it in a busy place, so other people would be walking past very quickly making the shot seem intense or could have it in an alleyway or somewhere and use only a few actors walking past and occasionally stopping to see if the person needs help but then moving on after they are ignored.
We will practice and experiment with this type of shot soon and could possibly do it in school so that we get the timing right.

Still no ideas for a title but working on it.

Thats all for now, next meeting on monday at lunch.

Jake

First meeting!

Had our first meeting on monday, was pretty siQQ, finally got a solid idea together that we all like and had a part in so thats good and something to work on. Jennifer made notes during the meeting so hopefully she'll type them up shortly.