Planning- Final Storyboard

I have finally finished the storboard! I had to go over my pencil with a black fine line pen because when i first scanned it in you could not see the pictures clearly. I also discovered that it was better to take a photos of the storyboard and upload them than to scan it into the computer as it gives a much clearer picture. The storyboard is a guidline of the shots that we will be taking and what will happen in the sequence. We are now nearly ready to start filming!

Research- Audience

I have been doing some audience research and feel that the thriller itself should be targeted at 15+. Most of the thrillers that i have looked at have a similar rating if not higher. However the opening sequence that we are creating will be certified as a pg as we want it to be available to a wider audience.

I created a questionaire which i gave to friends, family and neighbours in order to get a wide range of results.

1)Do you enjoy watching the title sequences of films?
20/20 answered yes

1 part 2) If yes, why?
the most common response to this talked about how they give a good insight into the film and give a good impression of what the film will be like. Some people said that they like to see what actors and actresses are in the film to help to give them the feeling of familiarity that they can relate to.

2) What do you want to get out of a title sequence?
Most people said that they like the sequence to give a good insight into the film without revealing too much about the plot.

3)Of any thrillers that you have watched, which aspects do you feel are particularly important in the title sequences for this style of film? circle more than one answer if neccessary.

a)music
b)titles /writing/font
c)graphics
d)lighting
e)colour schemes

In the results to this questions i have come to the conclusion that the music is particularly important as it helps to set the mood for the film. Another aspect which the audience subconciously find important is lighting. After looking at these results lighting seems to be a big part in setting the mood. Dark colours can make it seem spooky and vulnerable where bright colours are the binary opposite.


From these results i have decided that i will need to pay particular attention on music and lighting. I think having a colour scheme for our title would be particularly effective and hopefully add to the continuity of the sequence. I will disscuss these results and ideas with my team members.

Planning- Characters

I have been thinking about the characters in our title sequence as it is important that they are portrayed correctly as they will be setting the mood for the rest of the film.

There are two characters in our opening sequence. One of which is the main character in the actual film.

The first character is the so called "murderer".
We have decided that in the opening sequence we will never see this characters face. This will help to create suspense and build up atmosphere for the audience. We have also decided for this character to be a woman. This is a conscious choice that we have made as we want our sequence to be different and do not want our "murderer" to be the typical stereotype (a man). We want to challenge the typical conventions of a thriller.
This character will be dressed in dark clothing which is typical of this character (the villain); maybe a long coat and clumpy boots..

The second character is the victim.
This character will be stereotyped. A young woman walking home. She is vulnerable as she is alone. She would be wearing casual clothing, cardigan, jeans, and heels (hard to run in).

Research- Narrative Theory

The first theory I looked at is that of Tvzetan Todorov. He believed that the fictional enviroment begins with a state of equillibrium (All as it should be, in a state of equal balance between powers of any kind). This is then disrupted in some way (disequillibrium). There is then an attempt to repair the damage of the disruption before a new equillibrium is reached.

Vladimir Propp's theory indicates that there are a number of set characters with specific narrative functions that appear in all stories. These were:

1. The villain (struggles against the hero)
2. The donor (prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object)
3. The magical helper (helps the hero in the quest)
4. The princess ( person the hero marries, often sought for during the narrative)
5. Her father
6. The dispatcher
7. The hero or victim

Levi Strauss' narrative thory claims that all narrative stuctures can be shown as a series of binary opposites. e.g good v evil, hero vs villain.

For example , in the film Die Hard some of the binary opposties are :

• Wide shot vs Extreme close up
• Technology vs Old fashioned
• Crowd vs Lone person
• Airport vs Party

Research- Opening Sequence Analysis of the film Seven.

Seven is a thriller directed by David Fincher. The film is about a murderer who connects his murders to the seven deadly sins, from gluttony and sloth to lust and pride.

Opening sequences of thrillers are typically used to create tension and atmosphere while dropping hints and clues to the audience indicating what the film is about. In the opening sequence of Se7en there was a lot of tension and atmosphere created mainly by the music.

The soundtrack immediately puts us on edge. Everything we see and hear is very discordant, and the soundtrack is made up of scratches and screeches to create an uneasy sound. The non-diegetic screeches suggest screams which helps to create fear and tension. It starts with an almost explosive sound like thunder which immediately gets our attention. The main beat of the soundtrack almost suggests a heartbeat which pounds and races to connote fear and death. This happens as the sequence progresses and the pace of the music increases. The sinister sounds fit well with the dark and disturbing imagery shown.

We see images of cuttings, writing, and disfigured pictures of people. Some of the images resemble the ‘killer’ cutting off a layer of skin, discarding ‘his’ identity. The ‘killers’ fingernails are dirty and suggest they are well worn. Most of the images we see are monochromatic and the only colour we see are splashes of red here and there. This connotes blood, anger, danger and death. All of the shots we see are close ups which help to involve us and pull the audience into the film. The close ups are point of view shots which lets us see things through the ‘killers’ eyes to create an impression of realism.

The editing used in the sequence is called montage editing which is a series of short cuts spliced together. This works well and is very disjointed and confusing which could represents a killers mind. I like this idea and think it would be a good technique to use in my opening sequence as it works well in a thriller with creepy music and typical thriller conventions. The shots are not continuous as they are shots of many different things all thrown together. This could suggest the different aspects of the film such as the seven sins. Also some effects have been used including a dissolve effect. We see this when the ‘killer’ seems to be turning a page in a book and one page dissolves to reveal the next page.

The typography is awkward and unclear. It becomes distorted and almost unrecognisable due to its movement and the effect of it being ‘electrocuted’. It is placed at a variety of angles and in a variety of uneasy ways and moves around the screen in all directions. The white typography shakes and flashes violently around its often black background. This contrast makes the writing more prominent and distinctive. The typography resembles messy handwriting which enhances the disturbing image of the sequence.

This is a brilliant example of a thrillers opening title sequence and it has given me many ideas for my own. A few of these ideas include: the pace increasing or racing to give the sequence energy and help it come to life: the short, fast cuts to keep the audience intrigued and wondering about the storyline and the discordant soundtrack to give atmosphere and tension.

Research- Narrative functions

I have been considering the purpose of an opening sequence in order to establish what I want to achieve for ours.
I want the opening sequence to do a number of things :

• Introduce the main character/s of the thriller
• Captivate the audience's interest
• Establish core theme and genre (thriller)
• Establish the audiences expectations by showing use of the typical conventions of a thriller
• Give a good insight into the film

Research- Conventions of a thriller

Before we carried on developing our idea i wanted to find out a bit more about the typical conventions of a thriller.

After doing some research i have found that the main conventions of a thriller are to do with sound, lighting and editing. The editing consists of quick cuts and varied camera angles to create atmosphere and a distorted feeling. The music is usually very creepy and discordant and the lighting is usually used to create shadows and darkness.

I am considering how we can use these conventions in our sequence and I think that the uneasy camera angles are particularly important.

Another typical convention of a thriller is the use of flashbacks and point of view shots. I like the idea of point of view shots as they help the audience to feel for the character but i think for our 2 minute sequence flashbacks will be to difficult to do successfully and without confusing our audience!

Planning- Roles.

For the planning of our sequence we have all helped each other but have taken on a main task each.

I am in charge of creating the storyboard. This will help us to visualise our sequence.

As Natasha took music she is creating the soundtrack for our thriller. This is because we cant use existant music because of copyright.

Samantha is creating the shot list so we know exactly what we are doing when it comes to filming.

We are not using a script as we believe that having no dialogue will be effective. So Lauren is In charge of organising when we will be shooting the sequence and producing a time chart and sorting out locations for the shoot.

Planning- Development of our idea.

Over the last few media lessons my group members and I have been developing our ideas for our title sequence. Developing the plot and story line has enabled us to create a storyboard and shot list.

Outline:

First of all we would see a man in a garage looking at a dartboard on a wall. The dartboard has 5 Polaroid pictures of girls stuck to it. Four of the pictures have darts through them and there is one remaining picture in the middle with no dart. We see the man picking up a dart but then it cuts to a shot of a girl walking home. This girl is the same girl as in the picture in the middle of the dartboard. She is alone and it is getting dark out. This will create tension and atmosphere. We then see the man that we saw in the garage walking past the girl and the girl keeps on walking. The man then stops and turns round and starts walking up behind the girl. He gets closer and closer to her until he is almost jogging. He then puts his hand on her shoulder. She screams and it immediately cuts to a shot of a dart hitting the dartboard on the "bullseye" right in the middle of the picture. This could suggest many things and will leave it on a cliffhanger ready for the film to explain.

Planning- BULLSEYE!

My group members and I have discussed ideas for our thriller. We all put our ideas forward and came up with 3 ideas that we all liked.

Idea 1!

This involved a man who stalked his ex-wife. The sequence would be distorted and creepy. It would be told from the point of view of the stalker, and we would never see his face. The man has photos of his ex all over his bedroom wall. We get the impression that the man is disturbed and we see him following the woman in her day to day life. We would use non diegetic creepy music to help to create atmosphere and tension.

Idea 2

This idea is based on a murderer who has pinned his 5 victims onto a dartboard. Once he has killed his victim he throws a dart at the picture. We would see the murderer following his victims but we would never see his/her face.

Idea 3

This last idea is a kidnap. The kidnap would take place after school and the victim would be a typical schoolgirl. This sequence would be quite disturbing and we could leave the sequence on a cliffhanger.

After discussing our 3 ideas and weighing up the strengths and weaknesses of each idea we decided that idea number 2 was the best. As a group we have lots of ideas and effects we could put into our sequence to make it interesting and build up tension. As our idea is based around a dartboard we thought that BULLSEYE is the perfect name for our opening sequence.

Update- missed media lessons

Unfortunately i have been absent from my media lessons over the last two weeks. This is because i have been involved in our school production and have been very busy. The show was a success and since it has finished i have been working my hardest to catch up on the work that i have missed.

We have been working towards creating an opening title sequence for a thriller. In lessons we have got ourselves in to groups. I am in a group with Samantha Coutanche, Natasha John and Lauren Halse.

Research- The Secret Window

In class we watched the opening sequence to the thriller 'The Secret Window'.

This opening sequence was very interesting. The diegetic sounds started before the film even began. This was the sound of windscreen wipers back and forth back and forth. When the sequence than started there was a close up of a man in a car behind the steering wheel. We then heard a non diegetic voicover which at first seemed like it was coming from a person maybe in the back of the car, but we discover that it is the man thinking, and that we are hearing his thoughts. Throughout the sequence there are a variety of shots to make the it interesting. The shots that stand out the most are the close up, point of view shots and the follow shot. I also like how the colours are quite monocrome and the only hint of colour is the sign 'motel' which is in bright red writing which suggests danger or blood. Overall i liked this sequence and has halped me to get some ideas for my own opening sequence.

Planning- Logline

A game of darts with a twist! Murderer/stalker plays darts and kills which ever victim his dart lands on!

Research- Media Workshop

On Friday, we had our re-scheduled media workshop day. The day was very enjoyable aswell as being usefull. By the end of the day me and my group had completed our continuity exercise. The sequence we had to film was a person walking up to a room, opening a door, walking through a door and sitting with someone at the other side. The two people then had to have a conversation and maybe exchange something. Before we started the excercise we made sure we had completed our planning. Me and my team thought about the shots that we wanted to include and created a storyboard of these shots. We included things like camera shot, sound and the shot duration. We included a variety of shots as we thought it would make the sequence more interesting. When filming our sequence we had to film each shot for longer than we atually needed it. This was so we could choose the piece of the clip that we wanted and had room either side of the clip to cut. After we filmed all of our shots we went onto the apple macs and started to edit our work using a program called imovie. We put all of the pieces together so as it made sense. For example we put our establishing shot first followed by our medium shot and our close up. Finally we added some dissolve effects, credits and music to complete our sequence.

Cerys xoxo

Research- Storyboards

In yesterdays lesson we looked at storyboarding. A storyboard is a graphical representation of camera shots for a film sequence. It visually tells the story of an animationn panell by panell. The storyboard will outline things like characters, sound, time and camera shot. We were asked to look at two websites for homework.

These were:

longroadmedia.com and

6thformnoodle.blogspot.com

Update- Media for schools day at the Vale

I cant believe that i forgot to tell you, last friday i attended a media filming day at a charity golf event which was organised by Sony and held at the Vale! We were there with media for schools and our job was to film the golfers taking their first shots! We also filmed ourselves interviewing some famous people incluing Neil Jenkins and Nicky Piper! Throughout the day we learned how to use and set up a camera and tri-pod. We learned about different camera shots and angles and the overall day gave me a much better understanding of filming and how it is done. I really enjoyed the day and would love to do something similar again in the future.

Cerys xoxo

Update- Media Workshop cancelled

Today was a bit of a disaster! The fire alarm went off and we missed about an hour of our media workshop! Its ok as it has been moved to next week now, and i cant wait!

Cerys xoxo

Research- classwork

In our media lesson today we watched a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho. We watched the famous shower scene. We analysed the scene and commented on the use of music, creation of suspense, camera work, and most importantly the editing. We learnt about continuity editing which is basically how lots of shots are played in a certain way and using certain camera shots to insure that it flows. If a film did not have continuity editing it would look messy and wouldn't really make sense!
We were also given a second handout. The handout outlines production tips for camera work and camera operation. Tomorrow we are spending a whole day attending a media workshop which i am really excited about! I will tell you all about it tomorrow!

Cerys xoxo

Research- The man with the golden arm!

Saul Bass is often referred to as "the master of film title design". I have analized one of his famous title sequences called "the man with the golden arm". The film was about the struggle of Frank Sinatra who played the hero, - a Jazz musician overcoming a heroin addiction.

The title sequence featured a cut-out of a heroin addicts arm. Saul Bass chose this as the main feature of the titles instead of the famous face of Frank Sinatra. He chose it knowing that the arm was a powerful image of addiction.

I chose this title sequence because it is one of Saul Bass' most famous pieces of work. He has used his style to create the titles. They are simple but very effective. The title sequence is quite simular to one of his other sequences for the film psycho. This shows that he had his own particular style, and it was very successfull.

The titles feature arkward white lines which jab at arkward and unsettling angles. The white lines are very effective on the plain black backround and jump out to the eye. The white lines fit in well with the plot of the story as they almost "inject" into the title credits, and at one point the films title is seemingly penned in by four of these uneasy lines. The music fits in perfectly with the Jazz theme in the film. It is an upbeat, exciting orchestral piece with trumpets and other brass instruments.

Cerys xoxo

Research- Saul Bass (1920-1996)

At home I have been researching the famous American graphic designer, Saul Bass. He is best known for his film-making and design on animated motion picture title sequences. Saul Bass entered the film industry in 1954 when he developed the advertising campaign for Carmen Jones, an Otto Preminger production. He was then asked by Preminger to create the promotion motif for a 1995 Frank Sinatra film called "Man with the Golden Arm". Bass designed a graphic logo for the film. While Bass argued that the sequance fell flat without animation, Preminger stubbornly disagreed. The final compromise of staccato - like movements quickly earned a spot as one of the classic moments in American film.

Bass also worked for Alfred Hitchcock and was responsible for the electric, eye popping segments before Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960).

Research- classwork

Last lesson we looked at blogs made by another school and watched some of the videos that they made for their continuity exercise.We were also given a handout telling us about three important principles when filming:

Match on action. Match on action is an editing technique where you cut from one shot to another view that matches the action and pace of the first shot. This is done to create an impression of continuity despite the fact you might have filmed the shots two weeks apart!

Shot-reverse shot. This is a very common effect used in making film an TV. When two characters are in conversation, film one character looking off screen to where the other character is imagined to be, and vice versa. You edit between a character talking and a character listening.

180 degree rule. This rule tells us that when filming the brief sequence of action in the room, you need to storyboard the scene so that an imaginary line is drawn across the room, cutting it in half. If you cross the line when filming, the characters will appear to exchange places and continuity will be lost.

Cerys xoxo

First post!

This is my first ever blog! I am not really sure what i am doing or how to use this website but i am excited none the less! I look forward to sharing my thoughts and videos ect with you soon! The media course sounds very interesting and i can't wait to get started!

Cerys xoxo