Question 7

In the preliminary task I learnt a lot about continuity editing and how to make a simple routine flow properly. To do this I had to adhere to the 180 degree rule, add match on action and shot/ reverse shot.



This clip shows the beginning of the action and the establishing shot which gives the viewer an idea on the space the action is talking place in. Establishing shots reflect a mood, for example in this clip it shows that the woman was waiting for the man in an empty room which connotates secrecy and there would be a sence of mystery or perhaps lonelyness.




Shot/ reverse shot is used during convosations which i used in the preliminary task. I did not use this in my opening sequence but I did use match on action when the girl was taken and when the woman in the kitchen was turning devices on eg the kettle. The 180 degree rule was also used in the preliminary task throughout so that it makes sence to the audience and so they understnad what side each character is on. This means that i had to film on one side and not film beyond 180 degrees. The 180 degree rule is vital in continuity editing.

Here are a few examples from my opening sequence when I used the 180 degree rule, match on action and establishing shots.

180 degree rule:


The scene in the kitchen consisted of continuity editing and therefor i had to aply the 180 degree rule. My group filmed so that we were one side of the character even on the extreme close ups because otherwise it would delude the viewer and they would get confused.


Match on action:



Match on action helped make the action seem more exciting when they girl was kidnapped by cutting between short clips that match together but from different angles. Match on action makes the action more interesting for the viewer to watch.

Establishing shot:



In my opening sequence I used an establishing shot of the field and panned to the left to give spacial awareness and to show that the park was dark and empty. The establishing shot give a mood for the action that is later to come.

Question 6

What technologies are new to me?



Before I started my work on blogger and my opening sequence; Slide Rocket, LiveType,Imovie,Bloger and Bubbl were completly new to me because I'd never used them before.

I made this video to explain what technologies I have developed my skills in.


What technologies have allowed you to produce something creative?

The following technologies allowed me to create my opening sequence. I had to be creative when making my thriller opening because my group and I had to think of the plot synopsis, film and direct the film and also edit the whole thing. The final product was very creative because these technologies allowed my group and I to make what we visioned and make it look professional.

• IMovie
• Camera & Tripod
• LiveType

Question 5

My group made these vox pops and put together a focus group to find out if we have appealed to our target audience of young people, particulary girls. The focus group was a good way to get an inicial response from those people and to hear what they have to say as a group. This was helpful because we consider our film to be a social film that would be played within a friendship group.
The vox pops were needed so that we could ask specific questions to a range of people to see who it most appealed to and to find out the most effective way that our film appealed to them.  





My screen cast goes through my whole opening sequence and describes how the costume, music, charcters, plot and camera composition connects to my target audience.

My Media Opening Sequence

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I am targeting my film at the middle class which make up 20% of the population. The target audience would be from 18-24, we are aiming at students or young people who are just entering the world of employment. We feel that females are more likely to purchase our film due to the strong female heroin role. We choose students because we want them to interpret our film in a creative way and to hold a long attention span. We want our target audience to be very sociable therefore our film could be watched by a number of people at a social event, students would be ideal for this role. Also we are aiming at the individuial to be a self actualiser who are creative and would understand the choices we made within our film can impact them more, therefor making it more enjoyable for them.

 

Opening Sequence: Second Draft

Question 3

Pathe is a french company which started in 1896. Pathé became the world's largest film equipment and production company, as well as a major producer of phonograph records.

We chose Pathe to be the distributor to our film because they are more suitable for low budget- filmed on sight films. They also distribute films that have a creative twist to them that appeal to a specific audience. For example they would include plots and events that only a niche market would be interested in. Therefor Pathe are more involved with developing films that specialize in intreging but unique messages.  Pathe is associated with creative film that include deep meaningful messages to the viewer, those types of film challenge the mundane conventions of the chosen genre. 

In our opening sequence we have added unusual family elements that set our film a stray from other Thrillers. Our film isnt just to get the audiences heart pounding but we have tried to display the explosive emotions within a family. The emotional connection between sisters is really what our film is about and we want to stress this point and show this relationship throughout the kidnapping story. Our Film is aimed at older teenagers who may have been through trauma within their family or in young life growing up. Therefor Pathe is a good choice as it would help us be distributed to certain people and our film will be known as a Thriller with other issues displayed.

Pathe have distributed a similar film to ours which is called 127 hours. It explores deep feelings and gets the audience eager for the main characters survival. In 127 hours we get taken on an emotional journey where the emotion hurts just as bad as the bleeding. It has the same family aspect as we have in our sequence because a lot of time is spent talking about his life and his family. The setting is also the same throughout the film- this is the sign of a low budget film. 127 hours is also creative because it breaks away from conventional thrillers by having a strong background story and not just problems that need to be solved.

Question 1 & 2

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A typical convention of an opening sequence is production and distribution logos, these are used so that the company can brand what they produce; these come prior the titles which play throughout the opening sequence. Titles play an important role as they give everyone credit who played an important role in the making of the film (such as the main character). Usually titles come in order of importance starting from the most crucial roles and ending with jobs that require less dedication. Other conventions from opening sequences are establishing shots, clues and a soundtrack, these all combine to establish a mood/theme so the audience can get a feel for the film. Establishing shots and extreme close ups hide the characters identity so the opening sequence leaves the audience guessing and only gives them clues. The soundtrack increases in volume and pace when a climax has been reached which adds suspense and excitement. The last convention is whether the sequence opens as equilibrium (with a mundane start) or disequilibrium (starting with a problem), ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles’ starts as disequilibrium with a rushed and panicked mood. I’ve used titles, copyright free sound and the paramount distribution clip within my opening sequence as well as an establishing shot of a cold, isolated field. My sequence opens with disequilibrium and shows clues that a girl is running away from danger by using dark, dull colours and fast cross cutting. The music was also eerie and sinister. As my chosen genre is thriller my group chose to add mystery to the storyline, especially in the opening sequence. We also included two main characters - the villain and a vunerable young girl.


How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I’ve represented young, vulnerable girls who are unaware of the dangers when growing up. We also represented their friendships within my opening sequence and how important it it. We have included a photo of both the teenage girls together in the kitchen scene to show their close relationship and their happy facial expressions highlighting the importance of friendship between young girls.  

We also placed the camera behind some branches to give the impression that the villain was hiding. We represented the villain as disturbing but discrete, this describes the typical villian in a thriller because they are not normally revealed until the very end.   

 

Opening Sequence First Draft

Title font

I found this font on dafont.com, its called 'Nervous' and gives a distorted appearance. This is the font my group is going to use for our opening sequence.

It ties in with our opening sequence because we want to portray the girl as very nervous and panicked through camera work and we will be building up the tension throughout the sequence. We also want the viewer to feel nervous while their watching and this font will help do this.

Producing a Shooting Schedule

Producing an Animatic

Producing a series of storyboards

Copyrights use to the Hotline Miami soundtrack

Production logo used in my opening sequence

In our opening, including our titles we had to produce a logo for our mock-up production 

company which has developed the film opening. 

The logo designed is influenced by the electronic soundtrack and historical decades in which the film is set in.

The logo itself uses a series of complimentary colors which create a contrast between the forms in the logo, much like the contrast between the mother and daughter in the film. However this logo appeared to friendly to be the production company of our thriller, therefore we changed the layout of the logo and added in dark colours to make it match then genre a bit better.

This is the new logo that will appear in our final draft:

Music used in my opening

The music in this track appeals to the style of music I would pefer to use in my thriller opening, It starts with a minimal synth riff which could easily be looped to create a theme to the peice, the rapid drumbeat which accompanies, the style of the music itself fits well with the past atmosphere which we plan to create in addition, a rushed suspenseful opening which mixes elements of noire and surrealism.
This next song plays a very ambient series of melodies which I feel would could heavily accompany the climax of the opening, after the suspense has hit a high point the music slowly draws itself out to this monotone, ambient peice. Like the other track, the synthesised, 80's themed tembre produces an unsettleing series of emotions.

This final track, witchunt is unlike any other peice of music I have personally listened to.
I plan to use this track in the surrealist sequences of the opening, the mix features from ambient, electronic and darkwave peices of music create a heavilly unsettleing peice of music which again, creates a huge contrast between the two peices.

Props and Costumes

 Costumes: Considering the setting of the opening, costumes are a setpeice towards the set period and the first impressions of the character, we wanted the mother to appear 'stuck in the past' To do this the costume of the mother is dressed in classic, floral dress/shirt inspired by the 70's the outdated look of the mother will hopefully give the audience the notifications of the setting, the daughter however will wear more modern casuals, jeans and some sort of sweatshirt.

 Props: One of the key props in one location of the family's living room is a boom-box radio (appropriate for the time period) the camera tracks from a newspaper to the radio and then cross cuts to another scene. Another major prop is the kettle, which boils over time as the camera cross cuts between segments, this use of personification through the kettle boiling develops the tension and emotions behind both characters.

Choice of Actors

Hannah- 
The mother of the teenager that gets kidnapped. She is in the clips where it is set in the kitchen, Hannah will be dressed in normal, casual clothes because it is a mundane atmosphere. 

Shannen-
I will play the teenage girl running in the field away from the kidnapper because i have clothes that fit the costume that my group wants her to be wearing.

Lewis-
Lewis will play the role of the kidnapper because he is the only male in our group and we envisioned the kidnapper to be a man. He also needs to help with the camera work while me and Hannah are in the frame because the kidnapper is the character that appears least.

Dialogue

[Radio]:

‘So that’ll be coming up.

More breaking news today, there has been a significant rise in the amount of child abductions, mainly effecting females aged in their mid-teens. We would like to take this opportunity to alert both parents and children to be aware of the dangers that can arise in any neighborhood, especially late at night. Mandy Corfeild was the last recorded victim abducted in London, who has not been found.'

Our dialogue is set up to be part of a radio station playing throughout the opening sequence until the climax is reached. This sound will switch between diegetic and non diegetic sound due to the cross cutting between two locations. We are going to edit the audio quality by dropping the bass and eq level and adding in a low level of white noise to create a more immersive atmosphere. My group and I are going to do this on a music editing program called 'Audacity'.

The head of the Media department, Mr Metacalfe has previously worked in the radio buisness, announcing news bulletins, My group asked him if we could record him reading out our dialogue for our opening sequence.

Initial Ideas- Our Thriller

Plot Synopsis

• Our story is set in South London in 1995. In a rough neighborhood.
• A teenage girl (16) has been kidnapped, the police have been called and the mother is struggling with the realization.
• The mother cannot cope with the depression and she breaks down. Meanwhile her daughter is being abused by her kidnapper.
• They run away and move far from the police, her kidnapper manipulates her and forces her into marriage.
• Years later she goes back to her neighborhood and sees that it is destroyed. She knocks on her old door and finds out her mother doesn't live there anymore.

Possible Locations

I took all of these images at night because i wanted to display the settings in the dark to make them fit the Thriller genre better. These are mundane locations because my groups film is about a girl who gets kidnapped. This also ties in with the fact that it is dark because it indicates danger and venerability.

Analyising our genre through VoxPops

These VoxPops were a useful way to get the viewers opinion on Thriller films so we know what are conventions and what are not. This is audience reaserach I've done as I found a variety of opinions.

Survey

5 people who filled out my survey were female and 10 were male. Therefore the majority of opinions  are males and they are the majority.

The majority of women preferred low-key lighting  and the majority of males also preferred low-key lighting. This proves that the audience expects to see low-key lighting within the opening sequence of a Thriller film and this means that low-key lighting is a convention of a Thriller opening sequence.

This Pie Chart shows the ages of the females that filled out the survey. The majority of females who filled out the survey are 11-16. 

This Shows the ages of the males who filled out the survey. The majority of them fall in the age group of 17-25.

This is out of everyone who filled out the survey- grim, quiet music is expected more than loud, shrieking music therefore making grim and quiet music a convention of a Thriller.

Title Sequences

This Prezi presents information and research i did on title sequences. This helps me when it comes to creating the titles for my opening sequence because it gives information about different title sequence, how the vary and what sorts if order they come in. 

Conventions of a Thriller

THRILLER

Mise en scene

- Thrillers are normally set in mundane locations like a house or an abandoned house. The props may consist of weapons that give clues to the crime that has been committed.
- There is low key lighting to create an unpleasant atmosphere and an uncomfortable mood.

Characters

- A protagonist could have a team or another person (secondary protagonist) to help them figure out the problem. 
- There is the authority where they are in denial about what has happened and they need persuading to realise what bad things are happening.
- An exposer exposes the person or thing that is causing terror and they uncover how to solve the problem. 
- Antagonists are the villains that cause all the fright and issues.
-The protagonists sometimes come out as antagonists- its always the last person you would expect.
-Protagonist normally are blamed at one point and things sp horribly wrong 

Cinematography

- A lot of long shot are used to show locations and spacial awareness
- Also extreme close ups are used to give away clues and add suspense.

Editing

- Editing gets faster with confrontation and it mixes with the music to build tension to be built up to the climax.

Themes

- Serial killers 
- To do with mental illness
- Story line to do with something that can actually happen in real life

Sound

- Lots of high pitched scores 
- screeching noises 
- mainly incidental music 

Plot

- Twists and turns and solving a misery
- More to do with solving the problem then all the gore and violence otherwise it would be a horror.

SE7EN

Spiderwick Chronicles

Conventions of an opening sequence



Briget Jones' Diary

Wallander

Brick

The Sixth Sence

At first the viewer was intreged to see the light bulb,we can tell that by the state of the bulb is it from a neglected place as its dirty and old fashined. There is very little noise to begine with and the audience knows we are in a quiet place because we can hear the noise of the bulb and slight gental but creepy wind. The dirctor purposly chose not to show the audience the door before it makes a loud noise while the camera is focused on the light bulb, this startles the viewer. This is all diegetic sound.

There is a winerack in the foreground and the camera is positioned so it sees through the rack and at the woman, this gives the feeling that she is being watched. the bottles look dusty like they haven't been looked at in a while and have not been looked after. this character has an intence expression on her face as if she has stopped to think of something or has just realised something. She then proceedes to turn her back after looking behind her which would display her has vulnerable.

This follows the rule of thirds because she is placed within the frame to the left hand side with her shadow in the middle. She gives the impression she is scared by the way she is holding the bottle close to her chest and her body language gets smaller and looks like she is intimidated and frightened. She may be reasuring herself the way she is almost hugging herself. She does not look like she belongs where is is because her costume looks like she should be in a fancy, dressed up, warm enviroment and she looks inferior comapred to the room.

Memento

Straight away we see an image that is quite grim and unpleasant. A close up of the photograph shows us the importance it has to the storyline and how detailed the photograph is. There is only focus on the hand and the photograph however the floor benieth him is blured out. This may symbolise that the photo is all thats left of that dead man and he no longer has purpose because the director hides the floor which he is laying on. Also the text 'Memento' is in bright blue, all in capitals and has a slight glow to each letter which relates to the bright colour in the photograph which could tell the audience it is day time. the man holding the photo has old looking hands and shows he is mature enough to cope with a death and is what we would expect. The director has choosen not to show us the tottoo on his hand as this would leave the viewer questioning.

Here we can see the detail in the man's face, he looks like he is sweaty and has blood on his face. The blood doesnt look like it is his because how it is positioned on his face like it has been sprayed of splattered in a result of conflict. The man might be in dispear as he is looking down and his eyes look tired and half shut, this could show how his mind is trying to reject what he is looking at. The location is low key lighting however the little bit of light shining through is highlighting his scratch on his face which could tell the audience that he does this sort of thing a lot. scince he doesnt looked shocked or upset we can tell he is usto bad situations and may do this as an occupaton because he is dressed up smartly and has the stereotype of being a strong educated man who has power.

This character clearly has the higher stautus because he is presented from a low angle shot showing he has all the power, especially since he has a gun in his hand and his serious facial expression gives the viewer the impression that he knows how to use a gun well.

10 shot story

Still Images

Jobsite

Push A Little Button

We included an eyeline match when Hannah looked at the door, shot reverse shot when Hannah and Shaun were talking, a master shot before Shaun sat down so the viewers could get an idea of the space they were in, match on action when Hannah passed the file over and the shot type changed angle and we also followed the 180 degree rule and only filmed one side of the conversation when Shaun was on the right and Hannah on the left. What could of been better about the filming would be how there was very little dialogue and there was not much of the story being presented. Also how some shot were not as steady as they could of been.

Here is my annotated class video of Donnie Darko. i added speech bubbles to give some information about what types of camera movements were added and why. To do this i had to click on 'Annotations'.

uploading a word doc using scribd

A screen grab of the desktop.

Hello, I'm starting my blog in media class.