For our research we looked at films with a similar genre, it is important to do this as they will have the same conventions in them. The films we looked at are, "I still know what you did last summer" and "Halloween". Both of these films have chases in them and this is the main part of our opening sequence. Also for our research we looked back at work that we had done earlier in the year in class, this work included generic conventions of our genre (horror/thriller) and how you achieve certain shots and hint at things that may happen. A key convention of an opening sequence is that the names of the actors and titles appear on the screen as the scene goes on, it is crucial to keep this in mind when creating our opening sequence, the writing for these names never appear too big as it would swamp the screen, other than the occasional exception of top Hollywood actors. An example of this would be Arnold Schwarzenegger's name in the film "Terminator 2"
Below is the link to the opening sequence for Terminator 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIwWPO7f8ys
In our selected genre there are normally mysterious enigmas created, therefore we did not want to give too much away about our main antagonist either, in keeping with this convention.
Below is the link to the opening sequence of A Nightmare On Elm Street, this demonstates the mysterious enigma that we aim to portray in our main task
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEoq4OuT3lo
Monday, 30 March 2009
The brief
As we both enjoy and have a good understanding of the horror genre, we chose to make the opening sequence of a horror/thriller film. Generic conventions of this genre often include a single/group of antagonist(s) who cause disruption to the protagonists, often through violence or intimidation. The antagonist(s) normally have the trademark weapon or feature, for example in the "Scream" trilogy the killer wears a white mask and uses a knife as his feature weapon. There is sometimes a connection between the protagonist and antagonist, for example again in "Scream" the killer in the first film was the main protagonist, Sidney's, boyfriend. Other conventions of this genre are isolation, a sharp object for murder, blood, darkness and a killer that is extremely difficult to overcome - all of these are featured in "Wrong Turn"
Target audience
Our film genre would come under the horror/thriller, this genre is typically aimed at the male audience as they enjoy the thought of getting scared by a film, watching violence/gore and be sent on an emotional roller coaster, this however puts some female audiences off films such as ours. We mainly aimed our sequence at the 15 - 35 age range because this kind of film appeals to people of this age range, the age could not go lower as nearly all films in these categories have the certificate of a "15" or above. Another thing that would appeal to the audience we have aimed it at, are that the actors are of a similar age to the watchers and so they can relate to them alot more than they would for example a 60 year old man.
The pitch
Opening sequence:
Our main task was to make an opening sequence to a film of a genre of our choice, it had to be no more than 2 minutes long. Our idea was to make a chase a scene in which an unknown agent of disruption follows the main character into his house. We decided that we would not see the agent of disruption in full as it adds more enigma to the situation. The main character will then be greeted with a full sense of security upon entering his house, until hearing a noise that changes the situation. Following this he is grabbed and murdered.
Technical task:
For this task we had to demonstrate the 180 degree rule using a dialogue sequence, which also had to include a character entering through a door, and sitting down opposite a companion. For our dialogue sequence the two characters were discussing acts of hooliganism and violence.
Our main task was to make an opening sequence to a film of a genre of our choice, it had to be no more than 2 minutes long. Our idea was to make a chase a scene in which an unknown agent of disruption follows the main character into his house. We decided that we would not see the agent of disruption in full as it adds more enigma to the situation. The main character will then be greeted with a full sense of security upon entering his house, until hearing a noise that changes the situation. Following this he is grabbed and murdered.
Technical task:
For this task we had to demonstrate the 180 degree rule using a dialogue sequence, which also had to include a character entering through a door, and sitting down opposite a companion. For our dialogue sequence the two characters were discussing acts of hooliganism and violence.
Planning
Opening sequence:
The photo animatic below shows the plan of our opening sequence, which shows the chase scene in a slightly more detailed plan than the drawn storyboard that came before it.
Below is our photo animatic for the opening sequence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytCPes9g9CM&feature=channel_page
Technical task:
The photo animatic below shows the plan of our technical task, it is a very simple version. As its a conversation, we chose to use the same shots of the two main characters a couple of times because of not being sure what shots would fit best with the dialogue we had.
Below is our photo animatic for our techinical task:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcvE1_cMdCI&feature=channel_page
The photo animatic below shows the plan of our opening sequence, which shows the chase scene in a slightly more detailed plan than the drawn storyboard that came before it.
Below is our photo animatic for the opening sequence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytCPes9g9CM&feature=channel_page
Technical task:
The photo animatic below shows the plan of our technical task, it is a very simple version. As its a conversation, we chose to use the same shots of the two main characters a couple of times because of not being sure what shots would fit best with the dialogue we had.
Below is our photo animatic for our techinical task:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcvE1_cMdCI&feature=channel_page
Construction
Initial Photography:
We began to construct our sequence around the photo animatic that we did previously. After looking at the finished photo animatic, we decided we needed a wider variety of shots as there was only a small amount included at first. Along with changing the sequence from the initial photography, we stuck to the story it told, still including some of the same shots.
Initial editing:
Most of the initial editing we had to do was cutting shots down to the appropriate length's. We connected the camera to the Mac's and uploaded all the footage we had recorded. We first ordered the scenes and watched it through to see how long it was and to see where shots should change. The first draft of our main task was 2 minutes and 50 seconds long, with the maximum time limit of 2 minutes we knew it had to be cut quite alot and so we cut needless scenes and shortened uneventful shots from some of the scenes.
Re-shoots:
After looking at our first draft of our opening sequence we noticed that some shots needed to be re-taken, and also it may help the atmosphere if we put in some extreme close ups. We decided to use these in scenes where the main protagonist and antagonist would run past the camera, but not seeing the whole profile of the characters, just the middle half of them. We also added a point of view shot of Gareth as he is running in the first few scenes of the sequence. Also we re-shot the whole of the last few scenes in which the protagonist is intimidated in his house and ultimately killed, we did this because of the first takes of the scenes in our first day of filming did not look professional enough.
Re-edit:
After re-shooting the scenes we needed it was time to re-edit our sequence. Most of the scenes we had recently filmed were for the start of the sequence, so it was very easy to just slot them before the rest of the sequence. After deliberating with each other we decided to cut the sequence at the point where Gareth enters the room and quotes "is anybody in here?" rather than the sequence going all the way through until he is eventually killed. We decided on this because it only has to be an opening sequence, and with the way were originally going to structure it, it seemed like we were trying to fit a whole storyline into the 2 minutes we had been allocated for the task.
Rough cut:
After re-shooting and re-editing, the rough cut was complete, although there was no digetic sound in it. We were pleased with what we did because there we believed there were good shots, for example the extreme close ups of parts of the body of the characters running past the camera were good as they created a good enigma as to who are these characters and why are they running?
Sound construction:
The sound for our piece is a mixture of digetic and non-digetic. The non-digetic was originally going to be fast but the samples on the programme we used (Garage band) did not suit our sequence. We instead opted to use slower music to set the scene for the atmosphere of the piece. The digetic sound we used was all captured from the camera during filming, such as footsteps and breathing.
Final cut:
The final cut is the stage where we pieced together everything we had done in past weeks and put it together for the final time for the finished article. We had already cut our sequence alot, then added more scenes, then cut some more out, this meant that we had not kept to our original plan that we had drawn up on our storyboard, but we felt this was the best we could make our task. After viewing our opening sequence as a class, the feedback we got was very positive, although we got the opinion that it would be better to cut the film when the main protagonist enters the house, as this set's the scene up nicely as an opening sequence. Another reason for this is that when viewing it again and again we found a few faults with the camera work for inside the house and with no time to film again we decided it best to just cut them. After the door shuts we see 2 seconds of Gareth standing by the door and then cuts to the title " Desperation" comes up at the centre of the screen
Below is the link to the final cut of "Desperation" our opening sequence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUX6yRe9Xsg&feature=channel_page
We began to construct our sequence around the photo animatic that we did previously. After looking at the finished photo animatic, we decided we needed a wider variety of shots as there was only a small amount included at first. Along with changing the sequence from the initial photography, we stuck to the story it told, still including some of the same shots.
Initial editing:
Most of the initial editing we had to do was cutting shots down to the appropriate length's. We connected the camera to the Mac's and uploaded all the footage we had recorded. We first ordered the scenes and watched it through to see how long it was and to see where shots should change. The first draft of our main task was 2 minutes and 50 seconds long, with the maximum time limit of 2 minutes we knew it had to be cut quite alot and so we cut needless scenes and shortened uneventful shots from some of the scenes.
Re-shoots:
After looking at our first draft of our opening sequence we noticed that some shots needed to be re-taken, and also it may help the atmosphere if we put in some extreme close ups. We decided to use these in scenes where the main protagonist and antagonist would run past the camera, but not seeing the whole profile of the characters, just the middle half of them. We also added a point of view shot of Gareth as he is running in the first few scenes of the sequence. Also we re-shot the whole of the last few scenes in which the protagonist is intimidated in his house and ultimately killed, we did this because of the first takes of the scenes in our first day of filming did not look professional enough.
Re-edit:
After re-shooting the scenes we needed it was time to re-edit our sequence. Most of the scenes we had recently filmed were for the start of the sequence, so it was very easy to just slot them before the rest of the sequence. After deliberating with each other we decided to cut the sequence at the point where Gareth enters the room and quotes "is anybody in here?" rather than the sequence going all the way through until he is eventually killed. We decided on this because it only has to be an opening sequence, and with the way were originally going to structure it, it seemed like we were trying to fit a whole storyline into the 2 minutes we had been allocated for the task.
Rough cut:
After re-shooting and re-editing, the rough cut was complete, although there was no digetic sound in it. We were pleased with what we did because there we believed there were good shots, for example the extreme close ups of parts of the body of the characters running past the camera were good as they created a good enigma as to who are these characters and why are they running?
Sound construction:
The sound for our piece is a mixture of digetic and non-digetic. The non-digetic was originally going to be fast but the samples on the programme we used (Garage band) did not suit our sequence. We instead opted to use slower music to set the scene for the atmosphere of the piece. The digetic sound we used was all captured from the camera during filming, such as footsteps and breathing.
Final cut:
The final cut is the stage where we pieced together everything we had done in past weeks and put it together for the final time for the finished article. We had already cut our sequence alot, then added more scenes, then cut some more out, this meant that we had not kept to our original plan that we had drawn up on our storyboard, but we felt this was the best we could make our task. After viewing our opening sequence as a class, the feedback we got was very positive, although we got the opinion that it would be better to cut the film when the main protagonist enters the house, as this set's the scene up nicely as an opening sequence. Another reason for this is that when viewing it again and again we found a few faults with the camera work for inside the house and with no time to film again we decided it best to just cut them. After the door shuts we see 2 seconds of Gareth standing by the door and then cuts to the title " Desperation" comes up at the centre of the screen
Below is the link to the final cut of "Desperation" our opening sequence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUX6yRe9Xsg&feature=channel_page
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