After filming the sequence - Reviewing my work

After we finished filming and editing our clips I looked back on our work and I wasn't as pleased as I could've been with it. We encountered several problems while filming our piece, people who featured in the film were ill which made it difficult to film, we didn't take enough shots and when it came down to editing this was evident as we were limited on which clips we could choose and some of them weren't to the best quality.
If I could do the project again I would take more time on filming and filming extra shots, rather than spending too much time on planning as I think my group did really well on the planning but spent more time on it than we needed to. I think that as a group we worked well together and the ideas were from all of us, the suggestions for filming and mainly the work on the blog was equally spread between the three of us. I would work in this group again as although we didn't acheieve what we wanted in the filming we came up with some great ideas and managed to work well together.

This is the animated version of our thriller sequence, we used post-it notes to get across our initial ideas for the video. We then used film sense to put our post-it notes together and this made the animation of our ideas.

From this animation you can see the progression of our ideas and how we wanted the film to be shot, ie close ups, long shots and many more. You can also see that we took some of our initial ideas from the animation and kept them in the real film sequence, but we also tweaked ideas and put a few extra scenes and shots in.

We also made a soundtrack to go with our animation, on the application GarageBand. The music is there to create suspence and we think by adding the sound effect of a thunder clap also added to the tension in the piece of music and in the animation.

Film Opening Sequence Analysis

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYBEquZ_j0

The opening sequence I will be analysing is from the film 'The Dark Knight'

The first few shots are not typical to a thriller opening scene, they are long shots and birdseye looking down at New York city.
Straight away some common features of thriller openings are introduced to the viewer, a man in a mask starts the scene by shooting through a skyscraper window, when the viewer see's there are weapons and possible violence involved it starts to become apparent this is a thriller film.

 In the next couple of frames we see the main colours used in this scene are black and white, and with the clown masks so bright and outrageous, this contrasts and the viewer can see there is something sinister behind the masks. A black car is also introduced to the frame, showing another typical element of thriller's.

When the masked men run into the building the music is built up to cause tension and give the scene more suspence. Without the music and sound effects this scene wouldn't be as striking and the viewer wouldn't typically hear the gunshots and footsteps so profoundly.

In the next frame we see one of the masked men using a complicated device to unlock the safe, this is common in some thriller films as you often see gadgets being used to complete missons for example, James Bond.

Thriller opening scene analysis (Pans labyrinth)

I  will be doing a frame by frame analysis on the start of this sequence.
The first part introduces the character as the camera moves closer to the girls face. This shot straight away shows you that the film is either Thiller or horror because the music, lighting and the young female character all suggest that the film is going to be thriller, although in the first scene is actually the end of the film so the story works backwords, the fact that you see the female character in pain makes you wonder what happend to her in the first place, so it engages the viewer. The music in the background sets the thriller theme to it, and over it you can hear the girl breathing very heavily, this score carries on through the next shot, where you see the young female character running. The next scene where the cars come in sets what time the film was set in. When you see the mother and daughter in the car, the director here uses a 2 shot and shot reverse shot from the mother and daughter to contrast and make it much more interesting, so you see what the mother is seeing and what the daughter is seeing, instead of just showing them both in the shots throughout.

Treatment for film opening!

The sequence begins with an establishing shot of the female character walking out of the college, we chose to use an establishing shot because it sets the scene, place and introduces the characters.

As she is walking past college and walking home, she doesn't realise she is being followed, so she can't see the male character but the viewer sees this by using a 2 shot of both the characters in the same frame. The male character is only a silhouette so the viewer doesn't see who he actually is, which builds up the tension.

Whilst she carries on her journey home, she crosses a path past the train tracks, and while she is walking away she hears the gates she closed, close again behind her, this builds up tension as neither the viewer or the female character can see who it is,  but the sound effects suggest somebody else behind her shuts the gate.

As she gets suspicious she decides to hide behind a tree to see who is following her.
As the male character walks towards her, we use a low angle shot from her to make her look more vulnerable and to make the male figure look more powerful and scary, We also put a point of view shot from the female character so the viewer sees what she is seeing. The female character thinks he is walking towards her he turns around and carries on walking past the girl not seeming to know she is there, Once she can no longer see him she carries on walking home.

As she is near her house, her phone rings at this moment we have a close up on the mobile from her point of view which shows that the number ringing is unknown and she picks up to find out its a male voice saying "you cant hide from me".

MBR HORROR/THRILLER initial ideas!

Our initial ideas were to do a Thriller/Horror combined. We then decided to not incorporate horror into our opening sequence as we wanted to leave suspence and make the scene mysterious.We want to aim at 16-20 year olds as the people acting in our opening sequence are this age and therefore it will appeal to teenagers and people of similar ages.

Sixth Sense opening scene!

At the start of the clip the couple are happy and it could seem like a film from the romance genre. But on the other hand the music contrasts as it is more sinister, so this leaves the viewer thinking this could be a hybrid genre film.
In this clip, the owner of the house finds an intruder and a confrontation is then caused between the two of them. As well as this the broken window causes the viewer to wonder whats going to happen next and who caused the breaking of the window, leaving suspence. This scene is all based around suspence as everything is prolonged, when the man shoots the owner of the house and then himself this is predictable ending to the scene because of props and use of language.

http://youtu.be/YkBIRleRIU8