Evaluation

Thriller Opening Sequence: Self Evaluation

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

As a group, we decided to produce an opening sequence for a mystery Thriller. We searched in to what a mystery thriller involves and thought about how we could adapt our own ideas to create  an opening sequence that matched the criteria. For example, we produced a soundtrack that was made on GarageBand made up of creepy music and eerie noises to help bring more of an intense atmosphere. This was played through half the sequence and then stopped as soon as the mystery man woke up with a huge gasp. We then had a “boom” noise at the end when the title of our sequence came up to help bring the audience’s attention back to what the film would be called. Another characteristic involved within a mystery thriller is not knowing who the killer is. We were able to make sure that at no point could you see who the killer was, which helped bring suspense as to whether or not you will see him before the movie has finished. The only part of the man you do see is his arm when opening the door, which can also help the audience’s memory keep that minor detail in mind throughout the film. This was a positive on our part because it means that the audience will have a higher chance on remembering our film.

When it came to the timing of the production, we thought that the effects of the clips would have a good impact of putting suspense and tension on the audience as most of the scenes were blurry. From this is could sometimes make the audience feel confused as to what is going on, but we thought that if we had a continuous walking scene and a part where he wakes up the audience would understand that he may have thought it was a dream when actually it wasn’t.

We had a look in to different films that support our sub genre, such as Ghost ship, Momento and Abduction. These are horror/mystery and phsychologoical thrillers which helped us develop the sort of atmosphere we needed to create in our opening sequence.

2.    How does your product represent particular social groups?

I think our particular piece represents social groups, because when thinking stereotypically, when a group of girls are getting ready to go out, they normally wear more or less the same. For example, they may normal wear really short dresses and heels with straight hair and a lot of make-up, when in this piece we went for a more subtle look so that we didn’t take the attention away from what the scene was intending to show. Therefore our characters challenge the gerneral steriotype of young girls.

3.     What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Personally I don’t think that any major distribution company, e.g. Paramount Studios, would produce our idea in to an actual film as this is a very basic and simple idea. For example, they produced a film called Paranormal Activity 3 which is a psyhological thriller. They make the film so intense that it would be tricky for us to follow in their footsteps. Also, they would be able to produce a more in depth and intense film. If they had the chance to create a film continuance from our opening sequence, I’m sure that they would produce and idea that has got all the criteria needed to make the audience feel satisfied. However, The Village which was written, produced, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, may take an interest in to our idea because even though they’re ideas are so originial, our opening sequence will be able to fit all the catogories that are listed within this film, for example, the mystery of who is going round on a murderous hunt.

4.    Who would be the audience for your media product?

In my personal opinion, I thought that our media project would be suitable for 13+ as you couldn’t see any violence or gory parts to the scene, and you couldn’t hear any rude language. When producing the research to look at more of a back ground to our specific genre, we see that the main effects in a 15+ or 18 normally contain a lot of horror and gore, a bigger fear factor and discourteous language. Our opening sequence had minimal gore, no unpleasant language and we had more of a jumpy effect than a horror effect. Our original target audience was aimed at 16-18 year old girls, however in my personal opinion; I feel that it would probably still be suitable for a younger age. Also due to the cast change now involving a guy instead of a 5 girls, I think that it could benefit girls and boys rather than just girls. We then asked our friends of a similar age, whether they would take an interest in to watching a film like this. The answers they gaave were very useful and it helped us develop more of an idea. We looked on the internet at past media productions from other schools that were doing the same thing, which helped us gain an understand ing of the types of things we needed to add in in order for the audience to be interested.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We did this mainly through our mise-en-scene and our characters. We made sure that the actresses involved were based around the same age as our target audience, 16-21 and that they were all girls in order for the audience to relate to the film. We wanted the audience to feel as though they could ask themselves “what would I do in that situation”. When creating and editing our sequence, we thought the best place to bring fear to our target audience was when Pip got stabbed and was lying on the floor with blood coming out of her hip. We were able to achieve this by making the blood seem more realistic by creating it ourselves and the way we had filmed it made it look like the murderer was looking over her. Another part that worked well was when the murderer woke up thinking it was all a dream. This scene was particularly jumpy which helped bring the fear factor higher because the gasp of air was so loud. When thinking of the mise-en-scene, we thought that it would be a good idea to use a knife in order for Pip to get stabbed as it would be interesting for the boys to watch. Steriotypically mos boys are interested in the violent sort of films. We also thought that we could build up the suspense with music. We created our piece of music on GarageBand which was helpful because we had loads of different sounds to work with. When looking at camera techniques, we had to be careful so that the audience couldn’t see who the murdedrer was. We did this by obeying the 180’ rule and by using the camera handheld at parts so it was as though you were looking through the murderers eyes.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

There were some strengths and weaknesses when using the camera, I think that one main positive was that I knew how to work the camera as I had used it before starting this project, one negative however is that after a large amount of time, the camera can become relatively heavy and then you lose focus of what you are filming because your concentrating on not dropping the camera. When using Final Cut software, I thought this was fairly difficult as it was on an Apple Mac computer and I have never used one of those before. As I have hadn’t used either an Apple Mac or Final Cut, when it came to my turn to edit, a few problems were raised. For example, as there were people in our group who had had experience in these things before, they were able to use it quickly, however it took me a whole lesson to edit 3 scenes. Duriong the filming process, more and more problems started to rise. Foe example, when we were filming in Southampton, it began to snow. So we had to wait for the snow to stop first before we could do anything. We also had to wait for all the other actresses to arrive. After we had finished this part of the filming and we started editing this, we realised that we hadnt filmed for long enough in most of the scenes, so we had to take more shots in order for them to flow. This became a problem because we were  using up a lot of the time we had before the deadline. I learnt that from these, we need to plan ahead incase these problem,s happen again. W had to put all of our blogs that we had created of the filming process on to a software called Blogger. This was once again an easy process as I have used it before and use it quite regularly, however, I didn’t know that you could have more than one person put blogs on the same page that you could. This was a good experience because it was able to help me catch up with what I had missed from previous lessons. Also it helped me develop the blogs further. For example, a post of the main characters was put up which helped me develop the blog of Final Costume.

We also used a software called Garageband. This was a simple process as I had used it before. However, I learnt how to turn the actual music that we had created in to an MP3 file and put it on itunes, which will come in handy when doing the upcoming creations. 

7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full production?

I think overall, that for a start, the planning for the preliminary task went relativly well as we were all able to put some form of idea in and manage to come up with a sequence that had a comedic side to it. We were able to make fast decisions on what we were going to produce and what we wanted the audience to feel. On the other hand, when trying to create and opening sequence, instead of creating an idea straight away, it took us a number of weeks to produce an idea that we were all happy with. I have learnt from this that teamwork is a major skill to learn, along with tolerance and patience. When filming, I was able to improve more on my knowledge of how to use the camera and the FinalCut software. I was also able to learn more about what shot angles can be used and what effect they had because we were doing it ourselves rather than watching someone else. With the editing, it became easier the more I used it. There are still a few pieces that I don’t know about, such as fading out music and scenes and adding the music to the sequence, however, I’m sure that these skills will improve over time as we continue through the course

Lauren Stokes, Individual Evaluation.

Question one

 

Our media product was to create a opening sequence to a thriller film, our sub genre was a mystery thriller. When researching into the Thriller generic conventions it is recognised that in our film we have conformed to a lot of them and haven't really challenged the conventions. For example the generic convention of a Thriller narrative normally revolves around a crime, you can see this in our opening sequence through the murder scene. You see a person having flash backs to someone murdering a girl this is showen in the first two minutes of the film which conforms to the general conventions of narrative.

Another generic convention in a thriller is the existance of a protagonist which is exploited by the antagonist. Our film contains A few different Protagonists who are different girls and they are exploited by the Antagonist who is the murderer. Throughout the film you have the question who is the antagonist but it is found out in the end. It is also is said in a thriller you see a protagonist in danger but is resolved in the end, which is the same as our film because you see the main character matt having flash backs of different girls being put in danger and being killed but you never know if it is going to get resolved in the end because your made to think it is not the main character but in the end it is resolved to who the antagonist is.
Furthermore, another example to show generic conventions we conform to would be in a thriller it has a series of or one important enigmas and is set up in the opening sequence of the film and carries on throughout the first half of the film and only resolved at the very end, the film abduction using the same convention. our film conforms this because in the first opening scenes you see a character having flashbacks and dreams of a girl being murdered and this character walking away from the crime scene this leaves confusion with the audience but by the end of the film it is all resolved and explained. One of the generic conventions in which our film challenges is the title of the film because it is normally shown to relate to one of the characters weaknesses such as vertigo or insomnia but as our title is called playback which doesn't give away any thing to the audience what is actually wrong with the character it makes the audience. For our thriller we choose mystery, looking at sub genre conventions for mystery we found it quite hard to find conventions in that genre, but it shows many mysteries have a main investigator who tries to solve the mystery, our thriller conforms and challenges other mystery thrillers, because you see the main character facing these flashbacks/dreams but trying to solve who they are and why he keeps seeing them because he thinks its not him as he cant remember doing any of it.~

Question Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?~

In our thriller we have different characters, who are from different age groups.However, our opening sequence represents the social group of young people in general. First of all you have the main character Matt who is in his thirties. Who is facing the flashbacks/dreams and doesn't have anyone to turn to for help and tries solving these mystery killings he is seeing, he doesn't know if they are all dreams or real until one day he sees missing posters of some of the girls. There are about five girls from a university living all together in a flat who the people he sees in his flashbacks/dreams and on the wanted posters, when he figures out they are the same people he realises it is real and he starts to try and find them because he thinks they could be still alive and what he sees in his flashbacks may not be true. When he finds the bodies in a old apartment he owns he think someone is trying to frame him, he is more determined to find out who it is. After a lot of discovering and it turns out to be him behind the killers because he has a split identity and doesn't know what he is doing when he is someone else. This is figured out when he is not himself and about to kill someone else and he snaps out of his split personality to himself, he realises its actually him. Matt is in his thirties, he is british and is middle class, he has been working for the police and is training to be a detective. The five girls are from the ages 18-20, living in a house in there second year of university. We have represented the main character Matt to conform the stereotype of being dominant to women because they are his victims but also we have also made him a vulnerable character because he hasn't got anyone to talk to about these flashbacks/dreams as he doesn't want anyone thinking he is different and to ruin his chances of being a detective. The girls who are shown in the film that are being killed have been shown as typical university students, partying and socialising until they get taken by the killer and get killed, and then are shown as vulnerable too because they don't want to die. Our film was said to be targeted to mostly girls/women on the age 17 and above, this links to our film because the film is made up of characters in the same age group. We did this because we could make the audience relate to the characters because of there age and then people who are in university would know it is realistic

What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product? why?~

Due to our original idea not succeeding and changing half way through, we came up with a good idea that went well with the filming we ended up with. I think the movie wouldn't become a major hollywood studio film because our idea was very simply and minimised it is totally opposite to what normal hollywood films are like. I think our film will be a independent movie which would reflect in our mise-en-scene because it is very simply compared to hollywood, if it was a major hollywood film the location would be set in a very big place which would cost a lot of money but ours is set in a university, in houses and in streets, in our opening sequence we haven't used any props, but throughout the film there could be more different used but not loads. The costumes are very opposite to what you see in hollywood films, which is very extravagant and big but for our film we use very little costumes, it is set in everyday life so all the clothes are very casual. The lighting in our film is very ambient to show everyday life and if it was a hollywood film they would have big lights to emphasise scenes in the film. Our film being an independent film Would not normally be shown in major cinemas but maybe be shown in art centres and in local film houses, also it will probably go straight to dvd and online for people to buy and watch. Our film is quite original and there is not many films with the story line and settings as we had chosen, even though there is some films which have chosen to do films with the character having a split personality but I don't think there are many with the same story line and characters. The film would be released to fill a niche market in the movie world because as I said there are not many films with the same ideas as this one. I do not think this film would offer any opportunities for a franchise because you find out in the end who the killer is and why he was doing it. It think if it was made into a franchise it would not be appreciated by the audiences and wouldn't receive much interest because every thing has been done in the first film. Some films have merchandise made for there films but seeing as our film is not a major film and be hugely popular I think basic merchandise would be made like film posters but nothing else.~

4.What would be in your target audience for your media product?~

Our film was created and targeted for girls/women from the age of 16-20, we thought girls of this age would enjoy our film because they could relate to the girls in the films because they are the same age. The narrative is quite gory and could involve a lot of blood, this is why we put the rating of a 15 to the film. Even though we said we targeted it to women/girls I do believe men would also be interested in the film because it might frighten them as well, but we believed it would attract girls more then men. There are some films that have the similar locations and the same gore such as sorioty row which is also set in a university but theres is an american film. There is also some films that look at the same issues as we did which was split personality, for example black swan.We asked the audience by using questions, we gave out pieces of paper with questions about them, so how old? what films they enjoyed? would they enjoy a film like ours? and we got an equal amount of people to answer each and when we got them back we looked deeply into these and constructed our film around this, to help us fully relate to the audience. Simular films who have had the same target audiences have been Sorioty Row and prom night.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?~

After changing our idea throughout the course it was hard to think how to attract the audience but we decided to put characters in the film that are the same age as the people who watch it and the girls could relate to them at university but not when it turns bad. We knew that a lot of people had different fears and wasnt sure what terrifies everyone but we choose not just simply gore but throughout the film it would get scarier and could terrify them when watching the film. We had to put the age rating to a 15 so we aimed the film at 15 and above. In opening sequence we used a lot point of view shots so the audience feel like they are that person and they put them selves in that characters shoes and it makes them feel like they are witnessing the murders.

What have you learnt bout technologies from the process of constructing the product?~

In the process of making our opening sequence i have leant different things about creating a media product. I was able to use different technologies such as the camera which at first I was a little bit scared because I wasn't sure ho to use everything, but after being explained how to use it all I thought i used it very well. My weaknesses of using the camera is when i had to do hand held shot i wasn't able to keep my hand still and made it a bit shaky. My main strengths was I knew how to set the camera up and use all the buttons. Using the equipment i feel very confident to using it all. During our filming process we faced many different problems, we headed southampton and thought we could get all the shooting done in the time we got, but when we got to southampton the cast which was my sisters friends were not available till Later that day, when they arrived we started filming, during filming we faced different problems with the lighting, because in the kitchen we wanted it to be darker but the window didn't have any curtains or blinds and it was quite bright outside which made it bright it in the kitchen. Also when we arrived at southampton it was raining so we had to change the shooting schedule and not film out side because the camera would get wet and it wouldnt look good in our film. The biggest problem we faced was when we got back to school and added all our filming to final cut pro we realised we had a lot of mistakes and we could not work with much of the filming. We had t think about what we could do to improve our film. We decided in the end that I would go back to southampton and reshot some scenes, such as the stabbing scene. After i filmed this and got back to school we realised again we had faced another problem we needed a walking to the scene with the point of view shot. We sorted this out by asking a friend who lived close to the school and we filmed walking to his house. We thought this would solve all our problems but we decided when looking at it, we realised we were still missing parts, we decided to use my brother in my house waking up and realising there is bloody knife on the floor also walking away from the house again. Having these problems we faced it made us realise our first idea would have to be changed and thinking what our plot could be. After getting all the shots complete the end process of the editing became much easier. To create the soundtrack for our opening sequence We used garage band this was very useful because without the sound effects it made our thriller look very dull and it didn't look right, but once we had created it, it made it look so much better. Using garage band was very straight forward but it just was difficult to find which ones we wanted and which ones sounded the best.~

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel that you learnt In the progression from it to the full product?

When we first started using the cameras to film the preliminary, i have improved my knowledge on how to use them and looking back at what we created at the start of the year we thought it was very easy to create the short piece and edit it, but after filming in southampton and facing all the troubles we came across we realised it was much harder then what we thought. Having those problems when trying to edit made our process not as smooth as others. But using the camera a lot of times because of our problems i was able to improve my skills with creating different shots. Creating our piece had its many different weaknesses and strengths, and i do think our end product has turned out better then what i thought it would have been like during the editing stages.~

As we had to change our idea to a similar but different idea it made us realise all the planning stages didn't fit with what we have created so this meant we had to plan to different ideas, our first plan was quite straight forward and if the filming went as we planned it would have turned out better, but when we had to change our idea it made us realise we had to make our film fit with a new idea.~

Our filming and editing to make our final piece was not as successful as i thought it could have been and creating our final product faced a lot of problems which made it not as a success as i wanted it to be.

Thriller Opening sequence:personal evaluation

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

Our media product is Mystery Thriller, when I was comparing this to Memento which is also a mystery Thriller, which is a well known film, it is clear that we haven’t challenged the stereotype for this specific film. The genetic convention of the narrative is normally revolved around crime, like murder is shown in our opening sequence you see a person having flash backs to someone murdering a girl this shows the first two minutes of the film conforms the general convention of narrative.  In our opening sequence we have one antagonist but the audience doesn’t find out who it is until the end, however we have a few protagonists who are the women he is killing. Throughout the film Matt the main male character is getting these flash backs of these girls being killed, however he does not know who is doing it all he see is the flash back and then he sees the weapon that has killed these girls in him room. This also gives the mystery effect to it as our Thriller is Mystery, as we don’t find out anything till the end, and as you see the guy walking out the house in the opening sequence you get the audience confused and making them more intrigued.                                                                                                                                  

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As we have a group of teen girls at university, that will interest that particular group of people, with our original idea we were aiming it at just teens between 16-19  but as we began to change the plot and storyline of our thriller we opened it up to boys at the similar age and also a bit older, such as Matt the main character is in his thirties he is a white British male and is middle class, he has been working for the police and is training to be a detective. The five girls are aged between 18 and 20, living in a house in their second year of university. We have represented the main character Matt to conform the stereotype of being dominant to women because they are his victims but also we have also challenged the stereotype and made him vulnerable character because he hasn't got anyone to talk to about these flashbacks/dreams as he doesn't want anyone thinking he is different/insane which could then lead to him losing his opportunity of being a detective. The girls who are shown in the film that are being killed have been shown as typical university students, partying and socialising until they get taken by the killer and get killed, and then are shown as vulnerable too because they don't want to die and they are just innocent girls. Our film was said to be targeted to mostly girls/women on the age 17 and above, this links to our film because the film is made up of characters in the same age group. We did this because we could make the audience relate to the characters because of their age and then people who are in university would know it is realistic. However it also links to boys the similar age, as crime is involved which boys that age seems to be interested in.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As it is a film it would be distributed by a film company however in my opinion it would not be distributed to any big Hollywood company’s as our idea was very simply, and a very small budgeted film and most probably would not be shown in the cinema it would just come straight out on DVD. We feel that our film is very basic, and hard to come up with idea that will make it more appealing to watch and to expand it to make it better that’s why we feel that there is people out there who could come up with a similar idea with a better structure, which will then stand out more in the marketing aspect of it.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience for our Opening Thriller was teenage girls between sixteen and eighteen, when we were basing our target audience we thought of the typical stereotypical teenage girl. Who loves shopping, going to parties, drinking, going out with there friends watching movies and listening to music. We thought this would be perfect for our target audience, as it has that all in our film, as the beginning starts with a group of girls drinking getting ready for a night out. So in a way we have based it around them. We then asked our friend if they would be interested in watching something like this as they are similar age to the target audience, they all said there opinion which then helped us to change and adjust what we needed to do for our thriller. We also looked it up on the internet to see what other media students have done, which also helped us out a lot.  As it is a mystery, we also have to think will teenage girls want to watch a thriller mystery, will it appeal to them, and there friends that they will go with to watch the movie. So then we also have to make it appeal to boys as well of the similar age. This is when we add in the crime part to our thriller, so it has some violence in it. This then makes people more eager to see it as it has everything they want to see. Throughout this I have shown the genders representing each stereotypical role, where the man is the killer and the women our victims. With the man however does not want to be a killer, so our male character represents both good and bad, then the women are shown as being vulnerable and weak.

How did we attract/address your audience?

In our opening sequence we used many techniques , one thing  we did was attracted the audience though the mise-en-scene, for an example with the female characters, we have gone for teenage girls, so we got them dressed up, like as they would do on a girls night out, with there make up on, with there heels and dresses on. This then attracts the teenage female audience. Then with boys we have the props, as we are using a knife as there is stabbing involved. So the crime based parts will then attract the boys.  We have addressed it to teenagers as we think this is a suitable age, as we have rated this 15 we have targeted it for just over 16 year old. We decided to aim it for teen viewers as we have used 18 to 20 year olds in the film, so we thought it would be best to aim it at them then finally we attracted the audience with the sound and camera work, with the sound we used garageband that built up suspense so it made the audience all tense and nervous in the first 2 minutes.                                                                                                                         

What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing the product?

When we did our first bit of filming, when we did our preliminary task, we found it quite easy and straight forward.  Our storyboard went to plan and everything came together. However when it came to filming our thriller Opening, difficulties started to come about. We started with our storyboard which we then took to Southampton, to help us. But when we got there we started to have problems, for example it was snowing, so we had to wait for the snow to stop before we could film outside. We also had trouble when it came to getting the camera straight and in line properly.   So we felt that our shots were on an angle, which wasted a lot of our time when we could have been filming to sort it out.  Another thing was when we were filming; we didn’t film enough scenes for it to go together, so we then had to do more and more shots for everything to flow. Our strengths of our filming was that when we actually did get the shot right, the scene looked really good, and you could hear the people speaking without any other distraction noises going on in the background. Also in this process i learnt a lot of things such as and how to do different shots, I learnt that putting the camera on a tripod to give it a steadier view without it being shaky. I also learnt how to edit a film, and started to find different techniques we could use to edit it better.

 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full production?

The preliminary task was a lot easier that the full production, as there was so much more to do and we didn’t realise this.  With the preliminary task we didn’t add in music, which was very hard when it came to our actually production as we had to time everything for it to fit in with what was happening on screen.  Also with the editing we didn’t add much editing in to it and if we didn’t add any in the full production it wouldn’t look as right. This was down to we were unable to make any fast decisions on what we were going to produce and we didn’t feel that it would look right or how the audience would respond to that. When we filmed the preliminary task, we then thought our full production would be easy, but we were mistaken and came across a lot of difficulties and challenges. Now we have finished our Full production, I feel that we will never think filming is easy.

Opening Sequence Final

This is the our finished opening sequence

Final Characters

As we had some problems with the original cast list, here is the list of the people involved in the final piece:

Jess

                 Pip               Lauren               Ellen             Katie

We also involved Laurens Brother Greg in it, for the murderer, we started of with max but after to editing process and re shooting we changed it to Greg.
Even though it wasn't as many people as we had originally, and the story line had to be changed, as an overview we managed to devise an opening sequence that worked with the amount of people we had to help us.

Final Make-up

Over the Top

When it came to choosing makeup, we thought it would be a wise idea to use basic makeup instead of over the top makeup as we didnt want to distract the audience from the actual scene, also it could help make the scene seem more natural rather than it looking more 'put on'

Natural

Starting Our Editing Process

Today is our first opportunity to start editing as a group as we have finally finished all of our filming and can finally get it all together. We have spent a lot of time watching the footage and deciding which take we should use and why that shot is better than another shot, to ensure that the continuity was perfect.

We then had to watch the beginning of our footage, and using our storyboard for reference to make sure everything was right. As we changed our idea we had to make another storyboard to show what changes we had made and how this was going to effect the filming.

We then started to cut pieces of the footage and place them down so they would be in our actual opening sequence; we laid down the first 30 seconds of footage for our Rough Cut, by then putting this on Youtube, this will then allow other people to comment on it and how to improve our Thriller. As we have now changed our Opening Sequence to allow extra scene in it our rough cut is a lot different to actual thriller Opening.

After editing this small amount of footage we have got taster of what it is like to edit an opening sequence. We are finding it very hard but enjoyable at the same time enjoyable and looking forward to seeing the final outcome.

Possible Titles for our Opening Sequence

 Below are a list of names that we think would fit our storyline:
- Flat G
- Playback
- Nightmare
- delusion
- reality


We found it hard to come up with the final name, as we faced a lot of difficultys and our plot chnaged half way through due to what we filmed and how we filmed it. We started of with the name Flat G due to the fact as the girls were living at university in a flat called G, but through out the editing it came clear to us this didnt make sense anymore with the plot but overall looking at the options we had before and at our piece of editing we came to the conclusion of having our film called 'PLAYBACK' because in our film you see the main character matt having many flashbacks and dreams of diferent murders that he has committed but he doesnt know he has actually comitted due to him having a split personality. So playback made sense because he was always playing back his memories and what he has done

Strengths and Weaknesses

Overall, As a group we feel that the filming for the opening sequence was the hardest part as we kept on having to go back and film something else as we needed an extra shot, or it didn’t look as good as we hoped. This was a major downfall as we then had to keep on going back on the editing and as it coming to the end of the deadline we have to try and finish it a lot quicker which could then lead to our Opening Thriller looking rushed.

Another thing we had trouble with is when we first planned to film we had difficulty because the person that we original asked to be the main character couldn't do the times that we wanted to film, so we had to find someone else to be in the film. So because we were already behind schedule for filming, Lauren, a member of the group, had to go back up to Southampton to film more of our Opening Sequence

The strengths of our Opening Sequence is that we all have great ideas, so our opening sequence was full of different ideas that we could use, and we were open to listen to everything that everyone in the group had to say.

On the other hand we did have weaknesses which were when we went to film the shot unfortunately didn’t look right so we then had to go back to different places and film again.

Lauren had to go back to Southampton and Lauren and jess then went back to film another shot with Max who is one of the actors in our Opening sequence.

Although our weaknesses have affected us to a great deal, we have then been able to change everything for our Opening sequence then to look right and to then hopefully produce a great quality Opening Sequence.

Final Shooting Schedule

Due to changes and improvements we made we had to add shooting sessions to our filming Schedule 

Sunday 3rd March: First trip to Southampton- Filmed partying scene, stabbing and fighting scene and walking to the uni scene

Saturday 17th March: As we needed more shots we went back to southampton to film the stabbing scene.

Tuesday 20th March: Using Max's house in windsor, Filmed point of view shots walking to and from His house 

Sunday 26th March: Using Laurens House, to film walking to and from house (point of view shots) and waking up in bedroom scene. 

Photos from shooting take 2, Southampton Saturday 17th March 2012

Photo 1: This photo is the making of the blood, made from food colouring and golden syrup, we put this is in a plastic sandwich bag and placed it up Pips top so when we stabbed her it would leak out.

Photo 2: Getting ready to film 

Photo 3 & 4: Shooting with tripod

Photo 5: Hand held shot, filming close ups of Pip 

Photo 6: Close up photo of stabbed wound 

Photo 7: Whole picture of Stabbed Pip on Floor

Photo 8 & 9: Lauren Shooting close up of pips reaction from being stabbed.

Further Ideas to Editing and Changes

To start with we thought editing our film would be quite easy, but as we have gone through a lot of ours shots we have had to change many things and film extra scene (read further blogs) but we think we have come to a final idea for editing with the footage that we have got.
We have decided we will start the film of with our official production company logo, it will then proceed in with someone walking (this will be a point of view shot) it will then cut away to a group of friends having a party/getting ready for a party in a house. This goes well with our mystery Genre because it makes the audience ask different questions like:
Who is this person walking?
Are these flashbacks the shots we are seeing?
who are the girls?
It well then cut back and forth from the walking and the parting. Until this person wakes up from a sleep, you don't see who this person is waking up because it is still in point of view shots, this shot will then show the person looking around his room, and then looking down to find a knife wrapped round a shirt which is covered in blood, it then goes into flash backs to show where the knife had came from and what had happened. The flash back shows This person walking out of the house you see before in his dream and then cut aways to a girl being stabbed and falling against a fridge and then being left.
This all helps the genre of 'Mystery' because you do not find out who the Person you see the point of view is and you dont know who the girls are. It also makes the audience want to keep watching because they will want to know who they are and why the girl got stabbed.

We will add in effects such as, slow and fast motions in, we will distort clips to show they are memories so the audience dont get to confused and also maybe change the colours of some scenes to make them darker and lighter.

There is no speech in these scenes because we want to keep the urgency and tension with the music we have made on Garage Band. So the opening sequence will be made up off music and sounds. Some of the sounds used will be a long piece of music which flows well with the scenes and also some heavy breathing from the person behind the stabbing when he is recapping on what has happened.

In between some clips there will be the opening credits, the credits added are on blogs below.

Problems we came across when filming

Filming the stabbing scene was incredibly hard as we didnt want to use force to stabbing just incase if anything went wrong. So when we came to filming the stabbing scene we had to try and put our bodies infront of the camera so you couldnt actually see the knife going in, but when we came back to windsor and uploaded it onto the computer we noticed that you could see the knife going past Pips body. This led us to go back to southampton and reshot the stabbing scene, this time went better because we had it well planned and we made it so you didnt see the knife actually going into Pip but just showing it leaving her and her reaction.

Another problem we faced as a group was we didnt take in account shooting in southampton would take so long, we believed we could film it all in two days. But when we got back to school and looked through it we discovered again we didnt have enough shots for it to make sense and also we have a walking scene on the outside but in a few minutes the lighting had changed which made us realise it didnt look very good. We decided to go back to the university we filmed a new stabbing scene. We were going to film a new walking scene but due to the weather we couldn't because it would not stop raining. This led us to ask a friend Max who lives close by to use his house to be able to film walking to and from the house.

When filming the first time we had planned to film with 7 girls who were Lauren Sisters university Friends but as the day drew nearer a few of the girls had to pull out due to other important arrangements.

Reasons why we changed location

When looking back on what we had filmed from Southampton, we realised that we had a "walking to" shot and not a "walking away" shot. Our original idea was to have someone walking to the flat in which Kate was having her party, then we decided to change this idea to someone who was walking away from the place where they had stabbed Pip. The reason for changing this is because when it came to putting our sequence together, we realised that it didn't look correct.

You could see that someone was walking towards the building. It was also too far to travel back to Southamptom and film it correctly and looking at the amount of time we have left to finish our project, we would have run out of time to put everything together.

Due to this we have decided to use someone called Max as the person who stabbed Pip and have the camera angle from his point of view. Also to have the camera view coming out of his house to act as the walk away shot. Due to Max now being involved, we decided that if we did have anymore problems involved in the filming process, it would be easier as he lives a lot closer.

Idea of Opening Title Credits

In the opening scene we will have different credits put in to show the audience who is in the film, who produced and edited the film and who edited.

Here is what credits we will put in our opening:

Directors: Jevie Starling

Edited by: Stevie Jerokes

Producer: Jauren Tarvis
Executive  Producer: Lessi Starokes
Screenplay: Neruan Sekots
Casting Director: Essica Lingtar
Production Designer: Eive Sivrej  
Cast: Pip Watkins
Ellen Powell
Katie Stokes
Jessica Tarling
Lauren Stokes
Max Lovely

Droplets Productions Presents...
And then the name of the film.

What we have changed in our opening sequence.

In the course of looking over our sequence, we came to the conclusion that the shot that has the camera going up to the door didn't make a lot of sense when we put it together with the rest of the opening.
Originally we decided to have a missing girl and also a death. But as we came to editing and putting it all together it just looked to messy as there was so many different thing going on and it didn't look right. So we decided to change it to someone walking in to the house and killing someone then and then him waking and looking around in his bedroom to see a knife with blood on it. We still don’t see who the person is in till later on in the film so it goes with our theme a ‘mystery thriller’.
In the course of looking over our sequence, we came to the conclusion that the shot that has the camera going up to the door didn't make a lot of sense when we put it together with the rest of the opening. We have decided to re-film this part and have someone opening the door, and then continuing on with the party scene. After the fade in with someone looking back, we have a point of view shot of someone waking up and looking around the room to see a bloody knife .This is good as it stays as a mystery thriller which is our theme. When playing through the rest of the sequence, we thought we could use this as the time to put the flash backs in. We will have the flash backs playing with a different film colour over the top to make it look more like it is coming from his imagination.

We have cut out a lot of the walking shots and put in blackouts with heavy breathing of the character holding the camera. From this we then progress on to Pip being stabbed with a fade out at the end as she falls to the floor, leaving the opening on a cliff hanger of whether or not she has survived. Our next step is that we will add in our music pieces and our transitions from scene to scene.

We have also added and got rid of characters. We have added ‘Max’ he is the person who kills ‘Pip’ we used him as the original person who we where going to use was away and was unable to film with us on the days we wanted to film.

Rough Cut

This is our rough cut of our Mystery Thriller, We have taken out the sound to put in the soundtrack in the next step of our editing. We will also add in effects to make it darker,  make it more clear for the audience to see the person walking is actually having thoughts of what has just happened and also put in clear transitions.

What could have gone wrong when filming?

When we were filming for the first time in Southampton, we had to be aware of all the problems that we could have come across:

- For the scenes where we were filming outside, we thought of a back up plan incase it decided to rain. Of course, even though the rain could give a better effect, we didn't have a protective cover for the camera so it may have got water damaged.

- When filming inside, we realised that the door to actually get in to the building had a passcode to open it, so we had to think of a way of holding the door open but in a way so the camera couldn't it, otherwise we would have had to pause the filming instead of having one long scene.

- When moving from the main part of the building in to the flat, another door we came across was fairly heavy and could only be opened with a key, so we thought it would be a good idea to have someone sitting on the floor and open the door whilst the camera came through down the corridor, otherwise once again, we would have to stop filming

- When filming in the kitchen, we could see through the window and we began to think that we needed to hurry and get the specific parts filmed that faced that direction as it would start to get  darker outside. Through this we were able to notice that if we were filming the same scene over and over again, if at any point we had to jump back to that particular scene in the editing process, it wouldn't look natural as it would go from a scene as dusk to a scene in the day.

- When the filming process came to Pip being stabbed, with health and safety coming to mind, we were all paranoid that we would actually end up possibly hurting her. As the filming days progressed, the idea was raised about having golden syrup and red food colouring in a bag under Pips shirt to represent the blood when she was stabbed. This could also be used as a little bit of a protective barrier.

Reasons for choosing our location

When deciding the location of filming we originally thought of the Thames Valley Athletic Centre, but unfortunately we where only able to use it for two hours and we felt this was not long enough to film our two minute Opening Sequence. We then where thinking of someones house, but then we thought of a better place which was Southampton University, when we choose this location we had to consider, the size of the place, was it big enough to film? could a certain amount of people fit in, is the lighting going to be right for the certain scenes. We also had to think about will it be busy , as if it was busy we wouldn't be able to use certain shots as there would be different people in the same shot. This could then confuse the audience. We based our decision on these factors and as we could have use of a dorm we thought it was a fantastic idea.

We are also deciding to film just up the road in Windsor as we need to film someone walking away from the house and when we were in Southampton we filmed someone walking to the University and we now have changed this idea as we feel this will work out better.

The disadvantages of doing it in Southamton is that if we need to change anything we then have to go back all the way down there, this is a big disadvantage as its two hours away.

New Plot

In our opening sequence you see a man walking towards the house (Matt), who is having thoughts/memories of different girls having pre drinks for a night out. You then see him entering a house, and in to a kitchen were the girl turns round and sees him. This is when he wakes up from this dream. He starts looking round in panic with heavy breathing, to see a bloody knife on the floor, having no clue what has happeneded. He then starts to have flash backs of walking away from the house and stabbing an unknown girl. That is the end to our Opening sequence, to go on to the rest of the movie Matt finds himself repeating these situations of waking up and having little flashbacks of someone killing girls, not knwoing who these people are, or who is doing it? He starts to question whether these people are real or is it all a dream? But when he sees the posters for missing victims, he starts to realise there the people he sees in his dreams/flash backs. He starts to try and figure out who is doing this and thinking it was not him.
It ends with his realising he has a split personality because he realises this when he is about to kill another girl but he snaps out of his second personality and realises it was him all along.

Personal Editing Ideas

As we are going in to the editing process of making our Opening Sequence, we have come up with some ideas, here is a few personal ideas i have thought about:

• As we are starting with someone walking, the audience dont know who is actually walking straight away, so this builds up tension straight away. With this to build up more tension we are going to add short duration shots of 'Pip' dead, this will help us build up tension.
• With the text for titles and cast names, i feel we need to get the names to slowly fade on, as that goes with the plot of our film. You know a little about what is going on but you wont know truly what is going on till the last bit of the film.
• I also feel that we need to use more cut shots as this is getting the audience more on the edge of the seats, as they dont know  quite what will happen next.

These are just a few of my ideas, however as we are in a group we will discuss with each other in more detail, on how we feel about my ideas, and the ideas they have come up with as well, this could then lead a better success in our editing.

Opening Sequence Text Analysis (needs finishing)

Limitless

As we are soon going to be editing our final thriller piece, we will have to look at what titles we will be putting on our opening sequence. We have looked at different opening sequences in the past but I am now going to be analysing the opening sequence to the mystery thriller Limitless. Below are different print screens of the opening sequence, where I will analysis.

Limitless is one of many films which doesn’t show any of the main characters or in fact no characters in its opening sequence. The opening of this film consists of a camera zooming in though objects, such as taxis, buildings and streets of New York City.  It then zooms in to a sign which then turns into the human brain and comes back out to zooming into the top of a building which ends with a white out. 

This is the first of the titles you see, which rotates in across the screen. This is in the main title of the film cause it is telling us what the name is this stays in the middle of the screen. It then moves backwards so it looks like the camera is zooming in and this is when the titles change.

My Role improvments of filming on Day 1

Filming Day 1: Camera

During the course of Day 1 in filming, as Lauren and Jess where interested in being in the opening sequence, i didn't mind doing the filming side of it

Things that went well:
- I was able to have some form of control over the camera so that it didnt shake when being hand held
- I was able to follow instructions and follow the story board as to where i had to be, stand and when to start and sstop filming
- I was able to understand the 180' rule when it came to filming conversations
- I was able to start and stop in the same place that i had filmed the previous scene, so that it didn't look too jumpy

Things that need to be improved:
- When it came to filming the walking sceen down the corridor, it would have been easier to put the camera on something with wheels as i underestimated how heavy the camera can get when holding it for a long period of time.
- It would have been easier if the camera was on the tripod instead of it being mostly hand held as the shots could have been a little more steadier and the shots could have been taller so it was more at average height
- Where i had positioned myself in the stabbing scene, as much as I was going by the 180' rule, it was hard to accomplish this as we had to make the stab look realistic but we weren't allowed to see the knife as it obviously wasn't going in to Pip

Analysing Text in Opening Sequences

This is a text Analysis of American Psycho, in this I have look at the text used in the opening sequence, which is in the same sub-genre as ours. However this is physiological thriller, but has mystery to it.  

American Psycho

American Psycho is one of many that do not use the title in the action part of the opening sequence. The text used in this opening sequence is quite bold and plain. The text is also tall and thin. As American Psycho is about the daily life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman this could represent him and how he is wealthy and how he feels that he is better than everyone else.

The text was quite fast paced and only had a small gap between the next set of words. The opening sequence did not have the casts names however is did have the crews names and the director etc.

Shooting our Opening Sequence

We shot our Opening Sequence on 4th March 2012. This is a description of what we did on this day.

• 11.00 We arrived at Southampton, but unfortunately we where unable to start filming as not everyone had arrived yet. 
• 12.30 finally everyone had arrived and we began to get everything ready for the first shoot. This was the scene where we came down the corridor, and in to the kitchen. This was not the beginning scene but we felt like it was best to do this scene first as the corridors where empty. This scene was filmed by Evalene, we all decided to film a different part of the opening sequence so we could all say we have filmed a bit.
• 1.00 we filmed the kitchen scene where everyone is getting ready to go out. we did this scene quite a few time in different angles to make sure we could get the best shot we could. 
• 1.30 we also did this scene a lot of times as we couldn't find the best angle to do it in. This was the Hardest scene to film as it was serious, and we found it hard not to laugh. This was the scene when Katie gave other the letter to Lauren, Pip, Jess and Steph.
• 4.00 We then did the scene where Lauren kills Pip. This is going to be the scene before the partying scene. This scene was filmed by Jess. 
• 5.45 We decided to film the beginning scene last as we needed to film outside. But we felt like we needed to film in the dark to make it more effective.  Lauren filmed this scene. 
• 6.20 we had finally finished are Opening sequence are we made our way back to windsor. 

Change of Ideas

After we had created our plan for our opening sequence we had come up with a change because we thought it would be to short and wanted it to be different. 

The changes we have made on our opening sequence are we starting of with a flash forward of Lauren and Pip having a argument in the kitchen which proceeds in Lauren actually stabbing Pip and Katie entering from hearing everything from standing outside the door. It will then proceed into a fast shot of the camera floating around the outside of the university which then will enter the flat and float into the kitchen but you Katie walking in to the kitchen to meet the rest of the girls having pre drinks before a night out. Jessica then enters and starts taking photos but Lauren realises there friend Abby has been missing and hasnt yet joined them, Katie then leaves the room to go look for Abby but returns with a letter she has found in the room which shows abby being tortured and writing which reads WE HAVE ABBY. DO NOT CONTACT THE POLICE YOU WILL RECEIVE INFORMATION IN ONE HOUR. The letter is then dropped on the floor and there will be a black out.