Production Logo

OUR PRODUCTION LOGO.

This is the first step. Our company is called Droplet Productions, we decided to use a simple italyic font for the writing. To make it look like the one above. We then got a photo and cut the splash from it and inserted it with the writing. To make it look like this:

We decided this looked a bit boring and needed something to make it more interesting, so we decided to get a photo of some wavy black lines and we used the burn and sponge tool the create a different effect with the photo. We then inserted the photo into the logo and this is how it ended:

Shot List

This is outr shot list. This will help us when we need to know what shot to do next and when and where to bring in the next characters and props.

Test Shots.

Test Shots.

Seeing as our location is in Southampton we decided to try some of our shots in our school. In the first shot of Lauren running up the stairs we will have to make sure the person is running in the same place up the stairs so it will flow into the next one without looking bad.

In the second shot with Jessica running and searching we noticed there was a lot of noise from the airplanes, when we shot the actual film we will try and find a quieter zone. In the third of our test shot off Lauren and Jessica running through the corridor, we noticed our movements are quite loud which we will have to make sure we move much quieter when filming.

Audience Profile

Location

LOCATION

This Is the outside of flat g, we will be filming out side and inside of here.

We will use this area for one of the establishing shots.

This is the end of the car park use for part of  the establishing shot.

This is the walk way to each room in flat g, we will be filming in here to look for Abby and when they find the letter. 

This is one of the rooms in flat g we might be filming in. This room will probably be the room we use when we find the letter. 

These are the stairs . 

This will be a alley way to get to the flat g we will use to film part of the opening scenes. 

These will also be used for establishing at the start

Target Audience Profile

Primary research:


Questionnaires- We found that, after explaining what our film sequence is going to be, the target audience for our opening sequence will be for girls 15's and above

What is their age group?
The most popular age group was 17-18


What is the gender ratio?
27% boys asked, 73% girls asked


What are their hobbies/interests?
most popular hobbies/interests:
- Football
- Shopping
- Fashion
- Socialising
- Watching films
- Playing on games consoles

Which area do they live?
Mostly from the area of Windsor/Dedworth

What is their occupation?
Either unemployed or employed

Interview with class members- We found that the class member thought mostly the same thing as the questionnaires results found.
What is their age group?
Most popular age group asked was 16-18

What is the gender ratio?
42% boys asked, 58% girls asked

What are their hobbies/interests?
N/A

Which area do they live?
Most popular answers of living were between Windsor and Maidenhead

What is their occupation?
Either employed or unemployed
 
Secondary research

Internet- We found that, considering all the blood and violence, that most films containing this are rated 15

Character Profiles

These are our character Profiles of the characters we will be having in our thriller opening.

Logo Analysis

Imagine Entertainmenmt

This company was one of four different production companies who produced The Da Vinci Code.

The layout for this logo is very simple, it is just plain black backgroundwiht the words IMAGINE ENTERTAINMENT in the middle. There is no pictures but just writing.

If you look at the moving logo (below) it starts of with a with water droplet being dropped into a lake. But when you are just looking at the picture of the logo there are no pictures just the writing.

The font is very simple on this logo, With IMAGINE as a bigger font, with a colour gradiant of black, brown and cream. It then has a smaller font underneath in just plain white, which makes it stand out with the black background.

                              

Paramount Pictures

Thid production company was one of two companies who produced The Italian Job.

The layout of this logo is of the tops of mountains in the clouds, with a  ring of stars with PARAMOUNT in the middle. The colours include blues from the sky and whites from the clouds and mountains.
There are some logos for paramount to be more darker then this one, so the colours in the sky are darker to make it look like it is at night time.
The main shapes in this are just the mountains, with the stars in a circle. In the moving logo at the start of films the stars fly in and create a circle and then the name PARAMOUNT enters the circle.
There are two sets of writting in the logo, PARAMOUNT is a more italic writting, and is much bigger then the other words, it is white writing and it sits in front of the blue sky to make it able to read. The next set of words are under the mountain A VIACOM COMPANY which is also in white, even though this is on the mountain and it doesnt stand out very well it is still able to read.



Both of these logos are very different, one is very simple with no pictures just black background and the other one is a main photo of a mountain. Looking at both logos Paramounts logo is much more intersting then Imagine. We will keep this in mind for when we create our logos, to make sure our logo is interesting and not boring.

Past Student Work Analysis

The Candidate

In this opening sequence, the production company and the cast come up during the open sequence, why we watch what we think the antagonist get ready. This doesn’t give a lot of information about the actual storyline leaving an Enigma to the opening sequence. This makes the audience curious on what is going to happen? 

In my opinion from what I can see in the opening sequence, I would class this as a Crime thriller (15). I would class this as crime because there is blood right at the beginning and later on showing a gun. This shows that there has possibly been a murder; this is also why I have classified it as a 15.

Camerawork

In this opening I noticed that there was a lot of close up shots used which could show the attention to detail. A close up that they use is on his face when someone is coming in and you see the reaction shot at the same time, this is showing that he is rushing to hide something. From what we see so far it looks like a crime thriller, as he is covering up something, like he is wiping away all the blood of his hand, putting new clothes on and trying to get rid of all the evidence. A good shot they used was the over the shoulder, as we could see him and how he was washing all the blood away, in to the sink. This also showed him looking in the mirror so we could see how he was feeling about this, if he looked scared, relieved, or fulfilled we would be able to tell from this camera shot. This was also an establishing shot as we now know he is in a bathroom, in what looks like his home.  

Editing

The clip starts with a blackout with background music playing over the top, this immediately puts the audience on edge as they know that something bad is going to happen because of the music playing, as it makes their heart race. There are a lot of cuts used throughout this scene which are mostly short shot duration, they use it when the man is getting ready really quickly and it cuts to him putting his trousers on and etc. This is showing urgency that he has to get ready quickly; this also makes the audience question why is he getting ready so fast? And why is he dressing so smartly. The music then picks up a bit of pace as someone else comes in through the door. There is then a long shot duration used as you see the reaction of the man listening to someone coming in, why we are watching this the camera starts of as a close up  but then coming further away from the man, leaving a long shot duration.

Sound

At the beginning of the opening sequence, on the blackout we hear a diagetic sound of a gunshot; this is then goes in to a gun washing blood of his hands which could represent that he was the guy who murdered someone. That is the only diagetic sound used, the rest is all non-diagetic which just plays in the background. This helps set the mood as it helps get the audience on the edge of their seats as it help them get in to the right state of mind. The music in this is all very dark which sets the atmosphere and it is parallel to what is going on in the clip. When the music picks up a bit of speed the clip will also be going faster in what he is doing/ trying to hide. As the music goes with what is going on in the clip when it comes to someone coming through the door be hear the door close and as we hear this we see the reaction of the man. At this point we the audience are wondering what is going to happen next? Does he know the person who just came in? We then hear the words ‘James’ spoken by a women character. It then goes silent and the title of the film comes up ‘Bang’ by now the audience are so excited to see what is going to happen next and it gets them thinking again, was the man we saw called James or was it the one who got murdered? With the title of the film we can see that it is a thriller, as normally the ‘Bang’ is the sound of a gun which indicated that it is a thriller and going to be some violence.

Mise-en-Scene

Costumes

We do not see many costumes in this Opening sequence, we see the man getting changed in to a suit, and this could show that he is going out somewhere important, where he has to dress smart. We watch him get changed through the whole clip.

Location

The location looks like his flat; we know this because he starts of in the bathroom and then makes his way to the bedroom where he gets changed.

Lighting

Ambient lighting is used during this Opening scene as it is set in a bedroom, you need to use natural lighting, this is good as it is not too bright and we can see everything very clearly. With the bathroom the scene the lighting is fair dark with cold colours this could show that he down, or maybe feeling guilty as he has just committed a murder.

Props

The props used in this Opening sequence are a passport, a gun, and his clothes. With the Gun and passport we only see at the end of the clip as he forgets to hide it, this helps the audience to understand that he committed the murder. With the costume however this is used throughout the whole opening sequence, as the audience needs to know that he is in a hurry and needs to get somewhere.

Shooting Schedule

We whille be filming at the University Of Southampton. Seeing as it isnt the easiest place to get to everyday..

Throughout the lessons we have during school time we will do some test shoots, to see how things will look when we do go to our location.

Monday 28th Febuary 2012-Period One- Test Shoots (Running outside, running up stairs)

Tuesday 29th Febuary 2012- Period 5- Look Back at our Test Shoots and try out some more if need to

Saturday 3rd & Sunday 4th March 2012-  Going to Southampton to film all our scene

If we come back to school and see we need to get a few more shots, we will return to Southampton the following week to get them.

Mise-en-scene For Our Mystery Thriller

Costumes: For our characters they are based in univertsity, and be wearing outfits for a night out. Seeing as they are searching for there friend there maybe some not wearing heels and some are, depending on the situation. They will be wearing mostly dresses, shorts, skirts, leggins and tops.

These costumes challenge what women normally wear in other mystery thrillers.

 

Props

 The props we are using are an envelope and a picture. This is the typical Mystery as it is tense as the audience don’t know quiet what is going on and it also brings more attraction to the envelope and what is going to be in it. We are not challenging the conventions with in the props.

 

Lighting

We are using Natural lighting; we will be filming mostly inside so we will use the house lights. This is challenging the Conventions as normally if you see someone running around in a house the light will be broken or flashing but we are just going to use the lights that are in the common rooms.

Location

We are doing it at Southampton University, in one of the girls dorms. this is a great location to film as there is a lot of space to film and there wont be distractions, and nothing will change will the scenery so it wont affect our filming and make the audience comfused. this is not the typical mystery location, normally it is is somewhere dark and people dont normally know where abouts they are, whereas ours you can tell its in university.

StoryBoard

This is our storyboard for our Opening Sequence 'Flat G'

Ghost Ship Analysis

During the opening sequence of Ghost Ship, it immediatly grasps your attention by devising a scene that
seems all very calm and very 1960's. The scene starts with a pan of the ship from the outside and the inside and we can see people dancing to really slow music and having a wonderful time. When the camera is outside, it focuses on a little girl sitting by herself playing with some blocks to create the sentance "i am so bored" to which a sailor over looks this. The singer of the evening then asks everyone to stand up and dance. When the little girl gets asked to dance, everything is moving in slow motion and the camera changes its perspective by looking at a lever in which we only see a hand move it up.You realise something isn't quite right when the camera zooms in to a wire rig and the music has suddenly started to fade out and echo itself and then the wire becomes the focus. The camera follows the wire around the ship and then you see a line come in to focus realising it is the wire and that it is at everyones head height. You see the wire being wound in very very quickly to which it ends up shooting across the ship and then there is a sudden silence. No one is saying anything or moving but the camera has now focused on the wire as soon as it reaches the otherside of the boat and is completely covered in blood. Then very very slowly everyone falls to pieces on to the floor. The little girl who is hugging her dance partener appears to be very frightened and looks around at everyone who is laying dead. She turns around to look at the face of the man she is dancing with and it splits in to two. She screams and then the films starts.

The opening sequence covers all four sub-genres:

Mise-en-scene: We are able understand that this event was held in the eveing so the lighting is natural asnd very dark. This could fit in with being a mystery thriller because the darkness makes the watcher think that something bad could happen as everything seems so dark, slow and creepy when everyone is happy and having a wonderful time. This makes the watcher feel very anxious and tense as they are waiting for the moment when things start to go wrong.

Camera Work: In the opening sequence, there is a crane shot that is used to explain more of that setting to the audience. It is also used to set the scene that nothing bad could possibly happen. When it comes to the singer, there is an eyeline match and an over the shoulder shot. During the course of her singing, there is a zoom where it comes all the way back to the other end of the room where we see people dancing across the camera view. There are close ups of people dancing which becomes the main focus for now to the audience as everyone looks so happy. There is a two person shot with the little girl and the sailor which could represent that he is taking care of her, then there is an eye line match from there point of view to the blocks that she is playing with. These shots repeat themselves throughout the rest of the sequence until it comes to a zoom in of a lever and all we see is a hand come in the shot and pull it. From here there is a high angle shot on the wire rigging that is rapidly being reeled in, then a close up in to the wire that is about to snap. Before it breaks there is a slow motion shot of everyone dancing and singing and not being aware of what is about to happen. This brings suspense to the audience as it a predictable scenario. Once the wire has snapped there is a tracking shot where it follows the wire whilst it cuts through everyone with a close up on the other side with the wire all covered in blood. There is then a tracking shot going the opposite way where everyone is looking around startled and confused to which point the audience is in complete shock. There is then a slow motion shot where everyone falls apart and falls to the floor. This gives the audience the fear factor rating of what the rest of the film will be like. This is then followed by a crane shot, where the audience can see what has happened and that everyone is dead except the little girl and the man she is dancing with. Using the eyeline match and the low angle shot from the little girl looking at her dance partener, this is used to show fear to the audience as the dancers face splits in two and falls to the floor and to sympathise with what she has just seen.

Sound: With the opening sequence starting off as a singer singing a really romantic song, which becomes a sound bridge throughout 75% of the scene, gives the audience the impression that nothing could go wrong and that the horror isn't going to start until half way through. But once the lever is pulled, the music starts to fade out and play really slowly. Then once the wire has been released, the music stops and everything is silent except from very light slow motion music to help add effect to the fear factor.

Editing: This film mainly uses close ups, cuts and eyeline matches. This can be used to give more of an impact on the viewer as from their point of view, many close ups and change in sound can recreate a different atmosphere bringing on a more eery outcome. It can be used as a fear factor to help maintain that chilling effect.

Memento Analysis

The opening sequence to Memento, is very simple it is just a picture, that someone shakes in till it gets blurrier. It goes like this because its like rewinding time, as it then goes back in to the camera and you then see the death of a guy. Right at the end you see the main character and what you see you believe that he is the antagonist.

The opening sequence also uses specific sub genre conventions in terms of the four micro areas.

Mise en scene: The lighting of the opening sequence is very dark and blurry. As you can see from the opening sequence that it is a Mystery and that helps by making it dark and blurry as you doint know truely what is going on. for the first two minutes it makes you anxious to watch , and lets the film be more of a mystery to the audience that are watching. 

Camerawork: The camera work in the opening sequence is very slow, it is all very the same of a close up on the photo. but near the end of the opening sequence it all moves very quickly but they still use the close up shot.this suggests that something has happened but they dont want to give away the whole story so they, only show little bits of it, which i expect they will become more clear once the film goes on.This gets the audience questioning what is going on,and what is happening.

Editing: In the Opening Scene, it hardly cuts to other scenes apart from right at the end it goes very slow and then speeds up and when it speeds up, there are many cuts involved.

Sound: There is a non diagetic soundtrack played in the opening sequence this is a slow as it is like classical music. there is also diagetic sounds used when he is shaking the picture  and when he shoots the guy you here the bullet land on the floor.The music is not parrell in what is going on in the opening sequence. 

Our initial ideas for Our Thriller Location Moodboard

This is our moodboard for our Locations

 This is our location moodboard for our opening sequence.
It is going to be at southampton university and these photos show the outside and the inside of the university.

Thriller Initial Ideas and feedback

Jessica, Evie and Laurens Thriller Idea

View more PowerPoint from laurendotstokes

Feedback
These are the negative feedback we recieved, We need to choose a Title for our film, we also need to think about the time we are going to take to film. Also the limited time we have at the universtiy. We have also got to think about more mystery thriller conventions.
Our good feedback we recieved was we had a good story line, we engaged with the audience, good characters, well presented with handouts

The Dark Knight Analysis

The opening sequence to Dark Knight uses many different generic conventions, such as an introduction to one of the main character, as we see a lot of different clowns, but we don’t know which one the ‘joker’ is until he removes his mask. In the Opening Sequence of this we do not see the title of the film in till 8:15 and I only watched a two minute clip so I did not see this come up. Also there were no characters names in the Opening Sequence so this was a complete different Opening than other films. The only thing that came up was the distribution company ‘Warner brothers’ and the production company  ‘Legendary pictures’, this came up right at the beginning just before the beginning of the film started.

The opening sequence also uses specific sub genre conventions in terms of the four micro areas.

Mise en scene: The lighting of the opening sequence is very dark. This links in well with the action/crime thriller sub genre as it leads the audience feeling slightly anxious to watch, and lets the film be more of a mystery to the audience as it does not give much away about the narrative just that the ‘clowns’ are antagonists. This is good as it makes the audience threat on what is going to happen next.

Camerawork: The camera work in the opening sequence of The Dark Knight is very fast, suggesting that something big is going to happen straight away. There is the crane shot where it starts really high up and slowly then becomes closer to a window that the smashes. This is when you see the first ‘Clowns’ breaking in to another building. This gets the audience on the edge of there seats as they are not sure what is going to happen. You then get a close up of one of the ‘clowns’ faces, which then gets a clear clarification that these people are the antagonists.

Editing: there are many cuts during the Opening Scene, it cuts to different clowns and them all doing there different roles to break in to the Bank. This make the audience wonder why they are doing this and how they are going to pull it off. This also shows that this is action/crime thriller by only watching one minute of it. So the audience no something bad is going to happen during this sequence.

Sound: There is a non diagetic soundtrack played in the opening sequence this is an up beat soundtrack that goes with what is going on the Sequence. As there is a lot of running around and stunts that are involved. The music is parallel in what is going on in the opening Sequence. There is also diagetic sounds with the ‘clowns’ taking in the car and once they reach the bank there is talking involved there as well.  

Opening Sequence Analysis- The Silence Of The Lambs.

The Silence Of The Lambs. Opening Sequence Analysis. 

Crime Thriller 

Opening Sequence time: 2:01

In the opening Sequence you are introduced to The character type who a women and she is training on an obstacle course and she is interrupted by a male character who tells her someone wants to see her in his office. 

We are indicated of the place which starts of in a Forrest where she is training, but when she is told someone wants to see her, you are introduced to a new location which looks like a Training Center and then to office center. 

Micro-Areas that contribute in the sub-genre  

Costume: Women wearing one t-shirt with a grey sweater over the top, black sweat pants and trainers, this shows she is training for something. Man wearing trousers, jacket and a FBI vest. This tells you why the women is training and who she works for which is the FBI. 

Lighting: The lighting is all natural because she outside, but it is quite dark seeing as she is in a forest but when she comes out of the forest it doesn't seem that bright which could mean it is early morning. 

Location: The location for the opening scene changes, first she is outside training in a forest, she then leaves the forest to run into a building which looks like it is training center but then you are shown another building which looks like FBI offices. 

Sounds: The only sound you hear is a soundtrack at the start which seems to make it a bit more tense when she is training on the obstical court, but when the male speaks the music quietens but doesnt stop until she has entered the building and the only sound you hear is people talking., 

Camerawork: There are alot of establishing shots which shows the audience where she is. A few close ups when she is running to show she is out of breathe. There was also a few medium shots to show the emotion on her face while running, and it shows the audience what she is doing. There is a two shot to show the two characters talking. 

the opening sequence gave information of the producers, cast, costume designer and more but it didn't give the name of the film.

Opening Sequence Analysis- The Descent