shot list

In this shot that I drew it shows a long shot of the main character walking away from the two men in the suits. This shows that it is set in a forest and that the lighting is low key. At this point in the film the character is walking through the woods and comes across two men having a secret convocation which he just walks past as if not hearing it when he has. We wanted this shot to have the effect of isolation in the character so that the audience feel sympathy for this main character. Also we can tell that the shot is going to be set in the evening as the sky shows that it is dark and set just before night time.

In this shot that I drew it shows a close up of the main characters face but one side of it. As a group we have decided to this shot like this because in the film Aidan has just come back from school and he has gone to his room and gotten straight out of his school uniform and is putting his Goth clothes on and then his makeup. We wanted this shot to suggest to the audience that this boy wasn’t comfortable with what he was wearing and feels “normal” in Goth clothes but also he wants to be different by the makeup. Also it makes the audience ask why is he changing from what they would call normal to a Goth.

 

In this shot we can see that the main character Aidan has come out of his classroom and there is a bully who is waking in the opposite direction to him so that the bully has to walk past him. At this point the bully barges into Aidan, this suggests to the audience that Aidan is weak and cannot protect himself which makes the audience empathise with the character Aidan.

 

In this shot we can see that the main character is spinning a coin on his windowsill. In the sequence we have chosen to have Aidan spinning a coin and thinking about what the two men has said and when the coin has finished spinning and stops that is when he realises what they have been talking about. Also this makes the audience realise that the penny has dropped and that Aidan has figured out the problem that was being discussed by the two men.

 This long shot is of Aidan in his room. In this shot we can that he is lying in his room and thinking deeply about what the two men were saying. This can suggest to the audience that he might be worried about what e has heard and wondering if he is going to do anything about it.

 In this shot we have a of the two men having the conversation. As we can see it is only a shot of their legs which can suggest to the audience that we have done this so that we can hide the identity of the two people so that the audience want to know who they are later on in the film.

film synopsis

For our genre of choice we have chosen a thriller. The main teenaged character of our film is going to be called Aidan, he is a typical goth who dresses black, doesn't talk to anyone and gets picked on while he is at school. Also there are two men in suits which the name of the characters are unknown in the film.

What happens is, in the beginning Aidan is finishing the last two minuets of the school day. He is going to be in a class where he is not paying any attention to what is being said and is sketching in his note pad. Once the bell goes he will be walking home and the route that he takes is going to be going through a woods. 

The setting of the film starts off at the end of the school day when the bell has just gone, then he will be taking his route home which is through the woods and this is where he sees the two men have the conversation. 

From this Aidan walks away but having heard certain parts of there conversation. The two men realise that he has Aidan has heard what they were talking about but he had gone out of sight for them to question him.

Aidan is sitting in his room going over the words that the two men were saying and decided to take matters into his own hands. At the end of the film he manages to stop what the men were planning but when he returns to school he acts like nothing ever happened and returns things to how they originally were.

VoxPops

 

We have chosen to do a VoxPop because it allows us to see what the audience would like to see in a thriller. From this we can decide what to put into our opening sequence just by the audience feedback. For the setting we have decided as a group to have it set in a woods at night as this is where the woods would be empty and no body will be around. Also we have decided to have the lighting as low key as this sets a mood of suspicion and wonder on the audience. From this audience feed back we are going to make the characters feel scared or confident this in turn will make the audience wonder what the film is going to be about. Also we will try to film it so that we can make the audience feel certain emotions such as confused, scared, worried.

Initial ideas

audience research task

Task 1- Audience research

 

In my group for this task and for our project is Casey Jenson, Jamie Oliver and Billy Casey. Three of the four people in our group Casey, Jamie and I each printed off ten copies each and gave them to ten people. The answer that we were looking was an age range of 16-24 for our opening sequence. We were looking for feedback on the genre of thriller. We asked our ten people mainly on what they think is in and related with a thriller. Two of the ten peoples results are shown below.

From these two results along with the rest of them. we got a rough idea of what we are going to do. We have decided that the type of theme that has a low key lighting which we will used to create an image to the audience which will make them want to watch the rest of the film if there was a whole film. Also we have learned from our audience feed back about what gender our main/ lead character should be. From this we will determine weather to choose a male or female. Also from our feed back we learnt how the audience like to watch there films and if they like to a British film or not. some evidence to back this up can be shown below.

Here you can see how the audience like to watch there films.
this tells us that some people like to watch the films mostly cinema and dvd. which can suggest some people like to watch it on a big screen or the small screen. 

Here we can see that it was exactly split in half when it came to liking a British out of the thirty questionnaires. this suggests that some people like to watch there films from either Britain or from another part of the world either because of the way that they are filmed or the type of atmosphere they create.

 

as you can see in this chart we can tell that there is an equal spread on what some people would like to mainly see in a thriller this helps us see what we can intergrade with our opening sequence. it makes it better as we are putting things in that the audience want to see in a thriller. 

this is telling how often the audience watch films. this can help us in a way which wants the reader to watch the film just from the opening which might make people who watch films sometimes make them watch them often.

 

Conventions of a thriller opening sequence

Conventions of a Thriller.


Some conventions of a thriller that are going to be used are a mysterious theme, specific camera angles such a long shots and close ups, makes the audience think, makes them ask specific questions, sound is specific (e.g. fast paced), low key lighting, to position the audience on a characters side, the costume is smart or casual, learn small parts about a character and editing is fast paced.

Firstly a mysterious theme. This is shown in most thrillers, an example of this could be the opening sequence to memento where the whole scene is played in reverse. This is mysterious because you wouldn't normally see a thriller start off in reverse. this can be linked to the audience think and also ask questions. it makes them do this because they want to know why it was filmed like that and if there was any reason why it was filmed like that. The director has done this to make the audience ask these questions and then in return want the reader to watch the film to find out why.  

Secondly specific camera angles are used, mainly long shots and close ups. Examples of this is in memento where they use a lot of close ups and extreme close ups. They do this so that they can make the audience think about certain shots and makes them think. A shot in memento is a ex-close up of blood dripping up the wall, this makes the audience think about why did they put it in revers and why is it going up the wall instead of dripping down.




 

Also in thrillers they uses low key lighting. Examples of this are in memento and sixth sense. In the sixth sense the director has used low key lighting to show that the place that she is in is a dark and mysterious place. they do this because they want the audience to emphasise with the character that is in this situation where it looks uncomfortable to escape from and to also look horrible and dark to stay in whish is the same in memento.

this shot in sixth sense shows that the place that she is in looks uncomfortable and dark to be in.

They also want to put the audience in with the action as if they were part of the film. They would do this by the scenes that they put together which either makes the audience want to feel like they want to help and be on the side of the protagonist or the director would want the audience to watch over the shoulder of the antagonist which can suggest that the main character of the film.

In a thriller opening they hint and slowly introduce the characters. This allows the audience to have their first impressions of the characters and decide which side they would be on, the protagonists or the antagonist. An example of this could be from memento where we get two characters. This can make the audience decide which side to be on as seen in the clip below.

Project Research.

Example 1.

Horror/Thriller

Insidious

 

Cinematography

In the opening sequence of insidious the cinematography is used well. An example of this is where the camera is upside down to start off with then turns the right way up as it goes in to the next shot. This makes the audience have the effect and atmosphere of being light and floating as the camera is smooth when it is turning the right way up. also it may get the audience to ask the question why was it filmed like that as the director hay want to portray a certain image.

Camera upside down.

Camera right way up.



 

Sound

in the clip sound is used to create an effect for the audience. in the clip the sound track has a creepy and eerie tone. this makes the audience feel 'what is going to happen?' and this tone can suggest to the audience that there is going to be something bad that is about to happen. also we can tell that it is the same frequency of sound which drones on but at different pitches, which can suggest that something might be coming and that something wont be very good.

 

 

editing

In the clip it uses editing to have an effect on the audience. An example of this is the titles in red at the beginning. The effect that it has on the audience is mystery and spooky. We can tell this as the audience because the text has a red smoke coming away from the letters, this could be suggesting that the film might be about ghosts as it looks like it is being represented as a soul leaving the body.

As we can see the red smoke is leaving the letters.

 

 

Mise-en-scene

In the in the clip it uses Mise-en-scene to create and effect on the audience. An example of this is the setting, from the first section we can tell that it is going to be set in a house but might be specifically a boys bedroom. This then makes the audience wonder if the film is going to be set about this boy in his room, also they ask the question 'who is this boy' and 'what type of background does he have.

Secondly in the picture above, there is low key lighting. This shot make the room look sinister and evil as there are a lot of shadows around the boy positioned in the centre of the shot.

 

 

 

 

Example 2.

 

Thriller

 

Sweeny Todd.

 

Cinematography

In the clip cinematography is used to create an effect on the audience. An example of this is an establishing shot of roof tops. This gives a general idea to the audience what the location of the film is and also it shows the weather at that moment in time which is dark and rainy. This suggests to the audience that the mood and atmosphere of this film is going to be a dark and mysterious film, but because of the weather it can if the effect of mundane which can hint it might have a gloomy and miserable theme.

 

Sound

In the clip it uses sound to create an effect for the audience. For example, the sound track for the star of the opening sequence starts off at a low pitch which is of an organ. as the part of the clip progresses the organ which the audience hear start to go up in pitch but the previous pitch is still playing. This creates the effect of being anxious and alert on the audience. This is because it makes them think what is going to happen next and does it have any relation to what is going to happen.

Editing
In the clip, it uses editing to create an effect on the audience. An example where this is shown is where there is a pull focus. It has done this to maybe show the audience the difference between the two characters, where one knows his way around and on who is new to where they are going.

before- focus on character in front .

after- front character walks away and it pull focuses to character behind.

Mise-en-scene
In the clip it uses Mise-en-scene to create and effect for the audience. Firstly the make up and facial expressions used for the main character gives the audience to think of there first impressions of him. This is shown when we get a close up of the main characters face. The first impressions that the audience might suggest is that he looks miserable and that he might not of slept for days on end. we can see this by the dark shade around his eyes, this can also hint to the audience that he might have a dark/ evil personality.

 

Locations where i might film.

Thriller

 

 I have chosen these three locations for a thriller style opening as the locations in the three pictures look abandoned dirty trapper and evil. This is shown in the pictures by the two pictures of the fences which if shot at the right angle can give the audience the feeling of being trapped and confined and the final picture can give the audience the feeling of being vulnerable and alone which can give ideas of being abducted or attacked.


romantic comedy

 

The three pictures that I have chosen for Rom Com have a lot of meaning. for example the sunset has the connotation of love which can link back to the romantic theme. The picture of the field can link to rom com where a couple might meet and just and have some time to them selves which an also be the same for the park where they would meet then go out.


Action adventure

The action adventure pictures that I have chosen can show many things. The shot where the camera is on the floor is of a long path way. This can be used for an on foot chase scene and the picture of the busy road can be used to show someone escaping from a chase. The picture of the residential area could be a form of meeting place or a final area where a final battle may take place.