The task we were given was, in groups, to create an opening sequence for a thriller. It had to include opening credits and music as well as a short sequence of action.
The first stage was planning out idea. We decided on opening with a spinning bike wheel in a puddle of blood with bloody footprints leading away from the scene. We would then zoom into a close up of a news paper showing the date. This would then cut to the next scene where we see a paper boy and another close u of the date, showing it was 2 days prior to the original date. This, we hoped would create suspense. To create more tension we used music, camera angles and credits.
Our genre was a mystery thriller. The main aspects that help convey this area were the music and the emptiness of the first scene. There are only inanimate objects in this scene but from the way the wheel is spinning and the blood shows that there was a person here in the not so distant past, to help with this theory there are bloody footsteps which would have been washed away if they had been there for any prolonged period of time. Other techniques that we used to build up mystery and suspense were quick cuts between different shots which broke up some of the slow zoom in or outs. Also the cuts from the changed colour to the real colour, this is effective when showing shots of the blood. We used fake blood that we got from a costume shop to add to the effect, we tried other thing such as ketchup and soup but this worked the best.
The media institution used to distribute films are production companies. We feel that that the production company for phone booth would be perfect to distribute our film, this is because in our film, like phone booth, there is someone that we cannot see but we know is there or somewhere near. We would also aim our film at the same age range, older teenagers and adults. Also they use the mystery genre so they would know how to promote our film. This is Fox 2000 pictures, we could use them to advertise the film and also create trailers that could be shown before other films as well as distributing the film worldwide.
I think that the overall result of our opening sequence is effective. It builds up suspense with the lack of people. I like the range of camera angles we used. There are a lot of low angled shots, this makes the viewer feel like he is watching over the scene, they can see the whole picture. The fact that there is no one in the opening sequence meant that you could clearly see that this place was isolated and that you would get no help, this helps create suspense and makes people come to their own conclusion to what has happened to the person riding the bike, the footprints can back this up as well. I also like the eye opening this, I feel, is an effective way of introducing a character and if I were to re do this piece I would have this section at the beginning so that this is the first thing you see
I think that we could improve on a few things, this includes we could have put more emphasis on the date, because I feel at the moment it is hard to follow and people may not know what is going on, it looks like you are just looking at the news paper, we could have found some way of making it very clear that the date is the important part. Also I feel at some points it feels more like a trailer for a film instead of the opening title sequence to a film this is because it is not always clear what is going on, there are a lot of jump cuts which are less common in films than in trailers that do not need to follow a time line. The music is not suitable I don't think, this is because it is too slow, it does not build up a lot of suspense, if there were a base line that was more apparent and it got loader and faster when something dramatic happens this would have been more in tune for a horror film.
Compared to the preliminary task I feel this is a very big improvement. I feel that we have put a lot more thought into this piece, also the editing is better. We did not have the same equipment during our preliminary task so were not able to edit it as well. There was also the fact that in our final piece there were not as many actors, so there was no dietetic sound meaning we could use a soundtrack.
In conclusion I think that overall the task was a success but there were some major areas for improvement such as the editing, we could have used a more comprehensive editing software. Also I think that if we changed the music it would change the feel of the piece and would make it seem like more of a horror movie than what it does at the moment.
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