Final Opening Sequence

Our Poster!

Even though we decided we could release our poster in conjunction with our Opening Sequence, we changed our minds and have now decided releasing it before would be the best idea especially because this is how it works in the movie industry. By releasing it before our opening sequence it would "market" our movie, however because it is not a full movie and will not be seen by many but it is still a way to market our movie but also gives other people an insight of what our opening sequence will be about but also how our full story line would be if we were to make the whole movie.


We have analysed the poster in the same way that we analysed other psychological thrillers, in terms of pictures used, font used, positioning choices, effects put on poster and tag line use.

Pictures Used:
We decided on using three different pictures to show the three different characters in the movie. The two main pictures are of our two main actors portraying there characters. The main top image is the main focus of our poster as it is the biggest picture and is also striking. It shows the actor in distress looking towards something which is obviously a key element in the movie. We adjusted the original picture to look like this which can be seen in a separate post explaining how we did this on photoshop. Our second main image is of our child actor, it is actually a screen grab used from our opening sequence we decided that if we stretched the image and changed some of the colouring it would look more surreal and unrealistic. Our final picture is of our 3rd most important actor, we decided to put this picture of to the side and to make it seem as if the picture isn't even there. This follows our storyline as this character doesn't actually exist and it all part of the main characters mind. This helps give the audience clues into what the movie is about and why the character is all faded into the background.
Although from following our research only two pictures were used we though that by adding the final picture and blurring it out a lot it didn't really count but also its not what we wanted as the main focus.






 font used, positioning choices, effects put on poster and tag line use.

Possible Editing Ideas

We each have idividual ideas for when we get to the editing process and below i will list my proposals.

Firslty, in terms of sound, I think that the only ambient sounds that I think should be present, is the little girl laughing and shouting come on, but I think that these sounds should be echoed to conform to our thriller genre. Other than these sounds, i think that there should just be an on-going screatching or gloomy soundtrack should be played in the background. I also think that every now and then there should be a high pitched noise that gets louder, building up tention, but releasing the tension in suspense.

I think the majority of the shots should be dull and darker at the beggining of the opening sequence. But at the end I think they should be lighter and realsitic when we zoom out of the mans eye, considering that from then on is reality.

Another way in which i think we could edit our sequence, is the shotof when we pan round the males head. To expand, i think we should speed this up as it seems more psychological.

Further Construction of our Poster!

To Further construct our poster we decided getting a picture of our child victim which is what our whole story line revolves around would be a good 2nd picture to promote our movie. As we do not have time to get our actor to pose the picture, we decided to get a screen grab from editing we have already done. We wanted the actor to be in motion like the main characters picture as this gave it the psychological and paranormal feel to our poster. 
Above is the screen grab of our child actor we wish to use, as you can see she is in motion while skipping.
We will also be adding a picture of our 'Old man' actor. We will get this picture from previous pictures as we will only be using half of our characters face to blur into the background like a figment of our main actors imagination.

Starting to Construct our Poster!

AS we want to make a poster to promote our movie we had to obviously take pictures to put on our poster that may give a clue to the story line our movie holds. We got our inspiration from the 2 posters we analysed, as both had images that looked like they were in motion. To make our poster look like that we had our main character flip her hair to try and make it look like her head it snapping around really fast. We took many different shots but some failed as you can see below: 

This shot was our very first shot and as your can see the main character does not hold the right facial expression to set the correct mood for our poster.

This picture would have worked if the characters hair looked like it was in motion but also if it wasn't head on but the facial expression worked better than all the rest.

To try and make our character have the right facial expression we asked her to close her mouth and bite down so her jaw would tense this worked but again the picture was taken to late so the picture was face on.

From the above shots you can see we had to be quite precise on how we wanted our character to look in these pictures however we did get a picture that would work for our poster which is to the left. However the facial expression seems almost as if our character is about to smile so we decided we could edit it on Photoshop. This is convenient as we will be using Photoshop to construct our poster anyway. To enhance the motion of the picture we also decided blur and smudge our image to the right to ensure  it looked more in motion but it also gave our poster the psychological thriller edge we were hoping to achieve.




Below is how our image looked after we edited the things mentioned above. We also changed the lighting so it looked like half of our characters face was darker than the other. This fit with our story line as it makes our character have a darker side or a different side to her which would follow through with our story line as our character is crazy.

This is a screen grab of how our 
picture looks after we enhanced and changed the things we wanted to achieve. To create this look we used the Burn and Dodge Tool and the Sharpen, Smudge and Burn tool. We used the smudge tool mostly which gave us the motion look but also the supernatural edge and feel to the picture.






As this is just the first picture we will be working over the next 2 weeks in conjunction with editing our opening sequence so they can both be ready for the time of our deadline and can be released simultaneously!

Analysing Psychological Thriller Posters!

As a group we came up with an idea on making a poster for our opening sequence as if it where a full movie. This is a great way to market our movie and get certain things well known for example, the production company, major crew and leading actors. To start our process in making our own poster we decided to do some research on posters of the psychological thriller genre and analyse them. The poster that I'm analysing is for the psychological thriller "Abandoned". I will analyse it by the pictures used, font used, positioning choices, effects put on poster and tag line use.

Pictures Used: 
It clearly shows 2 main picture on this poster. Both of them being of Brittany Murphy, this could instantly indicate that she is the main character of this movie. The top picture of her face shows her looking over her shoulder with a questioning look, she is set in front of a city scape which could represent being lost- hence the questioning look. The bottom picture shows her running through a corridor, by what she is wearing it looks like  hospital corridor so the audience will sense there some sort of illness or death in this movie. The picture also have words at the top saying "Exit-3-190" which could show that she is being watched on camera footage.


Font Used: 
The font is all the same however it ranges in size. The main title is the largest font used which obviously makes the title jump out and be the main focus of the poster. There is then medium writing above the title which clearly shows the 2 highest payed actors of this movie and then finally the smallest writing is used on the tagline which is below the title. By having it in an orderly form of all being directly above or below each word, it could show the representation of an OCD- which is a psychological disorder- meaning everything has to be in its place or just general use to help make the poster wording stand out more than other words.


Positioning Choices:
By having 2 different pictures on each poster it depicts 2 different scenes or elements that may have been used in the movie and gives the audience an extremely subtle clue to what the movie might be about. Making the writing directly in the middle it is used as a tool to ensure the audiences eye is attracted to that first so they instantly see the title and then there eyes can follow the rest of the poster to find out more. Both pictures and the main titles are all slightly sloping down to the right which could represent the main character being unbalanced in her life which could link into the genre being psychological thriller by having some unbalance and discomfort.


Effects put on Poster:

There are 2 main effects that the audience may notice when looking at the poster the first being that the bottom picture has a drawn out effect and at the side and on the main character which could represent surrealism and the unrealistic themes that may run through the novel which could be the case as it is a psychological thriller. The second effect being the title is half red which then fades into black, this could represent blood, sinfulness, courage and longing (Which links into the tagline). However by only half the title being red it could represent the fact that the main character inst fully committed to push the boundaries and really go all the way to do what she needs to accomplish so it instantly makes her a weak character. Both of these techniques are used to catch the eye of the audience and helps make people intrigued and ask themselves questions.

Tag line use:
"If someone took the one you love... How far would you go to get him back?" 
This tagline asks a rhetorical question which is not usually asked on an everyday basis so this instantly intrigues the audience to go and see the movie as they want to find out that answer for themselves and question how far someone else would go and whether they could do that also. It gives the main character an edge to what she is doing in the pictures and shows her lost and looking for something, the tagline tells us what that is, a man she loves. As mentioned above the title is half red, the colour red represents courage and longing mostly which instantly links into the title of her wanting to find the person she loves and the people that took him showing her longing for the man and the courage to do it.


From looking into posters like this one it has given me personal ideas about what i think would be good for a poster, however as a group we will make the final decisions. But i do not like the fact that this poster does not have an age rating at the bottom or the production company name. An age range is needed on a poster because if you promote the movie to everyone and not just of a specific age people of a certain age will not be able to see it even if they want to. Also by having a production company logo it gives the poster a look of professionalism but also gets the production companies name out there.
These are all things to consider when making our own poster and we will definitely be putting an age rating, classified by the BBFC, and our production logo on the bottom of our poster!

Analyising a physcological thriller poster

The film 'The Talented Mr Ripley' the movie poster doesnt say alot about the film overall.
The film has elements of physcological and crime thrillers- Mr Ripley played by Matt Damon living in the 1950's struggling to make his way comes across crime and betraying friends and ends up being sexualy obsessed with his friend. From the picture on the poster it shows nothing of a possible story which was deliberate so the veiwers didnt know what to expect exept from what the movie blurb said about the film. There is a close up of the main character Mr Ripley looking confused, and the other main characters are in the background who look reasonably happy- this shows the importance of each character and makes the audience question on there facial expressions. The lighting of the picture is in 'Sepia' efect, shows that its set back in the olden daysinfac the 1950's. At the top of the poster there is a line saying 'how far would you go to be someone else' which is called a tagline.In big writing there is the movie title wrote in capital letters to make it stand out. Just above in medium writing there are a list of the actors in order of main characters. Below in really small writing is all the credits and the producing information.

Idea of Opening Title Credits!

For our opening sequence we want to challenge the typical psychological thriller opening credits. We came to realise through research that many psychological thrillers do not credit the cast and crew only the production companies and title.
To challenge the typical conventions of the opening sequence, we will be adding the Cast & Crew to our titles as it makes our movie seem unpredictable. Below are the titles we will be using (Not it a particular order):


Production Company: Rouge Film (Played separately before opening sequence starts)
Director- Paige James
Editor- Capote. HPN.
Producer- Frank Hans
Executive Producer- James Jap
Screenplay- Steven Craig
Casting Director-  Tenson Lie
Art Director- Hannah France
Production Designer- Michelle Spade
Costume & Makeup Designer- Nelson Steve
Cinematographer- Nat Dail
Major Cast- Nathan Holliday, Shaina Lovell, Nellie Stevenson, Donald New, Isabelle Weeks


Above are the names we wish to use in our opening credits. Some of the names are anagrams for our real as we didn't want to keep using our real names as it gives it an unrealistic vibe. This also allowed us to explore and decide which roles we were responsible for. However we added a few random cast members to add to the high payed actors. For editor we decided that if we made it seem like a company edited this project it would make it even, this is because we all have completed some editing which is why we have our initials, Capote is just a random word we chose to go alongside our initials.


We will be using all of the above names and credits in our opening sequence.

Analysis of Psychological Thriller Poster

To understand the look and content of thriller posters (in order to make our own and get ideas) I looked at an example: The poster for 'Dream House.' Below is an analysis of this advertisment...

In terms of the image used and the colouring etc. I think the poster is very eye catching and presents an optical illusion. To expand, there is a photo of two young girls whos' dresses blend into the wall paper. I can't work out any part of the storline from this image but the audience can tell what genre it is based on. One of the girls is turning her head which suggests that she's a main character, mentally disabled, evil, or all three. However this could be a way of throwing off the audience.

The text included in the poster, is the three main characters at the top in a large font, Then the film title (Dream House), and in small font; the tagline: " Once Upon A Time There Were Two Little Girls Who Lived In A House." In my oppinion this is the main 'give away' to the genre and story line of the film. It sounds quite creepy and suggests that the two girls in the picture are dead.

In small font at the bottom of the poster there is the directors name along with the production company, producers, costume designers and other companies invloved with the making of the film.

When doing some research on thriller posters I also found a common theme of advertising, which was to produce multiple versions of posters for the same film. I assume this is a marketing scheme to make sure the public are aware of its release.

Rough Cut Edit!

Above is the Rough cut edit of our opening sequence, it is the first 40 seconds of our sequence which gives our audeience a taster for our plot. It doesnt give away a lot but just shows enough for the audience to be intrigued. We found editing very easy as we have continual practice especially with our Prelimnary Task. We do not think it will take long to edit however adding sound and special effects will take much longer.
To get feedback on this we put it on youtube and got our peers to look at it, some of the peer feedback was:

To be added when we get feedback.

Starting Our Editing Process!

Today was our first oppurtunity to start editing as a group. We spent some of the time watching our footage and deciding which take we would place in our video to ensure that continuity was good.
We then went through our storyboard making changes where our footage allowed.

 Below is a picture showing how out storyboard then looked after. Picture will be insterted when uploaded.



Next we watched  the beginning of our footage, using our storyboard for reference,  to start trimming the excess takes that we no longer needed for our opening sequence.
We then started to cut pieces of the footage and place them down so they would be in our actual opening sequence, we layed down the first 40 seconds of footage for our Rough Cut. By then putting this on Youtube it will allow people to view it and have a taster of what our opening sequence will be like, it will also help for when we get peer feedback of what could be changed with sound or special effects.

After editing this small amount of footage we have got taster of what it is like to edit a opening sequence. We are finding it very enjoyable and are throughly looking forward to editing the rest and being able to show it to everyone!

Ideas for Editing!

As we start to go into the editing process of making our opening sequence, we all have individual ideas for editing, here are mine:

• I would like our opening sequence to be quite tension building which can be built up by the use of long duration shots and short duration shots towards the end when the tension really starts to build.
• Main high payed cast and crew names over the top of footage, instead of switching to a black screen.
• Writing for titles to be jolted and occasionally stretched in a weird way.
• Only cut editing rather than using fancy editing techniques like Wipes for example.

These are just some of my personal ideas, however as a group we will all decide and condense the ideas so that we are all happy and have our own way with how we want it to be edited.

Opening Title Idea's.

When deciding the Opening Title idea's we all had different veiws on what we should include during the opening sequence before our movie comes on.

AGREE
BBFC- age label to come on before our sequence to show what age we've given our film.
Names- To show who helped out during the film, in no order.
Logo- Our film production logo. We would like this to show at the beginning before our sequence plays as this will put our "Production company" out there.
Editing- we all agreed to use quick cuts in our opening sequence rather than fancy editing techniques.
Text- We all decided that we would like to have the text jolting on the screen and being slightly stretch as this gives the opening sequence a more sinister look the opening sequence.

DISAGREE
- We didnt like the idea of fade in and fade outs of the opening sequence as we felt this would take too long before the actual film displays. It also takes away from the spooky effect we want to achieve
-We didnt want a lot of slides for text to be played on, we want to have the text over the top of whats happening on screen.

Individual Editing Idea's.

When looking back through the unedited video we created, it was all a bit choppy.

Knowing we are able to edit it to tidy it up i decided to list some of my own idea's i would like to be seeing in the final video myself.

• I think the music should be in time with the moving film, such as it should be dramatic at the right moments.
• I had an idea that maybe the film could be in black and white to add effect but i haven't discussed that with my group.
• I think that there should be an eye line match when the the man is sitting on the bench looking onto the park.
• I think that there should be cutaways to make the pace abit faster and the shots work together better.

Past Student Blog Work

When looking through the older student blogs i realised that one of the students had kept a diary of there every media lesson and wrote about what the done in that lesson and why it was productive.
They kept note of how they felt throughout the whole making of the thriller movie and the blog work.
After doing there preliminary task they wrote the pro's and cons of what went good and bad so when it came to making the real film they would know what to watch out for.
They made a post that inspired me which was 'idea's for editing' i decided that i should make a post like this before editing my own film myself so i can look back for help when it comes to doing it.
They also posted the label 15 before there final film to show the viewers the viewing age of there film.

Longroad Media Blog Analysis!

The blog I have chosen to analyse is from the Longroad media website is: http://18thriller11.blogspot.com/.

From this blog we can see what our blogs should like at the end of this unit, however this blog only consists of 27 posts when we should be aiming for 50 posts minimum.
This blog is also lacking in any information. It is very simple and doesnt include much detail in terms of there research and planning. Also even after they have put up there Finished Opening sequence, research and planning was still being added which should have eben finished a while back.

To make sure as a group we dont make the same 'Mistakes' they did, we are aiming for 50 minimum posts and we will not be putting blog posts on research and planning after we have put up ourfinalo opening sequence as it makes the blog look messy and may confuse the examiner because of the mix-match of posts put everywhere. Our posts are also very detailed and include enough information to please to examiner. We have also added other posts that are not required as it helps us with the planning and research but also gives the examiner an inside to what we were planning and thinking about as we were making decisions about our opening sequence.

Personal Roles.

On the day of shooting we all took seperate responsibilities.
I took on the roles like making sure bags and other neccessities were out of the shot
i also made sure that there wernt any people walking past the park when we were about to film
i shared the filming role with hannah, we took turns in filming diffferent shots.
I advised Nellie and Shaina on ways to act there scenes, and lastly i helped take pictures for evidence.
Everyone helping and doing there bit, helped all over as everybody got to try everything and get involved and could notice the little things we all done, so it was all fair and nobody was left out and we all contributed some how. WHen it comes to editing our video, again we will all take turns and share the editing, we can also give eachother idea's and use one anothers idea's so we can notice the things we contributed to the final film.

Personal Role and Contribution to Filming Day!

As individual people we each had individual roles to fulfill on the day of filming to ensure the day went smoothly and also so we each had individual and equal exposure to get credit for certain things. Here is the jobs I had to complete on the day and how I think I did!


My job of the day mostly consisted of being the "Makeup Artist", Actor and occasionally I filmed certain parts of the storyboard. 

• As the "Makeup Artist" I started off the day at about 10:45am to ensure the makeup and hair was complete in time for shooting. I found it fairly easy as Makeup and Hair is one of my passions and I enjoy it very much. I was glad to get this role because I know I was capable to do it to the best of my ability and the group trusted me to do it well.

For a more in-depth insight to how the makeup and hair was done look at the top section of our Mise-En Scene Post.

• My second job as an Actor in our opening sequence started as soon as we got to the shooting location. The reason i was chose to play a role in our opening sequence was that we could find no one that wanted or was able to play the character of the Motherly Figure so the group and I decided that it would just be best for one of us to play it. I found it quite challenging at first as acting in front of a camera is different to acting on stage plus coming up with signals to basically mean "action" was hard especially from long shots. However i think this role was completed successfully by myself and  i enjoyed it very much.
• My final job was taking part in filming some of the opening sequence. As a group we decided that we would all get a chance at filming, even though I was doing the acting i got to film so individual shots of the Old Man character. I found it very fun and it gave me a positive feeling as it was nice to be creating something. It wasn't very hard especially because we had our storyboard to follow but i did find it frustrating at times just to get a particular shot. 
• When we start editing we will all, as a group, be editing together to ensure everything is equal and we can all decide on shots we like!

Personal Roles and Contribution to Filming

Throughout planning, filming and editing, we each had our individual roles within the group. For example, Nellie was an actress, a makeup artist and occasional filmed the smaller scenes. Paige took part in some of the filming and directing the actors/actresses on where to go and how etc.

My role on the day of filming was being the main camera-man. I filmed the car scenes, most of the scenes in the park, and the high angle shot near the end of the opening sequence. I enjoyed this greatly, especially trying to be accurate with each shot.

I also assisted Paige when adviseing what each actor/actress should do, how they should walk/run and facial expressions etc. When filming we needed to make sue that no equiptment was visible aswell as the story boards etc. So I helped with ointing out potential ostacles in the way of the frame and found spots to hide them.

I enjoyed the day of filming and felt satisfied with the roles of which I was allocated.   

Choices of Parks- Reason For Chooisng Ours.

When deciding the park to choose we considered the size,bench space, the what way the bench is facing,the area (e.g- roads, neighborhood) and the popularity of the park. We based our decision on these factors but also how well it would work for filming. We considered many parks (Pictures to be followed up son) but this park was perfect for our filming location!
To see what out location looked like look at our Location Recce


Contributing factors which led to our choice:
Bench- The reason the bench was important  for our film was that we needed the bench to face the park, not be to involved with the park, i.e off to the side slightly, and we also needed it to have space around it not only for filming but for safety reasons. Thankfully we found a park with these factors that we were looking for.


Size and Area- We were looking for a good size park that wasn't too big, as we were only using the first half of a park, we also needed a park that wasn't on a main road, we needed a park near a street, so the car can park up along the side and we can see the car from the view of the park. We also needed the park to be big enough inside to accommodation our crew and also have a good "hiding place" for all the equipment that we didn't want to be seen while filming. Also the park was right on an ally way which meant that it fit in very well with our story line. The park we chose was spacious enough for everything that we wanted plus it was a good location as it was quiet. 


Park Popularity- We monitored whether this park was near a school or not- if the park was near a school then it may mean that the park would be used a lot and give us not a lot of time to film. We also based the park popularity on what the weather would be like on the day of filming. It was predicted that the weather would be overcast and sometime rainy which we banked on being the weather for the day, however the weather turned out to be sunny meaning the park got more attention than we were hoping.


As well as the reasons mentioned above, we also chose our park for its:

• Good space
• Quiet Atmosphere
• On a street
• Good bench area and Space
• Hidden atmosphere
• Unpopularity
• and Meeting our expectations of what our park should look like overall.

Here are some pictures of parks we considered and why we eventually did not chose them:

Pictures to be added once uploaded!!

Obstacles & Disruptions during Filming!

During our filming we came across many obstacles and disruptions that slowed down our shooting schedule, some of these obstacles and how we over came them are:


Aeroplanes - Because of the location we live in and the location the park was in aeroplanes come and go very frequently because of this it caused many problems for us as we where filming. This is because the noise was very over powering and cause problems with continuity when editing. To over come this obstacle we made sure to film our shots in between aeroplanes going across our filming location, this meant we could get about 3-4 shots each time before the next plane came. This was very time consuming, however when we are piecing our opening sequence together in editing it will be better continuity.


People in and surrounding the park- While filming on our location people where constantly walking past the park as it is a public footpath, many people were walking dogs which caused problems for us as we couldn't have anyone in the background of our opening sequence because we do not have there consent to be on film, this again caused timing problems for us but it set a more naturalistic backdrop for our opening sequence. Another issue we encountered included people actually being in the park, this is understandable why as it is a public park and we do not have the right to tell them they cannot be in the park as we film as it takes away there freewill and we are in no position to do that. However to overcome this disruption as we filmed we simple let the people in the park be aware that we were filming and that we would prefer if they were to use the back area of the park rather than the front, which is where we were filming. The people were very cooperative and were 100% fine with what we asked them.



Bench Placement in Location- From shooting our Location Recce we did not think the placement and sizing around the bench would be a key point in our day of shooting, however once we started filming it became a big issue. We found that the spacing around the bench was very small and didn't allow us much movement at all so this made it very difficult to pan around the bench, which is a key part in our opening sequence. To overcome this obstacle we decided to just take the filming of this shot very slowly and using a spotter to help the camera crew move safely and as calmly as possible. We found this very efficient and it made it much easier than if the camera-man was to do it freely.




As we confronted and fought through our disruptions and obstacles we found it harder and very time consuming, however by taking these precautions and being ready to take on these difficulties, as a group we really came through and worked well as a team to ensure our filming went as smoothly as it possibly could!

Shooting Schedule- How it went!

We shot our opening sequence on March 3rd 2012. Here is a detailed description of from start to finish of our day.

• 10:45am- Our male actor arrived at "Makeup Artists" house to commence makeup. To see post on this with detailed description of how makeup was done, follow link. http://foundationportfoliowg3.blogspot.com/2012/03/mise-en-scene-of-our-opening-sequence.html
• 12:15pm- Our child actor then arrived at the same house to start costume and hair. Our male actor was also asked to get into costume at this time as his makeup was finished by then.
• 12:30pm- Once all costume, makeup and hair was complete we packed up our "Kit" which included all our essentials for makeup touch ups, props and camera equipment. We then left the house on route to location.
• 12:50pm- All actors arrived safely to the location, however we were running a bit behind because makeup took a long time. From this time till 1:00pm we set up all the equipment to start our filming process
• 1:00pm- As none of the crew drive, we had to borrow someone else's car. For this reason we decided it would make sense to film the shots including the car first because we did not want to owner of the car standing around all day waiting for us to follow our storyboard.
• 1:00pm till 1.45pm- The person who loaned us the car waited until we had finished our filming which only took roughly 45 minuets and we tried to do the shots as fast as possible with no mistakes as to accommodate the owner of the car, we did about 3 takes of each shots or more to assure we got the best shot as possible.
• 2:00pm- We commenced filming from our storyboard, following each shot how we planned it as this would make it a lot easy for us to edit once we had finished. It took about 2 and a half hours to film these shots after the car scenes, not including the time we spent waiting for planes to pass and people walking past or being in the park.
• 4:15am- We finished filming completely at roughly 4:15pm. By this time the light was still strong, other noise had died down and people were not walking past as regularly. We packed everything away and left location at about 4:30pm.

We felt our shooting day went very successful with only minor obstacles and disruptions. After watching our footage back also, we feel fairly confident on how we did on the day and hopefully we will come out with a good Opening Sequence.

Mise-en-Scene of our Opening Sequence (Photo Evidence)

Here are pictures to describe our mise-en-scene from our actual day of shooting our opening sequence. These picture illustrate the costume and makeup, lighting and props that we used in our opening sequence.

Above is our actors face before we applied makeup. We were aiming for an older looking man rather than a fresh faced teenager. To create the old age effect on our actors skin we used a Special FX makeup substance called Liquid Latex, this required us to stretch our actors face then apply the Latex to create the wrinkled skin effect when we let go of the skin.

This is our actors face after we applied the liquid latex. He has a neutral expression to the face which allows us to see the natural resting place of the wrinkles. To further show the details of him being old aged we also applied face paint, which is safe for hair, to his eyebrows, side burns and also in his & hair.

 

To further show our actors make up we asked him to take off his prop glasses and skwint his eyes so the wrinkles are seen in more detail.

We finally asked our actor to pull a "funny face" particularly in his mouth area which again shows the detail in the wrinkles especially around our actors mouth.

Here is our male actors costume. We decided against our original ideas of costume for this character as we saw it as quite comedic and fairly over the top. Here it shows our actor wearing his prop glasses, complete with makeup, an older jumper and some chinos which played quite well on camera because it wasn't to striking and made him fade into the background when he needed to.

Here is our child victims costume. We kept it fairly simple and quite girly but also used clashing colours and out there patterns to draw the whole focus to the little girl which was of course our victim and needed to stand out. As her face is not shown  there was no need for makeup and her hair was just kept simple down because it was easy for her face to be slightly hidden behind

Here is our mother character.  Like our chart we made we kept it fairly close to how we wanted our character to look, however we added a checkered skirt because it gave it a more undone and rough look, almost as if the character just threw on the clothes. Hair and makeup was kept very simple as this helped the character also blend into the background, it also gave the character a worn out and motherly look. We figured even if it doesn't come across as if the  actor is the mum her outfit, costume and makeup could account for some other relation like a sister.

Here is our 'Makeup Artist' applying products to create the look as if the  child has scrapped her hands while playing. To create this look we used "Gel Blush" and "Fake Blood" as it is obviously the most realistic thing to do. The 'Gel Blush' worked well to make it look like skin has been scraped off the palm but also that fresh blood is starting to seep out, the 'Fake Blood' then just intensified that look. To make it look a bit more realistic we rubbed dirt into the makeup to give it a muddy look but also as if dirt has been embeded in her hand when she fell.

Here is just a picture of how the hands looked on the actor in a close up shot. As its seen in this picture it looks quite realistic especially the actors left hand.

This just shows how the actors scrapped hands looked from  a fairly far away point. We liked the way it looked as it  didn't look to fake and bright red which fake blood tends to create.

Here is just a picture of the different props we used, which were not many. This included glasses, pen and a crossword puzzle, we did use tissues and plasters however they are not included in this picture.

Finally here is a picture showing our lighting and as it shows in the picture it was very sunny, this caused problems as we usually had to stop filming when shadows appeared as the camera crew would have been shown in the shadow. Luckily we were very cautious of when to film and how to balance out the light so the camera wasn't facing the sun.

For our sound we do not have photo evidence obviously however for the sound in our clip we had to be very weary of planes as they would fly over every minute or so. We were quite careful to when to film and how loudly we spoke to ensure the camera could here.

Test Shot Feedback!

We got our test shot feedback from peers which gave us a good idea of what people like about our shots and what we can change. This feedback was given shortly after our test shots were posted however we did not post it.


Shot 1: 
"We like the over shoulder shot" because it gave us a variety of different shots to make it diverse.


Shot 2:
"Too Shaky and made me feel a bit sick"- This issue could be solved by being steadier with the camera and possibly having a spotter to ensure our camera person is not in danger


Shot 3:
The variety of "different shot types were good especially when played after each other" because it gave a real feeling as if it was coming out of the characters eye, it also added tension


From getting feedback from our peers it has really made us take into consideration the way we can do things differently in our actual filming to ensure the best possible shots and to make sure the audience is comfortable watching it.

Practice Soundtrack for Opening Sequence!

Above is our final practice of our soundtrack we would like to use in our opening sequence.
From finding previous tracks we would like to use we chose 2 that particularly stood out to us. Heavy Water is what we decided for our base track as it is very sinister and is a good track to build tension. We also chose another track called Disoriented Long which we laid on top of 'Heavy Water' this track is again quite sinister but quite subtle which provide a great underlying atmosphere to the soundtrack. As a group we thought these track together are a great starting point to be playing throughout the whole sequence.
We then started looking for sounds that are very particular to our opening sequence for example, Child Giggling and Basement Hit FX. These two sounds work well in our sequence as they are needed to create the correct atmosphere but also shows obvious conventions of our sub genre- Psychological Thriller. We chose to practice these sounds as they will be two of the most important sounds we will use.  By laying the track over the base track we created if gave us an idea of how it will sound with the sounds we are also using.


By doing this practice we have got an idea of how our soundtrack will sound and after viewing our footage we filmed on Saturday it gave us a rough idea of if our soundtrack will suit our theme of movie but also be parellel to what is happening on-screen. 

Practicing Our Soundtrack

Before creating our actual soundtrack to compliment our opening sequence, we decided to create a practice version to learn about the effects we would probably use, at what point we would use them, and how to change/edit them.

Below is a picture of our progress during the making of our practice soundtrack:

From previously going on garage band, we discovered many sounds that would suit the thriller genre, and noted down the ones that would suit our story line best. We then laid these tracks down to produce our practice.

Opening Sequence Text Analysis!

As we are running up to the editing process of our opening sequence, we have started to look into the type of text used in the opening sequences of films in the same sub-genre as ours. Below is 3 different screen captures of different texts used in an opening sequence. We chose to analyse the movies 'One Hour Photo', 'Awake' and 'The Eye'.

This is the text for 'Awake'

Awake is one of the many movies that doesn't actually include the title while action is happening on-screen, this is quite common with most psychological thrillers we have looked at. 
The text used in this opening sequence is quite sophisticated and fairly square. As the movie about medical issues it could  represent the professionalism and high standards medical practise has. The text  was quite fast paced and only had a small gap between  the next set of words. Each credit was on screen for no longer than 3 seconds which could represent the urgency that medical based movies/TV has, especially because this movie is based around the urgency of a man while he is under anesthetic. Usually fast paced text is used mainly in action movies and rarely in psychological thrillers. The text pace was parallel to the music which was quite tense. This opening sequence did not have cast and crew credits which could link again into the professionalism of the theme.
We like this text as a group but think it could stand out as too professional and not match the intentions we want to get across to the audience.

 This is text from 'One Hour Photo'

In the opening credits for One Hour Photo, there is absolutely no cast or crew credits, this could be to draw all of your attention to the story line which is particularly clever especially if some psychological thrillers are confusing. As shown in the screen grab from the opening sequence the writing is rounded and the main focus on the screen this could be again to focus all your attention on the action on screen but also draws your attention closely to the name of the movie, this could be because it links into something important which is layed beneath the narrative. The numbers underneath the main title could represent a technical element to do with cameras or photos and could also be linked to the underlying narrative. Just like Awake the few credits given were fast paced and were also, not on the screen for longer than 3 seconds. The fast paced text could represent the way this movie is also a drama and can be quite fast paced and tense in some areas on the movie.


This is the text from 'The Eye'

The Eye was the only opening sequence we analysed which had cast and crew credits, this may be because the movie started off on a lighter tone when the credits started playing. The text used was very rounded and the first letter of each word put in bold, this may represent the theme of the visually impaired by making sure the letters are seen and standing out. The text is also very rounded which could represent  the rounded shape of braille which is used for visually impaired people to be able to read. The text shape and style was parallel to what was happening on screen as it was quite calm and the music fit in well. Unlike the other two movies we analysed the credits for this movie were very long, there was at least 5 seconds for each set of text to be on screen and about 5-6 seconds between each set of writing. This, again, was parallel to what was happening on screen as  it started off in slow motion and the music was serene. As a group we liked this approach much better as it gave the cast and crew almost an opportunity to be 'Showcased' not just at the end but at the beginning also. It also helps the audience appreciate the effort that has gone into making this movie.


We prefer as a group the long pauses and main cast and crew being credited, however we think that as we see our opening sequence come together it would be better to make a decision about the textual contents that matches our sub-genre, theme and plot but this has given us many ideas to consider using!

Photo Evidence of Filming!

Below are photographs of us filming are opening sequence. They include the most difficult angles to film, and shots of us filming in almost every part of our location.

This photograph is of us filming the the car scenes from a long distance. It was a slight low angle and was roughly 10-12 meters away from what we were filming.

In this photo, Hannah and Nellie are working out the angle for when they film the girl playing on the stepping stones.

Once again we were working out he height and angle of the camera.

This is a deep swing where we hid our equipment to make sure they were out of the frame during filming.

The wooden posts of which Nellie is sitting on, we hid the rest of our equipment e.g. the camera bag

When filming the girl falling over, we decided to use a medium shot to focus on the mother running over to her when she is on the floor.

To show the girls weakness and vulnerability, we decided to use a high angle shot from over the girls shoulder, as you can see in the photo.

This is a photograph of Paige filming a close up of the little girl's 'bleeding' hands. This indirectly shows the audience why the mother is running to the car for the tissues.

Here, Paige is experimenting with which side to film the shot on, taking into consideration how the girl was sitting and the position of the sun and shadowing on the girl.

When the man decided to lift of the bench and walk over to the girl, we used  medium/close shot as it was important to show exactly what the man was doing and to increase the tense mood.

This was probably the most risky shot as she could have fallen off. Hannah was filming whilst sitting on part of the climbing frame in the park. This was to show, once again, the girl's vulnerability.

This is preparing for the close of the mothers face when she realises that her daughter is missing.