Our brief was to construct the opening sequence of a thriller film, including titles and a wide range of camera shots. This opening sequence was to be aimed at audiences of 15 or 18 certificates and can be no more than 2:00 minutes long.
At first I analysed a number of different existing films within our set genre which was thriller to see what their techniques were in making an opening title sequence. Two of the opening title sequences I analysed was the famous thriller film "Psycho"and "Vertigo" directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock had Saul Bass to design the openings for those to films so I did some research on Saul Bass to find out what techniques he feels make a good opening title sequence and what ones he used on the two films. Saul Bass has inspired new films to used similar techniques in their openings for example "Casino Royale". The purpose of an opening title sequence is to leave subtle hints to what the film may include, creating an air of mystery or enigma code leaving the audience questioning about the plot. I and my group wanted to use techniques from the openings we analysed as we thought some were very effective. One I found very effective was in Vertigo where there is a close up of the women's eye and then it spirals to disorientate the audience. We thought this would be affective in our opening sequence so we used it at the beginning of ours. We got our production company name "Photo Play" at the beginning and we then rippled out from our logo into a lamp on the outside of a house. Although I and my group wanted to use some good techniques we have seen from other films we didn't want to go down the route that most people tend to go down by having as professionals would state it "A STALKER". We wanted our opening title sequence to be different and individual. We decided to make instead of a more typical opening title sequence being separate to the film, we chose to have the opening title sequence as the beginning of our film as we went for a flashback. The opening title sequence was a flashback of characters when they were younger and then after the opening title sequence finishes the film goes back to present day. We also used dialogue in our opening title sequence rather than the typical silence and background music. We did use music in our media product but we thought that the dialogue would create more effect on t he audience especially when the girl counting (played by Louise Howard) was saying "One, Two, Three..." We also added a screeching sound with some visual dialogue to draw the audience into the film saying the words associated with the film title "You can run but you can't hide". The thriller music we chose at first was home made music played on a piano by Scott Morgan who is m step brother but after editing it onto our film we decided it wasn’t really suitable and used some other music giving to us by our teacher that was copyright free.
Our opening title sequences is a flashback of a group of teenage girls having a childish game of hide and seek which then leads to a girl being locked in an old cupboard in the house by possibly a mystery killer? Or is it one of her friends playing a practical joke? We went for this because it leaves the audience feeling confused to what is happening and what might happen further in the film. The audience wants to see more which is what an opening title sequence is meant to do. Firstly after we decided on the plot of our film we discussed the location. Straight away we found the perfect location for our opening title sequence to be sat. We set it at my house as it is an old farm house down an old lane and old features inside to create more effects and it was also close by to everyone else in my group so meeting up and filming wouldn’t be an issue. We decided not to show any actual crime or violence in our opening title sequence as we thought it would look a bit amateur. I would say our film is mainly for teenagers as it starts with a bunch of teenagers at a sleep over so the audience can relate to them and what they are doing. Also as the storyline is quite confusing I think teenagers would be best suited to understanding the plot.
I think it shows the representation of my social group being teenagers in our film through the acting and age of our actors and also the way they behave in our opening. The age of our actors in our opening title sequence were 16 and 17 years of age so they relate back to the representation of the teenage social group.
We decided call our film "Hide & Seek" as we thought it was a catchy title and it would work well with the story line we originally found on the internet. The storyline we found was called "Bless You" a girl is wondering through the corridors of her home and sneezes and a voice says "Bless You" but she thought she was home alone? We wanted to make our set as realistic as possible so we used real items that people would have at a sleep over, laptop, make up for the girls, magazines and other house hold items. I took a number of location shots before we went to film to see what shots might work or might not work for our film. As an individual, I firstly didn't quite understand how our plot was going to work through a film and how we were going to get it across in our opening title sequence but as the weeks of planning went on my understanding became greater for filming in general and in how media works. One of the shots we included in our film was a close up of a girls face counting with her hands covering her eyes. The actor playing this girl was Louise Howard. We used this shot because it related back to our title and our opening sequence is based on a game of hide and seek. We used this shot a few times because we kept cutting back to her counting and we also cut to different shots of her friends hiding for example a shot of actor Matthew Granger hiding under a bed. We also used some visual dialogue during her counting of the words "You can run but you can’t hide". This was to attract the audience into the film and also the words again relate to our title.
I think it shows the representation of my social group being teenagers in our film through the acting and age of our actors and also the way they behave in our opening. The age of our actors in our opening title sequence were 16 and 17 years of age so they relate back to the representation of the teenage social group.
We decided call our film "Hide & Seek" as we thought it was a catchy title and it would work well with the story line we originally found on the internet. The storyline we found was called "Bless You" a girl is wondering through the corridors of her home and sneezes and a voice says "Bless You" but she thought she was home alone? We wanted to make our set as realistic as possible so we used real items that people would have at a sleep over, laptop, make up for the girls, magazines and other house hold items. I took a number of location shots before we went to film to see what shots might work or might not work for our film. As an individual, I firstly didn't quite understand how our plot was going to work through a film and how we were going to get it across in our opening title sequence but as the weeks of planning went on my understanding became greater for filming in general and in how media works. One of the shots we included in our film was a close up of a girls face counting with her hands covering her eyes. The actor playing this girl was Louise Howard. We used this shot because it related back to our title and our opening sequence is based on a game of hide and seek. We used this shot a few times because we kept cutting back to her counting and we also cut to different shots of her friends hiding for example a shot of actor Matthew Granger hiding under a bed. We also used some visual dialogue during her counting of the words "You can run but you can’t hide". This was to attract the audience into the film and also the words again relate to our title.
When our film was near completion, I started to research into what production company I would like to produce our film. If we had loads and loads of money i would love to distribute our film with an American Company and make it global in cinemas. I would possibly work with "Twisted pictures" which is known for its large production of thriller films. "Universal" would be another option because it is well known world wide for its dramatic and outstanding film production. But as we only have a small amount of money and our budget is only little we are going for an independent film production we will only distribute our film locally and will only look to draw small audiences rather than global audiences. One group I found which was only an independent film distributing company was Warp Films. Warp films is a film production company that specialises in British Cinema and it was launched in 2001. It is based in, England and Sheffield, with a further office now in Melbourne. London. One of their films that they have worked on to produce was "This Is England" by Shane Meadows. Small independent companies have got many ways of distributing films. One way i would possibly distribute our film is by "Film4" as they welcome small amateur ideas in film. But as there is now many easier ways of viewing films i would possibly post it online on the internet rather than in local cinemas. I could post it on YouTube which is a global video website or if i wanted to keep it even closer to home I could post the video on Facebook so that my friends can view and comment our short film. I would want to distribute my film because I would like to see what people think about our film and comment on it saying good points and bad points. One point made by a member of our audience was that they thought our opening title sequence reminded them a lot like a trailer which was a fair point in my opinion. The reason he said this was because of the way our opening sequence ended with the zooming out of the lamp to the establishing shot of the house. But as our opening is a flashback it then from that shot changes from night to day and changes to the present time when the teenagers are now older. And also I feel that I and the group worked to hard on it for it not to be shown to an audience.
Our brief stated that our opening title sequence had to be a thriller for the age certificate 15 or 18. We decided to make our certificate 15 because we didn’t use any violence of horror effects in our opening title sequence also in the rest of the film we weren’t going to use any either as a theme our film was based around was dark magic. Also i think this age category would be reasonable for the understanding of our plot. Also our characters were teenagers. The age of the actors also relate modern day society which is our target audience.
We attracted the audience in our opening sequence by using a number of different camera shot, background music, special effects like rippling edits and visual dialogue and confusing plot from the start. The title of our film is "Hide & Seek". This itself attracts the audience to want to watch our film as it is short and simple yet very catchy and effective. Also everyone knows how to play the game hide and seek so the audience can relate to the title and our twisted, mind challenging plot all begins due to a harmless game of hide and seek. We added our title into our opening title sequence because we wanted to add some visual addressing to the audience. As well as the audience watching the opening title sequence and taking in the verbal dialogue from the actors they also have to read what is being displayed on the screen in front of them.
We went for a very simple title name and also a very simple title logo which appeared on screen.
We thought having the title simply coming up on the screen would be good for the audience because it was simply writing on a black screen. Simple but effective. I feel that it is effective because there is nothing else that catches your attention or draws you away from the title.
We also came up with a production name "Photo Play Productions". We came up with this name because it is related to film making and it was also a quick and easy one to sort out as we were very busy with editing the film when coming up with the name. The production name is simple and basic which i think is a very good thing because it is easy for the audience to remember which will help them to remember the film. This could eventually help our audience numbers to increase.
When making this film I learnt alot of technolgies for film making. I learnt that one of the first things you have to do in order for the film to work was to collect all our ideas together and put them all down on the table and have a group discussion on what storyline we are going to do and how we are going to do it. When we were put into our groups we instantly had our story of "Hide & Seek" and it was simply a matter of working together as a team and making it happen. Before we started filming we decided on what roles to take on in our group. Rachel was the director, Ellie was props and mise-en-scene and storyboarding, Josh was working with Ellie and I was producer. Ellie and Josh were in charge of drawing the storyboards as they were both suitable for the job. I learnt how do draw up a storyboard and how important they are to the editing and filming process. Our storyboard was our plot of "Hide & Seek". I also learnt how to write up a shot list and it was my role to write ours up for the group. A shot list is basically a list of the shot type and the order that you will shoot them on filming day to make things a little bit easier when it comes to filming.
We decided to name our fiilm "Hide & Seek" as it resembled our storyline and it did not distract the audience from the film itself. This way we might possibly attract bigger audiences as they have more interest in the film. I learnt how t use the cameras and I learnt all about different types of camera shots, angles and movements and we used alot of these in our filming. One of the shots we used in our filming was a close up of the cupboard with the ribbon being tide around the handles. We thought this was a really important shot because it is the main feature to our opening title sequence biscise the game of hide and seek. It was the shot showing the girl getting locked in and we do not know who this person is. Another feature of this shot is that it is showing no violence and our flm did not include any viloance what so ever. We then cut from this close up to a medium shot of the cupboard with the ribbon tide around it and the girl trapped inside screaming and bashing the doors trying to escape.
The original music we had for the film was homemade. It was music we recorded off my step brother playing this erie track on the piano but later after editing it onto the film it really wasnt the right pace or tone for the plot. We then got some none copy-righted music of our teacher and we had a listen to a few of them and then later added the song which is now our backing music.
Throughout making this film I believe that my group and myself have learnt all about team work and a number of ceative skills in order to make our film. You have to discuss objectives, targets, and outcomes of the task. When looking back to the beginning and my preliminary task I can see that I have progressed alot. I have learnt many different techniques that will help me alot if I am to take media and filming further in the future. It has giving me a good introduction and basic knowlegde in what filming and making films is all about. We hit alot of problems along the way. One major problem we had was comitment. We planned to film on one weekend and get it all done so that we could get on with the editing but nothing ever came of the situation. Eventually we all came together as a team to get the opening title sequence for a thriller done. When first getting the task I under estimated how much pre-production research had to be done and it has made me realise how much work has to go into making just a two minite film. You have to discuss objectives, targets, and outcomes of the task. Overal I think I did pull my weight alot into the making of our film and have gained alot of skills such as team work and creative skills in this area of media.
