There are three theorys produced to help explain the purpose of
character in films. These fall under Vladimur Propp's theory, Todorovs
Theory and Aristotle's theory.
Propp's theory is mainly
seen in fairy tales and make believe where there are eight clear
characters that contain different functions in order to make the film
work properly. He believes that in such thing as a fairy tale, for
example, Shrek, there should be a hero, villian, donor, dispatched,
false hero, helper, princess and father. This is not relevant to a
thriller because you will not find these sort of characters within them,
this theory is suitable for a fairy tale and often animations/cartoons
because it helps it function and unbelievable, it wont be found in a
thriller because thrillers can be based on something that could happen
and to help create a sense of reality, if thrillers used Propp's theory
there would be no reality to any of the situations.
Another
theory that has been made is by Tadorov. This theory is based upon
equilibrium and disequilibrium. Equilibrium is where everything is as it
should be, where as disequilibrium is the complete opposite and full of
disruption.
Lastly, Aristotle came up with another
theory. He believed in each film there should be inciting incident,
dramatic question, character goal, antagonistic/protagonist, stakes,
resolution, sympathy and empathy. These elements help produce a lot of
insight as to what makes a good thriller as it can often be a realistic
approach because the elements used creates the 3 S', shock, surprise and
suspense.
The theory of which our narrative falls
into is Todorovs. This is because the narrative at first comes across as
quiet normal, the scene will be set in is something that has a lot of
reality to it and and therefore comes across as everything as it should
be however the clip takes a turn for the worse because there are murders
involved which proves that everything isn't how it should be and
therefore because our opening clip will be like this, it goes with
Todorovs theory.
Sunday, 29 December 2013
Planning group story board - Miss Miller
A group story board is a guideline for cinematography, iconography, editing and lighting will be used within our opening sequence for a thriller. In order to get these ideas together for our group story board, my group and I first had to look at our own and each others individual story board so that we could discuss the idea's in order to make a successful group story board.
My group and I created this group story board and included specific elements from each others individual story boards because we felt it would create a successful group story board. For example, on the first sheet on the first camera angle, Vasil suggested that we do an eye level camera shot because we felt it showed the audience an approachable character by having it at eye level allows the audience to build a relationship with the character. Also, Vasil suggested that we use low key lighting in this shot, and because this is the first scene used the use of low key lighting could be a metaphor for how the film's going to be quiet dark and mysterious, so George and I felt this would be a particularly good thing to include in our group story board.
George helped to create a fantastic element to add in our group story board shown on the last sheet on the first one on the right where the husband comes face to face with his dead wife. He said it would create a lot of tension because there would be silence leading to this point so the audience would be feeling tense and nervous, so it would be achieving typical conventions of a thriller such as shock, surprise and suspense. We decided to use a close up at this point because close ups show the facial expression and emotion that a character either is or isn't feeling. George suggested that by using this at this point in our group story board it would be very effective and engage the audience because they wouldn't expect it so Vasil and I felt this would be a good feature to include in our group story board.
Lastly, I took from my individual story board an idea to include in the group story board which can be seen on the last sheet on the last camera angle which was to have a close up of the killers face for a brief moment and the reason for this is to finish the opening sequence off with a shock to the audience and to in force the theme of fear and enigma in it. Vasil and George wanted this in our group story board as they felt this was a strong idea to include and help made the thriller more realistic because the audience are therefore able to match the killer with a face, even if it is a mask. Often 'less is more' as it leaves to the imagination, and in most circumstances with thrillers this would be perfect to use, but we felt that as a group it would be the most effective to link an image with our killer as we felt it would create more of a relationship between the audience and the killer.
Looking at each others story board contributed to a large part of our opening sequence as it was stable and strong. Being able to reflect on our story board allowed us to work well together and produce a strong piece of work because the story board gave us our 'guide lines' as such in order to make sure our opening sequence made sense and to keep our trail of thought tracked so we were able to expand on our ideas each time we meet and explore different techniques using each others ideas. I believe our story board shows a confident piece of work with creative ideas and skills that we have all learned. However, if there were an opportunity to redo this task I would change the narrative description so there was a clear and in depth annotation of each camera shot to show that as a group we were able to understand what the techniques we want to include will do to the audience and to show that we are able to use a wide variety of different elements that are conventional to a thriller in order to show clear understanding of why we used these techniques.
My group and I created this group story board and included specific elements from each others individual story boards because we felt it would create a successful group story board. For example, on the first sheet on the first camera angle, Vasil suggested that we do an eye level camera shot because we felt it showed the audience an approachable character by having it at eye level allows the audience to build a relationship with the character. Also, Vasil suggested that we use low key lighting in this shot, and because this is the first scene used the use of low key lighting could be a metaphor for how the film's going to be quiet dark and mysterious, so George and I felt this would be a particularly good thing to include in our group story board.
George helped to create a fantastic element to add in our group story board shown on the last sheet on the first one on the right where the husband comes face to face with his dead wife. He said it would create a lot of tension because there would be silence leading to this point so the audience would be feeling tense and nervous, so it would be achieving typical conventions of a thriller such as shock, surprise and suspense. We decided to use a close up at this point because close ups show the facial expression and emotion that a character either is or isn't feeling. George suggested that by using this at this point in our group story board it would be very effective and engage the audience because they wouldn't expect it so Vasil and I felt this would be a good feature to include in our group story board.
Lastly, I took from my individual story board an idea to include in the group story board which can be seen on the last sheet on the last camera angle which was to have a close up of the killers face for a brief moment and the reason for this is to finish the opening sequence off with a shock to the audience and to in force the theme of fear and enigma in it. Vasil and George wanted this in our group story board as they felt this was a strong idea to include and help made the thriller more realistic because the audience are therefore able to match the killer with a face, even if it is a mask. Often 'less is more' as it leaves to the imagination, and in most circumstances with thrillers this would be perfect to use, but we felt that as a group it would be the most effective to link an image with our killer as we felt it would create more of a relationship between the audience and the killer.
Looking at each others story board contributed to a large part of our opening sequence as it was stable and strong. Being able to reflect on our story board allowed us to work well together and produce a strong piece of work because the story board gave us our 'guide lines' as such in order to make sure our opening sequence made sense and to keep our trail of thought tracked so we were able to expand on our ideas each time we meet and explore different techniques using each others ideas. I believe our story board shows a confident piece of work with creative ideas and skills that we have all learned. However, if there were an opportunity to redo this task I would change the narrative description so there was a clear and in depth annotation of each camera shot to show that as a group we were able to understand what the techniques we want to include will do to the audience and to show that we are able to use a wide variety of different elements that are conventional to a thriller in order to show clear understanding of why we used these techniques.
Questionnaire - Miss Miller
Voxpop 1: http://youtu.be/8j9n91jS7pg
In order to get a better understanding of what type of things to include in my opening sequence, my group and I carried out a questionnaire answered by an audience consisting of the ages 15+ who happen to also be the target audience for our opening sequence. The questions that were are will be listed below and then discussed accordingly to the results of our questionnaire.
In order to get a better understanding of what type of things to include in my opening sequence, my group and I carried out a questionnaire answered by an audience consisting of the ages 15+ who happen to also be the target audience for our opening sequence. The questions that were are will be listed below and then discussed accordingly to the results of our questionnaire.
We asked 40 people to answer this questionnaire from the age range of 15+. Despite our target audience being 15, we felt that by gaining the opinions of an older audience would help us to deliver a powerful piece of work when our opening sequence was finished and therefore we valued each persons opinions and took it all into consideration. However, the majority of people who answered our questionnaire are outside of our target audience and therefore this may affect our results greatly as we may make decision that may not always appeal purely to our preferred target audience.
In the chart shown below it shows that the majority of the people asked where men, 17 female and 23 male. This makes a huge impact to the results for our questionnaire as stereotypically men are said to be more brave and more able to therefore watch thrillers than women as women are perceived to be weak and scared easily. This means that our results may cause for our opening sequence to be more violent and brutal because the results conclude that there is a high tolerance in our audience being able to watch a more fierce thriller. Therefore my group and I have decided to pay particular attention to females opinions too so that there is an even balance and so that our opening sequence is appealing to both genders of our target audience. For example in our opening sequence we had planned to show the blood of our victim, however, after viewing the results of the questionnaire we felt we would our audiences view into consideration and change this so that the intention of the scene and shock would still be there, but the way in which it will be shown isn't so graphic.
Having looked at our questionnaire, it was obvious that not everyone has watched a thriller because the genre doesn't appeal to them, therefore my group and I felt it would show understanding to these people by including this option of telling us if they had ever watched a thriller movie. By doing this, we was able to clarify the people that would be able to give accurate results based on their own beliefs, rather than someone randomly selecting options for the sake of filling out our important questionnaire that helps us research what our target audience would like to see in our opening sequence of a thriller. We felt it would also be good to ask this to our audience because we want our thriller to appeal to everyone, and change those minds of not wanting to seeing a thriller. We felt by seeing the 5% who had not yet viewed a thriller, we could incorporate ideas that would help engage them and ultimately help our opening sequence be successful.
By asking our audience if they enjoyed thrillers, it would help us to gather a good understanding of how our audience would feel towards a thriller. If, like the12 out of the 40 people dislike thriller movies, then my group and I would like to include features in our opening sequence in order to make it an enjoyable experience for our audience. If , like 28 out of the 40 do enjoy thrillers then it makes our job to produce a successful opening sequence slightly easier as it means that the audience going in to watch it are more open minded to watching our opening sequence. We plan on making our opening sequence more enjoyable for the percentage that don't enjoy thrillers because we know to include characters that our audience can relate to more, therefore making the experience of watching our opening sequence of a thriller more enjoyable because the characters will be more approachable.
Moving onto asking the next question of 'if you were to direct a thriller, what would your target audience be' contained a variety of results; the purple is for 15, blue is for 12A and green is for 18.We felt that by using this closed question it would help us to get specific answers and therefore would be more effective and easier for us to know what to do when it comes to our opening sequence. Asking this question allows us to get a rough idea as to what kind of thriller we will be making, for example the results show that the most popular target audience is 15 which has been selected by the majority of the people that answered our questionnaire, we can infer from this that by choosing our target audience to be 15, we would get far more views than if we were to target an older audience. However, by choosing such a young target audience, it means we have to be careful as to what we include in our opening sequence because otherwise some scenes could contain things unsuitable for 15.
In the below question I believed this would be an effective, open question to ask. It gives our audience the opportunity to give their opinion into what type of thriller they'd be interested in watching so that we could take inspiration from them and apply it to our work. This means that our opening sequence would have elements suggested by the audience and would ultimately mean that it would engage them and because it is their suggestion, they would therefore want to watch our thriller. Also, by getting an insight as to what our audience enjoys and what they would include in their own opening sequence if they were to make one, it allows us to get a better audience. Our audience selected that the setting of which they would use is a house. Due to this research, my group and I will make sure the main setting is a house, we feel that this would be a strong feature to use as it suggests vulnerability because a house is typically seen as a secure place where people feel safe, so by using a house it shocks the audience and can therefore make them feel vulnerable as most people are able to relate to the safety they feel when they're at home, and for something in our thriller to make them question their security in their own home means that we were able to successfully use the setting of a home to our advantage in order to make our thriller stronger.
To conclude, as shown in the above results, there is a variety of open and closed questions. For example, the open questions used are 'What setting would you personally use in a thriller?', and 'if you were to direct a thriller, what would your target audience be?' We used these open questions as it gives the people asked, the opportunity to voice their own opinion in which we would gather their choice and incorporate into our final product. As well as asking some open questions, we also felt that asking closed questions would be good because this means the answers were specific and straight to the point, ultimately allowing us to gather the results quickly and effectively. Ultimately, doing this questionnaire has helped my group and I to gather interesting ideas and helped us to see areas in which we can expand on in our opening sequence so that our thriller contains shock, surprise and suspense and therefore be successful.
Filming Schedule - Miss Georgiou
A filming schedule is something extremely important to have during the time of producing something. In this case, my group and I are producing an opening sequence to a thriller with our own unique ideas put together. Filming Schedule's are important to have as they indicate specific place and a helpful guide as to the place that we will shoot our opening sequence. The Filming Schedule allows us to get a clear understanding of what to do during our filming, as well as allowing us to remember each detail of where certain shots are filmed and the location of everything.
During the filming schedule, we followed every step precisely and exact in order for us to end with a successful final product. We followed the schedule because our group did lack organisation and arrangements, so therefore because we had the schedule we were able to maintain our time and be organised throughout the whole filming process. I feel that the filming schedule was extremely significant whilst we produced our film as without it, it would have taken a lot longer to get to the final result.
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During the filming schedule, we followed every step precisely and exact in order for us to end with a successful final product. We followed the schedule because our group did lack organisation and arrangements, so therefore because we had the schedule we were able to maintain our time and be organised throughout the whole filming process. I feel that the filming schedule was extremely significant whilst we produced our film as without it, it would have taken a lot longer to get to the final result.
Risk Assessment - Miss Georgiou
By creating a risk assessment, my group and I were able to identify any issues that could face us during filming and cause harm to one of the actors or anyone else who took part in the production roles. Risk assessments demonstrate the potential hazards that could take part, and allow us to get rid of them before they have the chance to cause an harm, and therefore allows us to be free of an harm and be secure as a result of it.
Listed below are the hazards that my group and I may come across when filming, so we came together and discussed what hazards we may face during filming and came up together with effective solutions to get rid of any danger that had the potential of facing us.
After we had done our filming we notices that we hadn't listed all of the risks that we could have faced. For example, when our male character is driving the camera could have been distracting due to the constant change of camera angles and camera shots and this could have created an accident. Therefore, during filming we stopped and came up with the solution of going to a quieter road and driving slightly slower, therefore allowing us to get successful shots and scenes from the male character driving.
Without having done the risk assessment, we wouldn't have been so aware so to what dangers may have or did face us. After analysing all places of filming and seeing what needed to be paid attention with regards to safety, we were able to continue with a successful final product as our opening sequence as our filming went very smoothly because of the risk assessment.
Production Roles - Miss Miller
In the process of creating a film production, there are allocated roles with responsibilities in order to make sure the film being worked on is successful. Having a variety of roles for different people allows a less stressful time for each individual, and is alternatively quicker than having the same person for every single role. Also, having different roles for different people allows the quality of the work to be at a high standard too because there is divided attention to every detail within the prd.
Producer -Prepare and then supervise the making of a film before presenting the product to a financing entity or a film distributor. They might be employed by a film studio or be independent, yet either way they helm the creative people as well as the accounting personnel.
Directors- The Director is the driving creative force in a film's production, and acts as the crucial link between the production, technical and creative teams. Directors are responsible for creatively translating the film's written script into actual images and sounds on the screen
Actors- Persons who perform in a film, programme or on stage.
Director of photography- the person who is responsible for all operations concerning camera work and lighting during the production of a film.
Sound Technicians-alter and balance the levels of different sounds that are recorded
Screenplay Writer-A screenwriter or scriptwriter or scenarist is a writer who practises the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media such as films, television programs, comics or video games are based.
Editors-the activity of selecting the scenes to be shown and putting them together to create a film
When my group and I started to produce our opening credits we used a wide range of variety of names that we made up so that the same three names do no keep repeating themselves. However, despite the use of all the different names, we have all taken the responsibilities of each role and shared them equally so that it also doesn't look unproffesional or low budget.
I have been allocated the role of Mise-en-scene coordinator. I put myself forward for this role because I'm a creative person and therefore I believed that I would achieve the best for the group in this section of production. My group trusted me to look after things and keep the group organized with bringing different props and taking control of hair and make up. Hair and make up is crucial in our thriller as without the ideal appearance, the genre of our opening sequence may be unclear. This way I was able to dress our characters according to the atmosphere that my group and I have created and being able to look at make up for the characters meant that it would allow our targeted audience to warm towards our victims which is important because it helps our opening sequence to be successful because the audience would have created a relationship with the characters. I wasn't allocated the role of director, editor or producer because my leadership skills are strong, but not as strong as the boys so we felt that therefore the boys would produce the better role.
Producer -Prepare and then supervise the making of a film before presenting the product to a financing entity or a film distributor. They might be employed by a film studio or be independent, yet either way they helm the creative people as well as the accounting personnel.
Directors- The Director is the driving creative force in a film's production, and acts as the crucial link between the production, technical and creative teams. Directors are responsible for creatively translating the film's written script into actual images and sounds on the screen
Actors- Persons who perform in a film, programme or on stage.
Director of photography- the person who is responsible for all operations concerning camera work and lighting during the production of a film.
Sound Technicians-alter and balance the levels of different sounds that are recorded
Screenplay Writer-A screenwriter or scriptwriter or scenarist is a writer who practises the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media such as films, television programs, comics or video games are based.
Editors-the activity of selecting the scenes to be shown and putting them together to create a film
When my group and I started to produce our opening credits we used a wide range of variety of names that we made up so that the same three names do no keep repeating themselves. However, despite the use of all the different names, we have all taken the responsibilities of each role and shared them equally so that it also doesn't look unproffesional or low budget.
I have been allocated the role of Mise-en-scene coordinator. I put myself forward for this role because I'm a creative person and therefore I believed that I would achieve the best for the group in this section of production. My group trusted me to look after things and keep the group organized with bringing different props and taking control of hair and make up. Hair and make up is crucial in our thriller as without the ideal appearance, the genre of our opening sequence may be unclear. This way I was able to dress our characters according to the atmosphere that my group and I have created and being able to look at make up for the characters meant that it would allow our targeted audience to warm towards our victims which is important because it helps our opening sequence to be successful because the audience would have created a relationship with the characters. I wasn't allocated the role of director, editor or producer because my leadership skills are strong, but not as strong as the boys so we felt that therefore the boys would produce the better role.
We decided to allocate the role of director to Vasil because my group and I felt that he was the strongest speaker and was able to give clear direction to each role, Vasil is also very good at group work and conjuring creative and original idea's, so therefore my group and I felt that it would be Vasil's best suited role during this production. We also assigned the role of producer with Vasil as we felt he worked well and under pressure and produces affective results, however there was lack of orginisation and if the opportunity presented itself to re-do things in our production, Vasil would not have been handed such difficult tasks and my group and I feel partly responsible for this for perhaps our lack of communication with Vasil, but if there had of been an issue, he should have come forward and spoken to the group and I about this so we could resolve the issue quickly and effectively. Despite the clear lack of orginisation, Vasil achieved well for our group and so I am happy that our group allocated these roles to him.
Lastly, my group and I believed George would suit the role of producer, editor and sound technician. George nominated himself for these roles and we felt it would be best he done these roles due to his knowledge and background in these areas and would therefore produce the best results from this. George supplied the production with some excellent skills that he has learned and therefore applied to our production. I believe these roles were best suited particularly to George because he showed a lot of enthusiasm in doing these and making our opening sequence to the best that it could be, and actually, our production is very successful due to his work therefore Vasil and I were more than happy with allocating these roles to George.
I believe as a group, we worked together and bounced off each others idea's to create a successful opening sequence. As a group we were able to apply different skills that we have all learned and was able to make improvements to each others work with constructive criticism and therefore ended up with a successful end result. However, despite how our group functioned and worked well together, there were a few hiccups and if done again I would suggest more people in the production roles as it was stressful to share the roles equally without certain members being under more stress than the others. Also, I believe we would re arrange the role for Vasil as we know it was difficult for him to supply the group with his usual standard work and therefore his role with George fell more onto George as he then had double the work to do, so this was unfair. I'd also liked to have been allocated more roles in our production as despite my role of MES coordinator being a big role, I felt that my presence was slightly dismissed and so if done again, I would have requested more roles to feel like I had contributed more to the group as my lack of roles meant that I wasn't able to include as much work as the others. But I am happy with our group and it was pleasant to work with them, and I am happy with our end result.
Lastly, my group and I believed George would suit the role of producer, editor and sound technician. George nominated himself for these roles and we felt it would be best he done these roles due to his knowledge and background in these areas and would therefore produce the best results from this. George supplied the production with some excellent skills that he has learned and therefore applied to our production. I believe these roles were best suited particularly to George because he showed a lot of enthusiasm in doing these and making our opening sequence to the best that it could be, and actually, our production is very successful due to his work therefore Vasil and I were more than happy with allocating these roles to George.
I believe as a group, we worked together and bounced off each others idea's to create a successful opening sequence. As a group we were able to apply different skills that we have all learned and was able to make improvements to each others work with constructive criticism and therefore ended up with a successful end result. However, despite how our group functioned and worked well together, there were a few hiccups and if done again I would suggest more people in the production roles as it was stressful to share the roles equally without certain members being under more stress than the others. Also, I believe we would re arrange the role for Vasil as we know it was difficult for him to supply the group with his usual standard work and therefore his role with George fell more onto George as he then had double the work to do, so this was unfair. I'd also liked to have been allocated more roles in our production as despite my role of MES coordinator being a big role, I felt that my presence was slightly dismissed and so if done again, I would have requested more roles to feel like I had contributed more to the group as my lack of roles meant that I wasn't able to include as much work as the others. But I am happy with our group and it was pleasant to work with them, and I am happy with our end result.
Director; Vasil Nikolov
Mise-en-scene coordinator; Danniella Cross
Producers; George Miller, Vasil Nikolov
Websites that have helped me in my research for this post:
http://www.creativeskillset.org/film/jobs/direction/article_3880_1.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_producer
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/director+of+photography
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/sound-engineer
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/film+editing
Mise-en-scene coordinator; Danniella Cross
Producers; George Miller, Vasil Nikolov
Websites that have helped me in my research for this post:
http://www.creativeskillset.org/film/jobs/direction/article_3880_1.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_producer
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/director+of+photography
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/sound-engineer
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/film+editing
Friday, 27 December 2013
Planning Editing Styles - Miss Georgiou
Editing styles within a thriller is important because it helps capture the audiences attention and allows us to demonstrate the three important elements of a thriller which are: shock, suspense and surprise. Editing styles also allow us to portray different emotions of characters and how they may view things for example when a low angle is used and to edit this, something like jump cut would be used and this is to create impact. In our thriller we will use four types of editing which will be listed below.
One editing style that my group and I will be using is fade. We believe that this will be effective to use as an editing style within our opening sequence for a thriller because we have seen it used in other successful thrillers and we believe that it signifies danger and warns the audience that something bad is going to happen, this prepares them for shock because of the tension that we have created. We have used fade towards the end of our opening sequence when Dave is in his car and the killer pops up next to him but from outside of the car and the effect this creates allows the audience to feel tense and experience suspense that my group and I have created. The use of fade in our opening sequence allows us to incorporate different elements of suspense, shock and surprise so we felt it would help us to include this type of editing.
Something else that my group and I included in our opening sequence is slow editing. We have used slow editing when Stacey is walking towards her bedroom door but is aware that the person behind it isn't who she would like it to be. The slow editing emphasizes impact because the audience are able to pay attention to every important details of the scene and capturing reactions from Stacey who is the killers first victim. This also helps creates a relationship between the audience and her character because we are able to see her fate before she is able to herself, therefore allowing the audience to feel sympathetic towards Stacey. The use of slow editing is conventional to a thriller as it is something that helps convey the theme of fear and so we felt that this would be an effective feature to use in our own opening sequence.
My group and I also used jump cut in our opening sequence. This is evident in the scene where Dave returns home and enters the house, unbeknown to him that his killer is watching his every move and planning when to attack. This therefore allows the audience to build a relationship with Dave as they can see what's going to happen and want to warn him of the upcoming events leading to his death, yet they are unable to do so therefore proving that jump cut is an important feature for us to include as not only is it conventional to a thriller, but it also makes the audience feel scared as to what's going to happen and focuses the audience on the bad events that are about to take place.
My group and I believe that by using these types of editing styles, it will help us to engage our audience and make them want to know what's going to happen to each character and to become familiar with specific objects or characteristics of our victims and killer.
One editing style that my group and I will be using is fade. We believe that this will be effective to use as an editing style within our opening sequence for a thriller because we have seen it used in other successful thrillers and we believe that it signifies danger and warns the audience that something bad is going to happen, this prepares them for shock because of the tension that we have created. We have used fade towards the end of our opening sequence when Dave is in his car and the killer pops up next to him but from outside of the car and the effect this creates allows the audience to feel tense and experience suspense that my group and I have created. The use of fade in our opening sequence allows us to incorporate different elements of suspense, shock and surprise so we felt it would help us to include this type of editing.
Something else that my group and I included in our opening sequence is slow editing. We have used slow editing when Stacey is walking towards her bedroom door but is aware that the person behind it isn't who she would like it to be. The slow editing emphasizes impact because the audience are able to pay attention to every important details of the scene and capturing reactions from Stacey who is the killers first victim. This also helps creates a relationship between the audience and her character because we are able to see her fate before she is able to herself, therefore allowing the audience to feel sympathetic towards Stacey. The use of slow editing is conventional to a thriller as it is something that helps convey the theme of fear and so we felt that this would be an effective feature to use in our own opening sequence.
My group and I also used jump cut in our opening sequence. This is evident in the scene where Dave returns home and enters the house, unbeknown to him that his killer is watching his every move and planning when to attack. This therefore allows the audience to build a relationship with Dave as they can see what's going to happen and want to warn him of the upcoming events leading to his death, yet they are unable to do so therefore proving that jump cut is an important feature for us to include as not only is it conventional to a thriller, but it also makes the audience feel scared as to what's going to happen and focuses the audience on the bad events that are about to take place.
My group and I believe that by using these types of editing styles, it will help us to engage our audience and make them want to know what's going to happen to each character and to become familiar with specific objects or characteristics of our victims and killer.
Monday, 2 December 2013
Planning opening credits - Miss Georgiou
Opening credits are important in a film because it introduces each actor/actress and gives credit to the people involved in the creating of a film. Opening credits also inform the audience what the film's about too. Opening credits are also important because if a specific director is known for a specific genre then it helps inform the audience who it is therefore indicating what the genre of the film is. My group and I have watched various opening credits clips in order to get some inspirations for our own opening credits in the opening sequence which will later be discussed.
Se7en Analysis
In the above clip showing the opening credits for 'Se7en' I found that the colour scheme used is mainly based upon grey scale with red occasionally contrasting, pulling the attention of the audience closer to focus on the red stained features of the opening credits. The scheme of colours used within these opening credits convey a grim and dull theme, perhaps a metaphor for how a life may be seen, that all life had been taken from it.
In se7en there is a clear theme portrayed through the style of credits. For example the credits come across as handwritten and sharp suggesting that perhaps the person writing these is angry and contains a lot of hate, this indicates that this is thriller and therefore makes the audience weary of the person writing this. Also, the credits are flickering showing not only the anger but the instability of the persons mindset doing it, however we could also infer from this that this is like a victims life how it's unpredictable and unstable because they could die at any moment. Something else that expresses a particular theme or emotion through the credits is the use of mostly white writing against the black background which is used to enforce the contrast between justice and evil.
The order of appearance in these opening credits show who has played each role and helped produces the film, in these opening credits the order of appearance of roles goes in: Company name, two actors, director, music, costumes, editors, production, camera operators, co-producer, producer, writing, director. This helps create a successful opening credits for an opening sequence, which is evidently the case in these opening credits for se7en.
Lastly in opening credits, there are often conventions of thrillers found in them. In this case for se7en, there is a consistent use of flashes with no identity shown, creating a sense of enigma. This helps the audience get a rough idea that the film is a thriller and that there will be a theme of enigma that runs through out the film because they will be unaware of a mystery person and what their plots are. There's use of iconography in the background under the credits, (scissors) which is sharp and can be deadly, therefore representing a convention of a thriller. Also, there's a lot of shadows and eerie music, this suggests and emphasises as discussed earlier the use of enigma ultimately proving that there are strong conventions of thrillers included in the opening credits for se7en. The dark, eerie music pre-warns the audience that something bad is going to happen and gives them a sense of foreboding.
Own Analysis
To carry on my research into opening credits to get some inspirations on what to include in my groups piece of work, I looked at the 'Black Swan' opening credits. Looking at the colour scheme of these opening credits, there is the use of very dull colours, such as black, beige, grey and mesh colour. This could be a metaphor for how the main characters life is, very dull, and the use of some of the dark colours such as black indicate that there could be a streak of badness or weakness on the main character. The slightly lighter colours such as beige does stand out against the dim background, however it is interesting that there is no white used. I can infer from the use of not using white (often associated with purity and innocence) shows that there is lack of innocence and that there is something wrong, therefore informing the audience about this and allowing them to know that there is a dark element in this film that they are about to watch.
I also saw the style of the credits and what ideas they convey to the targeted audience. There is a difference between the previous opening credits looked at in 'se7en' and 'black swan' this is because the writing is typed and clean cut, all in capital letters. This conveys the idea that the person in control of doing this comes across as strong and firm, but the capital letters used suggest that this person has a lot of anger. Also, the writing fades out blurrily, this suggests that the film could include a lot of maybe confusion, again pre warning the audience.
The order of appearance in these opening credits show who has played each role and helped produces the film, in these opening credits the order of appearance of roles goes in: Company name, two actors, director, music, costumes, editors, production, camera operators, co-producer, producer, writing, director. This helps create a successful opening credits for an opening sequence, which is evidently the case in these opening credits for black swan.
The opening credits for black swan also contain a lot of conventions of a thriller. For example, the music used at first comes across as soft and relaxing, yet as the opening credits progresses it changes to up beat and aggressive, making the audience feel tense as they continue on to watching the film. Also, there is no identity showing in the opening credits, just a hand drawing at first thin lines delicately, and then later on faster and more agggressively due to the faster pace music, this conveys the theme of hidden intentiy in this thriller. Something else that contributes to the conventions of a thriller in the opening credits is the fact that there is someone defacing something with chalk, I believe this is because the person is trying to express their anger, the fact that the audience do not see what the character is writing emphasises that there is an element of enigma.
Own Idea's
When my group and I make our own opening credits, we thought it would be wise if we included features such as similar credits to the writing used in se7en. By showing that the credits will be hand written shows that there is a sense of anger, which is conventional to a thriller and we want to do this because we feel it will help portray the genre of our opening credits to the audience so they know what kind of film they will be watching. Also, we thought it would come across at a proffesional level if we took inspirations from various film clips in order to create a successful piece of work, we also would like to include a dark background so that the audience can see that our thriller, if made into a film, would be very dark and scary. We feel that by using hand written credits on top of a dim background helps rise the level of shock, suspense and surprise in our opening sequence and therefore create a more effective reaction from the audience when events happen in our opening sequence with conventional opening credits running through out.
We also feel that by having the opening credits run through out our two minute clip, it allows the audience to not only see what was going on, but also to be able to focus their attention not only on the credits but the important events taking place in our opening sequence.
Also, the title of our opening sequence ' The Bloody Suit' is written in a unique style created by myself on photoshop and my groun and I felt that it would be best if we continued using my font to show the production roles in order to continue consistancy. By doing this, it creates the audience to be able to see a sense of consistancy throughout the opening sequence so that they are aware that nothing confusing is going to happen and that the layout of our opening sequence will be easy to follow, but we would not be able to show this without the opening credits that we will be displaying over the time that the opening sequence will be playing.
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