Music

We made the soundtrack to our opening using the software called 'Garage Band'. It was our first time using it therefore we were  a bit anxious about the outcome. We did a few test trials and ensured we look through all of the sound samples before choosing the final ones we wanted to use in our opening. 

Firstly we inserted Escape A basses 1, which gave a sort of 'base' for the overall sound. It sounds a little mysterious and we thought it would work well with the clips playing along with it. Next we inserted Escape A celesta 1 and put it below the other sound, this way they would play together and overlap to create one whole track. The second track we inserted made the music more upbeat and we thought it would help to build the tension. Once we had finished making sure they sounded good together we wanted to make the pace of it a bit faster so that it would keep the audience on the edge of their seat. To do this we had to make 2 points, one lower than the other - the steeper the line the faster the tempo. We made the end of the track particularly fast as this would be the bit playing when Evie is running and then when she falls over and screams, having a faster tempo would symbolise her heart rate speeding up.

When we had finished creating the track, we saved it and then opened it within our iMovie document. As you can see in the second print screen below, we placed the soundtrack beneath the already existing sound clips (voice over). From here we had to alter the sound levels of several over the clips. We wanted the audience to be able to hear the soundtrack but only slightly so that the opening didn't sound to plain, therefore we lowered the sound levels of it. In some of the voice over clips Evie's voice was a little too quiet and some of her words were hard to make out so we heightened the sound levels of these particular clips, this made them appear overpowering to the soundtrack also which is something we found effective because the voiceover is a crucial part of our opening as it tells the story.

Our production companies and film title

When we were happy with  how the opening had come together we began to make the final touches too it. This included the production company titles, although we were aware we could download and insert existing ones, we decided to make our own. Not only does this add our own personal touch, it helps to express our skills within iMovie.

Guinea Pig Studio:
We came up with this name based off of the idea of the Metro Goldwyn Mayer studios titles with the lion, where the sound of the lion roaring is also audible. We initially liked the idea of having a clip of a guinea pig as well as the text and the audio of a guinea pig squeaking. However, we came to the realisation this would be very difficult to create on iMovie as our software isn't as high-tech as those I imagine are used for real films. With this being said we just stuck with a neutral background and playful text we found on iMovie. For the sound, we searched for a clip of a guinea pig squeaking on YouTube and then downloaded it. After we had downloaded it we opened the file up into the iMovie document and lined it up with the clip. We then trimmed it down as the original clip was fairly long. 

Green Screen Studios: 
We came up with the name 'Green Screen Studios' just off the top of our heads yet we felt it sounded very professional and obviously fits in with the media industry well. We chose a text that was still a little playful but more serious than the prior one as we didn't want the contrast between the production companies and theme of the movie to be too extreme. We chose green text as a sort of play on words and we felt that it stands out and makes a point. We added an already existing sound from iMovie which sounded very similar to those you hear in the cinema, which we thought was great because it makes our opening appear of a higher standard.

Stable Films:
This was our last production company title. The name has no particular relevance however we felt it sounded efficient and realistic. We also used a sound effect from iMovie for this clip as we thought the prior one was a success therefore used a similar sound. This is probably the plainest out of the 3 yet seeing as this is the one directly before the opening starts, we didn't want to divert too much of the attention from the film away by having an extravagant one.

Final Film Title:

This is the text we chose to use for our film title. I feel it works really well with the overall theme of the film as the text is quite serious, if it were to be a comical sort of font it wouldn't be very effective and could potentially ruin the whole opening. We chose a black background with white text as when trying different colour combinations, we found those two to look the most professional together. We want people to take our film seriously and feel that this would only be achievable if we took care when selecting font styles and colours.

Titles and additional edits

After finalising the prior edits we made a start on the more detailed edits. Firstly, we came across a tool that gave a zoom in effect, however zooming in very minimally and smoothly - something which may have been hard to achieve if we had tried it on the hand held cameras. We used this tool on our final clip of Evie screaming, the very subtle zoom added a sense of tension and allowed the audience to get a close up view of the look of terror on her face. I feel this was a very effective decision as although it is not massively obvious, it subliminally may have an effect on the audience.

Next, we chose to insert all of our titles. As you may have seen in one of my previous posts, the titles are meant to go in a certain order and this is something we tried to follow up within our own opening; however we did not follow it exactly seeing as ours is only a short opening and doesn't have as many people involved in it as a real film would. We started with the name of the studio(s) and then moved onto the production companies. Instead of putting the producers and directors names next, we decided to put the 'starring' titles instead. We felt this was more appropriate for our target audience who would be very intrigued to see who was in the film. We followed this on with the producers and directors names alongside things like who was in charge of the music - of course we incorporated our own names into this part. Lastly, we inserted the film title. This is quite uncommon within thriller openings however, we felt it fit best with our opening and may even put the audience on edge a little as they may not be expecting it to be there. We did try inserting it in several other parts of the opening yet we felt it made the opening look disorganised and it also messed with our sound. 

We decided to leave out some of the titles that are seen in real film openings such as 'Production Designer' as we didnt actually have a proper set therefore including it may look unrealistic. We may have also struggled to fit it all in with the opening only being allowed to be a maximum of 2 minutes.

Further Editing

After we were pleased with how the clips were assembled/ran together and the way the sound flowed, we began editing the appearance of our clips. To start with we 'enhanced' the quality of our video and then we started to 'adjust' the light levels and so on. We made them appear duller and flat in a sense to suggest a sombre mood and suggest the theme of the film is quite dark in a sense. We then adjusted the saturation levels, this helped the video to still keep a strong sense of the colour within the clips without making them really bright.

During our planning we decided to incorporate an effect over the 'flash back' scenes to show a transition between the present police interview scenes and the past flash back scenes of Evie as a hostage. We originally considered just making them black and white but later came to the conclusion that that may look overly dull and still might not make it clear that they are indeed flashbacks. With this being said we decided to go with the 'vignette' effect which meant the clips still had colour but dark, almost faded edges. I think the use of this effect was a good choice as it made it clear that they were flashbacks and I feel it needs to be obvious that they are flashbacks otherwise the story line may be hard for our audience to follow.

Starting to edit our opening

To get the editing process started we began by importing all our final scenes onto the computer. We dragged them all from the cameras memory card into iMovie. When they had all been successfully imported we started assembling the clips into an order - trimming and splitting clips as we went. Being able to trim clips was extremely effective during the editing process because it allowed us to remove any unnecessary parts and ensure we were only left with the best that we had. 

 

Next, we began to carry out basic adjustments to the sound of the videos. As we wanted a constant voice over throughout our entire opening we importing our existing clip of Evie reading the voice over script. We then began heightening and lowering the sound levels of the actual scenes - depending on what was happening in them had an impact on whether we thought the sound should be audible or not. For example in the print screen below; the first two clips sound have been lowered right down so they cannot be heard, we did this in scenes that literally had no sound (e.g. ones showing the surroundings) and ones that we wanted to be narrated (e.g. the one of Evie running) whereas in the following clips the sound has been heightened, we did this in scenes where the existing sound would have an effect on the audience and build tension (e.g. during the second clip of Evie running her heavy breathing can be heard - making the audience wonder if she will be able escape her kidnapper or if she will give up).

 

 

 

 

 

Titles And Font Research

As a group we began to think about possible title styles. We feel that titles are an important aspect within opening titles and if they are not successful in terms of matching the context of the film, can make the opening look un-professional. We also looked into what needs to be included within the titles so that when we come to do ours, we have the correct information in a near enough correct order.

Titles:

There is a basic guideline as to what order the titles should go in:

1) Name of the studio: this could be the name of the studio that is distributing the film and possibly producing it. E.g. Walt Disney Pictures, Universal, Marvel studios.

2) Name of the production company: this would be the names of the companies that actually made the film and those who invested into it.

3)Producers and Directors names.

4)Starring: This will be a list of the main actors within the film, these are usually fairly well known.

5)Films title: the name of the film.

6)Featuring: This will be a list of actors who featured within the film.

7)Casting: The name of the person who chose the actors.

8)Music: who composed the music or chose the tracks featured.

9)Production designer: who designed things like the sets etc.

This is only a rough guideline as to what order the titles should go in, there is no firm rule about the order in which they are listed. The aim, however, is that they run in a logical order, starting with the names of the performers or contributors and ending with the name of the person responsible for the production. There is also no rule on the sizing of the titles, experts say to experiment with the font size and see what fits best within your opening. Each film is individual. 

Fonts
  We briefly looked at DA fonts and came across a few fonts we liked. However, although it would be possible to incorporate these fonts into our video it would be extremely difficult to successfully integrate them in a way that looks professional. With this being said, we have decided to use the fonts available to us on iMovie.

Here is the link to DA Fonts:
http://www.dafont.com/


I also found a video that has edited famous movies fonts into basic ones found on things such as word. I found this really interesting as it really does express just how important your font choices are; it is so easy to just select a font but you need to think about if it really matches your storyline and ensure it looks professional.

Watch the video:

Gender Representation in Thrillers

Males and Females are often represented differently within Thriller genres, with men stereotypically being the 'hero' type of figure and the 'Damsel in distress'. However, occasionally women are given leading roles which I think gives an alternative, interesting twist. We too have a leading female role in our thriller opening who independently escapes the hands of her kidnapper. With this being said, I looked into other thriller films with strong female roles...

Hanna:

This film actually has many similarities to ours; obviously, it has a female lead but she too, is also cast as a sixteen year old. The story follows her on her mission as an assassin across Europe, tracked by a ruthless intelligence agent and her operatives. 

The role was played by Saoirse Ronan. The film needed a smart, courageous young girl to play the role and Saoirse ticked all the boxes. Although the films story line massively differs from ours, the characters personality traits are very similar, we too wanted our actress to show strength and intelligence.

Kill Bill:

Kill Bill is another prime example of a female playing a 'males' role. Uma Therman plays an independent woman who wakes from a coma and discovers her baby is gone. She suspects it is down too the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, led by her ex lover 'Bill.' and decides to seek revenge upon the five people who destroyed her life and killed her baby. 

Although the storyline of this film and ours differs, small aspects of it link with ours such as the idea of plotting a plan to get revenge and escaping a previous life.

Equipment

The two main pieces of equipment we used to create our opening were two HD cameras and a tripod. The cameras were very easy to function with a singular button to begin recording and stop recording. It was also very easy to play scenes back and delete them which came in handy when we were assessing our existing clips and whittling them down to the final ones. Similarly, the tripod was simple to set up and helped us to acquire smooth, professional shots such as panning shots.

Police scene for thriller opening

On the 27th of November we filmed our 'opening' scenes of our film opening. This scene was meant to look like it took place in a police interview room so, with this being said, we needed to find a room within school that resembled such a room. We ended up using a meeting room at school, it was a very plain room with only a table and chairs within it - I feel it was very effective and fulfilled it's purpose. We also needed a male to play our police officer, we decided to use Mr Miles as he is a retired police officer and has had experience interviewing people so we thought he fit the part well.  

We wrote up a script for the interview so that it ran smoothly and sounded professional (I will attach an image of the script below). We used a variety of shots within this scene in order to achieve the most successful outcome. These shots included extreme close ups; particularly of Evie (the victim)s face, we chose not to feature Evie's face throughout the whole opening to add a sense of mystery which would be resolved if the audience were to watch the entirety of the film. We also used extreme high angled shots looking down on Evie, this made her appear vulnerable. Lastly, we used a tracking/match on action shot of Evie walking into the room, we felt this would help involve the audience in the film.

                                             

Meeting/Interview room

                                                 

Millie setting up the tri-pod to help record the exchange.

                                       

The tri-pod on the table to enable us to achieve a high angled shot.

                                             

The recorder prop we used to make the interview look realistic. Close up shots of the recorder were taken to show it's presence.

                                  

Filming the match on action shot.

 

                                  

Script

Filming Day

On Saturday the 22nd of November we all met as a group at 12 o'clock and made our way down to the orchard right near Millie's house.

We started the filming straight away using Kate's dad as our kidnapper. We got multiple shots of him; a point of view shot of him walking away - we will use this in a section of our opening where the victim is watching him, A panning shot of him running and finally a tracking close up/feet shot of him walking.

After we were happy with the scenes of the 'kidnapper' we moved on to Evie's (the victims) outdoor scenes. Again, we used a variation of shots for her scenes such as wide shots, more panning shots and low angle and high angle shots. We booked out two cameras from school in order to get different viewpoints of the same scene - we felt this would be really effective as it will not only allow the viewer to get a different perspective but also keep them on edge as it will look more choppy and disorientated.

When all of the outdoor scenes were  filmed we made our way into one of the abandoned buildings within the orchard to film the indoor scenes. It was a large, open space that already had certain features within it that we agreed would look effective in our opening such as a mattress and a dirty plate surrounded by plastic knives and forks. In our storyboard we imagined there to be a door, however upon arrival we noticed there wasn't one so we made one on set using a few wooden panes we found within the building. Inside, we used quite a few point of view shots, tracking shots and also high angled shots.

We plan to film the police scenes within school at some point during this week. Securing this scene will allow us to move further with our editing and such. It will also provide us with the voiceover that is a crucial part of our opening.

Here is Kate's dad acting out one of his scenes.

                                        

This is me using the tripod to achieve a high angled shot of the food being chucked onto the plate.

This is Evie acting out one of our scenes.

                           

Here you can see we taped the camera down onto a skateboard to help us achieve a successful tracking shot. I found the use of the skateboard really effective, it allowed us to get a shot that may not have been possible if we had to run alongside the actor whilst holding the camera.


Overall, I think our filming day was very successful. We were all very efficient and took care in securing scenes that we thought would benefit the film. Our grouped work extremely well together and I hope the finished opening comes out as we envision it too. 

                                     

Our Location

We chose an orchard in Upchurch as our location for filming as we were aware there were a few abandoned buildings there. The presence of the abandoned buildings will heighten the creepy feel we are going for with our opening. Not only did the location set the scene it also made the victim appear even more vulnerable as the building we chose to film in was very large and open spaced - engulfing her within it. There were lots of places for us to film and allowed us to get a variety of shots for our opening sequence.

                                       

                                        

This is the inside of the building we filmed in, as you can see it is quite big and there was already a mattress within it which was perfect for us. 

                                        

                                       

Thriller Mise En Scene (Props and Costumes)

Props:

 A Black music station: This prop will be used in the police station scene as it will resemble the type of recorder they use to record victims relaying their experiences. We want this scene to look as realistic as possible.

A half eaten sandwich: This prop will be evident in the scene where the kidnapper is shown delivering scraps of food for the victim to eat. We feel this will be effective because it will really make a statement about the type of conditions she is living in.

Table and chair: these two props will be used in the police interviewing scene, the table and chair will have an effective yet subtle impact on the audience as it will create a juxtaposition between the good condition, safe police station and the run down shed that the character has been forced to live in. 

Torch: A torch will be used in the scene when the kidnapper is going out to visit his victim. We feel this prop will be effective because it highlights the fact that the kidnapper prefers to go and see his victim when it is dark, as no one is around and he is less likely to get caught. It will also add a sense of mystery because you wont be able to see him clearly behind the flash.

   
Costumes:

We plan to keep the clothing very simplistic throughout the opening as there is no need for extravagant clothing, it would not match the narrative.

The victim will wear a plain, dark jumper and black jeans. We feel this outfit is appropriate for this certain character as we want to portray her as just an ordinary young girl in clothes that many people of a similar age to us would wear- we feel this will have an impact on the audience of a similar age to us as it will hit home that she is just a regular girl and the situation she is in could happen to any of us. The clothing (when in the shed) will appear quite scruffy and tattered to make her appear dirty and as if she has been kept in there for a long time. The dark/black colour of her costume will also symbolise the dull mood she feels, this will also help to set a similar mood for the entirety of the opening. 

The police officer in the interview will wear a smart, full piece black suit to represent formality and set the scene for the setting of a police station.

The kidnapper will be wearing baggy, loose, scruffy looking clothing which will represent his lack of remorse and care.

Production Schedule

We plan to all meet as a group to film on the 22nd of November. We are going to be meeting at the orchard in Upchurch. We will be using one of the girls dads to act as the kidnapper. Essentially, we would like to get all scenes filmed so we will be spending the entire day there, this should give us time to re-shoot certain scenes if they do not go to plan. If, when editing we spot that a scene does not look how we wanted it too, we will schedule another filming day to ensure our opening is of the best quality possible.

Film Company Research

I began to look into film/production companies to get a grasp on what it is exactly they do within the production of a film and what types of films particular companies produce. This way I will have knowledge on existing companies and we may be able to feature their logo in our opening.

What does a Production Company do?

this type of company is usually involved in funding, helping to facilitate the making of, and distributing films and/or television programs.

Most often, the production company for films and television provides the money, and therefore generally has a say on the budget, and may also make decisions on what director, and actors can be hired. Budget often makes other decisions possible or impossible. A low budget film may not be able to be filmed in a remote location, for example.

The company may also come attached with certain actors, directors, or film editors and photographers. Often this is especially the case when it belongs to a major studio, likeTouchstone Pictures, which belongs to Disney. Directors who have contracts with Touchstone are more likely to be offered jobs produced by Touchstone.

A few examples of Production Companies:

I looked into the most popular production companies and some successful thriller films they have produced...




20th century fox: produced films such as Die Hard and Predator.






Universal Studios: Jaws.

Rogue Pictures: the strangers, Doomsday and seed of chucky.






TriStar pictures: Terminator 2: Judgement Day and District 9.







New Line Cinema: Se7en and Rush Hour. 




Here is a longer list of production companies and a few of their notable films: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_production_companies

Feedback From Pitch

In a recent lesson we had to pitch our ideas to our teacher and fellow class members. To ensure we got all of our points across, we prepared a short PowerPoint that covered topics we felt needed to be discussed, this consisted of things such as our narrative, ideas of where we could shoot, our target audience, potential props, music, shots we could use, how we would edit the opening and so on. Our pitch lasted about 15 minutes and we made sure that each person in our group had a chance to speak. After we had finished presenting we listened to some feed back.

Firstly our teacher stated that he thought we had clearly put a lot of thought into what we wanted to do and how we could do it, however, he did have some comments about how we could improve. 

During the pitch we mentioned how we would like our opening to be in the form of flashbacks. We would start the opening with the victim relaying her experiences to a police officer and then use a voice over so that she could narrate whilst the flashbacks were playing. Although our teacher thought this was a good idea, he feared it may be a little hard to follow for the audience, he questioned how we would make it clear that the clips were in fact flashbacks and suggested we consider making them black and white to show the time shift. We thought this was a good idea as we have seen this used in thriller films before and agreed it was effective. We also suggested using fades between the clips to make it clearer that they were indeed flashbacks in which he agreed. 

In addition to his first piece of constructive criticism, our teacher questioned if we had found a middle aged male to play the role of our kidnapper to which we said no and admitted we planned on using a member of our group dressed up in males clothes and not featuring 'his' face. Our teacher said we could do that however it wouldn't be as effective as using a male as it may be clear it is a female due to our stance, we do not hold ourselves or walk like men so it may be difficult to portray ourselves as one. With this being said we have decided to cast one of our dads as the kidnapper as we think it will be more effective.