Title Research - Rasmus Klingstroem

Fight Club

The film's title sequence is a 90-second visual effects composition that depicts the inside of the narrator's brain at a microscopic level; after which the camera starts to zoom out, eventually getting to the outside of the narrator's head, and into the introductory scene.
Realistically, this is not something we could achieve with our media production, it would require too much special effects which we wouldn't know how to achieve, as well as it is unlikely the college, or each of us has the programs used to create this splendid piece of work.
However we can take some things from this piece, although the overall idea cannot be reused by us, we can take the initial idea of an object, blurred, coming into focus, turning out to be something completely different to what the audience had expected.
The actual title of this title sequence does not seem to be the main focus, whereas other title sequences build up to the title, or have the title centered, and persistent on the page - Fight Club has the title on the sequence for less than 5 seconds. This shows us that unique title sequences can also be quite effective, the audience clearly saw the title, but were more intrigued with the special effects, and what they were suppose to represent, and what this was leading towards.
The soundtracks used helps the feel of the movie - as the movie is titled "Fight Club" the audience would be expecting high a high action thriller, and having music to contradict this would serve against the creators.
The lighting ideas from this piece could be used by our group in the sense that desaturated scenes could help portray the mood of a specific piece. For instance, having a dark, and grim themed introduction would work best with desaturated colors to help show the audience that this is not something which should be happening.



Seven

The entirety of the title sequence for this film is used to make the audience ask a large quantity of questions as to whom the characters shown are, what their intentions are, and what they are intending to do. It also makes the audience identify with the character seen before much more than when they were viewing it - simply because of the disturbing nature of the title sequence.
Although this is unrealistically going to be used for our product, it is good to get different opinions about big films released from Hollywood, and what they interpret as being a good thriller opening.
The soundtrack over the title sequence helps to portray the chaotic nature of what is happening during this sequence, backed up with a unique text type.
The placement of the text throughout is sporadic at best, sometimes it's difficult to see, sometimes it's in awkward positions, but all this helps the audience get a feel for the story, and the title sequence.
Soundtrack used in this opening sequence is non-dietetic yet adds to the mood and enigma created by this title sequence as the use of cinematography with restricted narration allows the audience to think for themselves as to what is happening within this sequence.
Lastly, the music helps to create a tense atmosphere nearer the end as it progressively builds towards the ending climax of this title sequence.


Misery

The title sequence of this film is far simpler than the other two i've reviewed (to an extent). The title sequence itself is quite different than what is normally used within thrillers and horrors - using a red color for the font.
The soundtrack used in the title sequence is contrapuntal as the music is quite upbeat but as the scene progresses thing start to become more tense with the build up of weather and the close ups on the characters face allows the audience to see distress in his facial expression so will be anticipating something bad is going to happen.
A long drawn out title sequence is something which is definitely do-able by our media group for our product - unlike the other two title sequences that use a lot of special effects, this one doesn't, either through choice, or the fact that it was created in 1990.
The text is quite simplistic in comparison to the other two in this post, and thus makes it the best candidate to take ideas from in terms of applying text to our piece of work.

Final Finished Product

Here is our finished film. :)

Evaluation - Rasmus Alexander Klingstroem

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

With the creation of this media product, much of the current adaptations of thrillers were used to influence the scene's creation and concept - through watching the opening sequences of several including; No Country For Old Men, 44 Inch Chest, Disappearance of Alice Creed, and Old Boy.

Old Boy Opening Sequence (K Drive)
When looking at the previously linked clip, it is clear that this had an impact on our finished production. This is shown through a couple of key elements throughout both clips;

• The desaturation
• The fast paced cuts

Another example of a real thriller which helped shape our product would be "No Country for Old Men" which I believed had several aspects to it which is shown in our product as well, such as;

• The use of wide open spaces
• The slow buildup

Although some things were changed, such as the fact that our product had the title sequence after the slow, yet dramatic buildup whereas "No Country for Old Men" had it prio to this scene.
Our media product does not challenge generally accepted concepts, instead it takes these concepts, such as desaturation, and tries to achieve what these big blockbusters have - to encaptuate an audience, specifically an audience seeking a thriller product.

A third example of a thriller movie which affected some of our decisions when making our media product would be "The Birds (1963)".

Although this particular movie sequence had little effect on our overall product, it did have an impact on the type of atmosphere we wanted to create. This particular clip has no voiceover, and no description of any kind - which makes an audience wonder; "What type of movie is this? What am I going to be shown, blood, violence, gore?", and that is the type of experience I had in mind when choosing the types of sounds for our first scene. Whereas other movies or title sequences have voiceovers, or other ways to tell an audience what is happening, or movie instead had very simple, but effective sound effects; some from GarageBand, and some recorded ourselves, an example of which is the groaning from the victim seen dragged through a field in scene one.

The nature of the POV seen in scene one I believe develops forms and conventions of real media products. I believe this is the case as I have not seen very many thrillers start their opening sequence with POV from the perspective of the victim in this manner, and thus makes this movie stand out among the droves of films using the same media conventions without deviation.



How does your media product represent particular social groups? 


Some groups have been specifically chosen and represented in a certain way to envoke a certain feeling from the audience. The generic teenage girl being abused/harmed has been used on thousands of occasions in many different genres of films, from horror to thriller, and even to sci-fi - yet this type of representation has not whithered and is still widely used today, and this is why we used it for our production.
The use of another type of victim could've envoked different feelings from the audience, when we wanted to envoke very specific feelings. An example would be that if we used another group, such as a young white British male, could've supressed an audience or some within the audience from feeling sympathy to the extent we wanted. An example of where this is the case is the thriller opening of "Goodfella's".

As you can see, the audience is not provoked to feel sympathy to any great extent for the man in the trunk - this is due to the nature of this character, and how unimportant he is in the entirety of the plot. Our production on the other hand required the audience to feel sympathy and understanding for the victim's circumstances, and thus needed the steriotypical; young, white, female to play the part of the victim. This is shown through camerawork, sound, and editing - much of what is shown to the audience in the first scene is of the victim struggling to get away.

Editing
When you look at the editing that was required to give the sense of struggle for the victim, it is quite tedious, these were the things that needed to be done or considered;

• A smooth flow between cuts or camera angles
• A consideration for consistency
• Continuity maintained
• Making sure the audio fitted appropriately

Camerawork
The camerawork was vitally important to maintaining the representation of the victim. the victim needed to look weak and defenceless throughout the first scene, if this was not achieved then the audience could become disillusioned with our media product.
It may seem easy to maintain consistency due to the nature of the first scene because of the POV - however, making sure the camera and the victim were lined up enough so the audience was still asking questions, yet aware of some of the surroundings of the victim was hard to achieve. Some of which was improved and fixed in the editing process.

Sound
Maintaining sound quality throughout was not hard to achieve - using Final Cut Pro made this a fairly easy task. However we did encounter certain problems with regards to the heartbeat heard throughout the first scene, it appeared that GarageBand did not allow for tempo changes to pre-existing sounds, and thus the heartbeat needed to be exported into Final Cut Pro in order for us to give our scene the correct feel throughout; of panic, and fear.


The antagonist on the other hand, does not represent any specific social group as his face is never shown in our product. We felt this needed to be done to give the antagonist a mysterious element, and to force the audience to ask questions, as is the nature of all thriller movies - if the answers were given in this short two minute product, then there would be no need to view the rest of the movie as you'd know whom the victim is, and who the antagonist is.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?


When looking into the different ways of distributing our media product, there are several ways which look very appealing to us, as it is an independant low-budget film. Companies such as 'Columbia Pictures' would never distribute a film made by unknown directors simply due to the low profit rates of such films. Our best choice, if we were to get someone else to distribute it for us, would be a company such as 'Soda Pictures'.
They are a UK based company that has released several independant films, and has had success with a few films including; Frostbite, Into Great Silence, & Old Joy.
http://www.sodapictures.com/
However with such large quantity of popular film releases, this company will be unlikely to handle our distribution due to the fact we are unknown directors.
This is why we were thinking of premiering our film at the London: Future Shorts and the London: Valentine Film Festivals - this would be done as non-subtitled versions as it is shown to a UK audience, and otherwise would require more money, which a low-budget movie wouldn't have.
From there we'd make the movie a viral video which would be downloadable for a small fee, £4.99 - this would be done to entice customers into buying the video, and building a reputation on the internet for having a good viral video.
From there, we'd consider trying for a cinema release, with the popularity of our viral video behind us, we'd hopefully get 'Soda Pictures' to distribute our film at a national level - if not european, on a small scale. 

Who would be the audience for your media product? 

The targetted audience for our media product would be teenagers aged between 12-21, this is due to the nature of our film, the characters within it, and the plot in general. I would argue that the targetted audience would generally be females between this age group, mainly because of the narrative within the media product - jealousy, revenge, and anger are themes that mostly attract a female audience. Whereas the type of thriller that attracts young male teenagers are those with a lot of blood, violence and fast paced action.



How did you attract / address your audience?


The audience was attracted through the use of the internet, using both my own, and Alea's facebook to try and get some comments on our video which was posted on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=361_PdMPlTk
Having our media production on a worldwide level, via Youtube, we've made the first steps to making our product a thriving success.
Secondly, some of the comments we have recieved on Youtube has been very positive about our production which gives me high hopes about what this production could potentially achieve, both on a national level, and international level.
The fact that we've also attained a comment from a person of German origin, shows that this film is already getting watched internationally.


What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G6uUQtNEcY

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?


I personally feel I have learnt a lot since the preliminary task. When doing the preliminary there are several things I would not have considered which I now know must be included or considered every time. Such as; Depth of Field, Lighting decisions, Framing, Timing, Pace, and Length of shot.



Camerawork and Editing

Much of what was done with regards to Camerawork had been planned out carefully throughout the development process of this media product - this is shown in both blog entries and the Animatic video. Length of shot was very important when thinking about the scenes, as the product had a very specific time limit, the film could not be filmed with careless disregard for the length of each scene.
Secondly, Continuity - although continuity was carefully thought about for the preliminary, we had to consider it to a far greater extent with our final piece. With the preliminary, we chose a very small room, with no reflective surfaces simply so we wouldn't have to deal with reflections of the camera, or other persons. The final piece did not have this luxury as we filmed inside someone's house, and thus had many reflective surfaces such as tables, pictures, and mirrors which had to be avoided, and camera placement had to be considered carefully.
However, this does not mean that our final piece was faultless - the second scene clearly has a problem with reflective surfaces, dispite our best efforts to avoid such, we can clearly see the camera in one of the pictures, which was only spotted during the editing of our film.
There was much which we could not achieve in the preliminary which limited us greatly, firstly, we found out that using the standard cameras supplied by the college we could not achieve any sort of movement from the camera, as we had problems with bluring, and the white-balance reseting itself. These issues were resolved when we had to produce our final film as we had access to the HD cameras which fixed the bluring and white-balance problems - as well as the fact we were allowed outside of the college to film which allowed us to work a lot more freely with what we could and could not do.


Sound and Mise en Scene

Unlike our preliminary, we had to edit sound seperately from the main visual piece and add them to the final product, this presented a new set of challenges because we did not need to do this for our preliminary - although it was overcome fairly easily through the use of a much better piece of software, namely: Final Cut Pro.
The use of, and addition of pre-made sounds from Garageband made our job much easier as it allowed us to focus a lot more on the editing of our film instead of having to find out ways of implimenting real sounds and making them believable.
Mise en Scene wasn't really expanded upon from our preliminary, some of the same costumes were used, and our focus was mainly on the camerawork and editing to make our film believable for the audience. However this is not to say that we ignored Mise en Scene completely, costume was mainly only considered for the antagonist as we needed his face covered to keep the mysterious element intact for the audience's benefit.

Overall, I believe our group has developed quite a lot since the preliminary, considering ideas and using media concepts which we otherwise did not, including; framing, depth of field and using a varity of different styles, and I am quite proud of the final piece.

Evaluation - Alea Holland

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and convention of real media products?
For our thriller project we relied heavily on conventions of thriller whist researching to help construct the concept of our film and what it would entail. In class we looked at openings of several thriller films: "Old Boy", "The Dissaperance of Alice Creed", "44 Inch Chest" and "No Country for Old Men" being some of them. We took most of our insparation from the inroduction to the film 44 Inch Chest as we wanted to use the conventions of creating enigma using discontinuity editing and having no dialouge allowing for the audeince to piece together the narrative for themselves.

With these techniques providing the main base to structure our thriller around we then turned to ideas we could use to make our work more unique when comapred to other thrillers. This is why we decided upon using a point of view shot for the first scene allowing the audeince to be immediately placed in the centre of the action in the narrative which was praised in the feedback from our target audeince commenting that it "almost creates the sense that it is in an expository documentary style and the audience will believe the footage is real". In addition to this we decided we did not want and diolouge to occur in the opening to add to the enigma of the scene and to allow for the audiences interpritation of the scene to rely on decoding the narrative through aspects of camera work.

To create the atmosphere and mystery that is usually coupled with a thriller film we did focus on use of the camera a lot as it would be our main tool for creating tension and essentially help to narrate the story with the lack of dialouge we used a conventional camera technique known as restricted narration. Whilst researching openings we found a good example of restricted narration in the "The Dissaperance of Alice Creed". We felt this was key in order to achieve one of the conventions of thriller films by making the audience ask questions about what is happening in the scene. To create our restricted narration we decided to use entirely point of view shots in the first scene of our opening as it does provoke the audeince to question what is happening, however, POV shots are uncommon in terms of being used in a film opening so this does challenge a convention of thrillers and makes ours more unique.



A feature that is also present in both these exracts that had an impact on our product is the lack of dialouge that has been previously mentioned. In our group we agreed that this was the best way to go as it did allow the audience to piece together what is going on in the scenes for themelves. This also makes the scenes more thrilling as is the overall objective of a thriller film as there is no clear indication into why the actions in scene are taking place or the characters and thier place within the narrative so relies heavily on audeince interpretation for the first scene.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The characters in our piece reperesent the average middle class young adult aged around 16-19 years. In the opening of our film issues on status and sterotyping is addressed as in our piece the female character is the victim which is also a convention in other films and also in one of the research thrillers: "The Dissaperance of Alice Creed".

We show this mainly through use of camera work. In the first scene as the first few shots are low angle point of view shots looking up at the male antagonist character immediately establishing the antagonists power over the female character.

The idea of using discontinuity editing allows the audeince to see how the protagonist is victomised due to the future events of the narrarive so when in the second scene the film moves back into chronological order the audience can sympathise with the character as the developing narrative woul clearly show the progagonists innnocence and that they truly are the victim. This does however create a negative representation of the female gender by showing some aspects of the female stereotype come through in the character.

3.What kind of media distribution might distribute your media product and why?
Being an independant film it would'nt be possible to get our product distributed through major film production companies such as "Universal" so we would more than likely get our product distributed by an independant company that handles independant films like Soda Pictures (http://www.sodapictures.com/).

Soda Pictures have released many films onto DVD as well as cinema releases from independant directors from several different countries in Europe so we could go for either a regional release or try to reach a wider audience by releasing in Europe. However as we are first time independant film makers our distribution buget would not be able to streach far as UK distributors spend £300 million a year on bringing new releases out for exhibition and to create 1 film print costs £1500 creates a large cost and risk for us as if it does not do well on it's release very little profit will be made. Also the competion faced by the much bigger blockbuster released could severley reduce our chances at being able to get multiplex cinemas which are more popular than arthouse to distribute our product. In addition to this we could loose out on gaining good audeince numbers as our target audience would only have a certain amount of leisure pound to spend and would most likely go to watch the more anticipated and highly advertised Hollywood films and generally tend to visit multiplex cinemas rather than independent ones.

Due to this factor as well as budgeting advertising to be able to get our film noticed amoung the blockbusters the methods of distribtuion we thought would be best are:

• Film Festival showings
• Internet downloads

 For the showings at the film festival we would most likely premiere our product at the London (October onwards): Future Shorts which would be a good time of year to premiere with the lack of seasonal Hollywood films. This would allow our film to be shown to an audience in a cinema and gain feedback allowing us to see how sucessfull our film would be when released to the general public.

Making the film acsessable to download allows us to reach a global audience as well as being able to easily reach our target audeince. To download we will most likely use popular sites such as iTunes as many people use it, its is popular with our target audience who would be able to download the film to watch on the computer or iPod so they can consume film on the go. We believe this would appeal to our target audience as they could watch the film on public transport on the way to work/college. The download price would be around the price of £5 to entice customes as it is a cheap price for downloadable film and this also can help us build a good reputation and popularity. Also is the film festival proves to be popular a follow up of the internet download could provide great popularity for the film so at a cheap price it could still make a profit.

 4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our piece would be the teen market ranging from 12- 21 years as the main characters in our film are teens it is easy for the audeince to relate to them as our piece is aiming to be realistic. However with a low age rating of a 12A we would be able to reach a wider audience as the content of the film wouldn't be inceredbly violent or explicit. The gender of teens that would most likely be more interested in our film is the female gender because of some of the issues that are raised in the narrative with themes of jealousy and revenge whereas a male audience would be more interested in a film containing more action and violence. The main issue raised in the narrative is one of abuse in relationships as our story is based jelous ex boyfriends fighting over the ex girlfriend and as established in the first scene things go beyond petty fighting.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted and addressed our audeince through posting our thriller opening on YouTube along with posting the link to it on mine and Rasmus' Facebook pages. This allowed us to reach our target audience easily and aquire feedback on our project as it is easily accessable using the internet. We did recieve some positive feeback from Facebook and YouTube comments as well as some constructive critisism and the majority of people commenting were amoung are target audience and those comments were the most positive. Alos we recived a comment from a person in Germany showing that we are reaching a global audience successfuly.

.6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back on our preliminary task I can say with confidence that we have definitely improved on our work. Most of our technical skills have improved in the short time between making our preliminary and our thriller opening as we have gained more understanding of how to use the technology to its full potential and how to be more creative in our use of camera work and editing. Our camera work in the preliminary was rather limited as we mainly just had simple shot types with no camera movement and when we did try to incorporate some more interesting camera work we found that we ran into problems mainly to do with the camera and the settings that we had to film in with white balance issues and blurring of focus whenever the camera was moved too fast. Also being confined to the college campus meant that we were limited with ideas for creating the narrative for our preliminary and coupled with little experience using the camera it was a rather basic piece. Being allowed to use the HD cameras and being able to film off the college campus gave us the abiltiy to have more diversity with the shot types and some more freedom in choosing the overall narrative as we had some ideas for locations that we could use already established before the story was even created and allowed us to use appropriate settings that I feel worked really well with the piece. Despite our efforts to spot errors whilst filming some reflections of equipment can still be seen in the second scene as it was only noticed they were visible whilst editing.

 Our visual editing I think has improved from the preliminary as well as our sound. However I do not think sound has improved as much as visual editing. With our visual editing we have been a bit more ambitious and tried to use the editing to set the pace of the scenes with the first scene showing short clips of the action with black transitions between them to try to heighten the pace. In the second scene shots were longer and transitions were just smooth dissolves or straight cuts so the pace and overall mood of the scene is calm. When it came to sound editing we did come across some problems which made it hard to achieve the effect we wanted as some of the sounds we had recorded ourselves came out too quiet each time we recorded it and in our final product there are some shots with no sound. Unfortunately it was picked up on by the audience as the main area that we needed improvement on. Overall I think that our thriller opening is a great improvement over our preliminary. Yes I admit it still has its faults but it is a more well executed piece that I think we are all quite proud of.

Evaluation - Ollie Newson

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

21 March 2011 - Garageband

We basically finished the sound editing for our final product, however we encountered several problems throughout, some we have not fully solved as of yet.
Firstly as the first scene had a heartbeat added to it, and then the female character starts running, it would seem logical to have the tempo of the heartbeat increase - however there is no technical way of adding this to Garageband, and so it will need to be created in FinalCut Pro and exported to our final movie.
Secondly, we didn't have all the members of our group present, and thus we couldn't add the heavy breathing necessary to complete the sound editing for the scene.
Thirdly, we felt that the title sequence was not dramatic enough without edited sound, so we added an additional soundtrack to the title sequence to make it stand out more for the audience - and to make them pay attention.
Finally we thought that the text sound from the movie sound wasn't loud enough for the audience to pay attention, and so it was removed from the clip, put onto it's own layer, and the sound was increased to the appropriate level.

By Rasmus Klingstroem

Title Research - Alea Holland

The Orphanage
The titles to “The Orphanage” are quite interesting as instead of just being overlaid on an image or on their own on a black screen they match the action of what is happening on the screen with the children tearing away the wallpaper to reveal the titles underneath. This can add to the narrative as one reading of this would be suggesting that there is a hidden meaning in the story that would be revealed as the story progresses. Another reading of this could be that the orphanage could descend into chaos as the audience has already learned from the pervious scene that one of the girls at the orphanage is going to be adopted which could lead to some sort of revolt form the other children. Also the colour that is used in the title sequence creates a rather sinister mood as it is in black and white but the colour of the wall shown underneath where the wall paper has been ripped off is red. This creates a sinister mood as it stands out and could represent blood due to the fact that the wallpaper over the top is ripped away to show it.

The sinister mood is also added to by the soundtrack as the music used is very eerie and some of the beats in the music match the timing of the ripping of the paper which makes it parallel sound as it suit’s the action well.

The font style and colour used in the titles in very basic so stands out more from the intricate pattern form the wallpaper yet does not provide anything else to the plot.


Misery
The titles in ‘Misery’ are a lot simpler than those in ‘The Orphanage’ as they are simply super imposed over the top of a driving scene.
The Text itself is unusual as red is rarely used for titles even in thriller and horror films. However it is effective as the red contrasts to the white and green of the setting in the film allowing it to stand out and grab the audiences attention which is added to by the bold text font used. The credits do take up a large portion of the screen but due to the fact that the section of the film it is overlaid on is just showing a simple driving scene mostly made of of long shots and extreme long shots with no action in it. There are some mid close ups used on the character but in those shots titles are placed further down the frame so it doesn’t block out any key points in the story and just allows for the audience to see the characters journey.

This is an idea I feel we could possibly use for our group piece as one of the scenes is a long establishing scene where titles could be placed as we don’t want to distract form the action in the first scene. The soundtrack used in the title sequence is contrapuntal as the music is quite upbeat but as the scene progresses thing start to become more tense with the build up of weather and the close ups on the characters face allows the audience to see distress in his facial expression so will be anticipating something bad is going to happen. However I also think the soundtrack is dietetic sound as it is possible for the audience to assume that the sound is coming from the car radio and the music doesn’t stop until the car actually flips and hit’s the ground.

SevenThe titles for Seven are quite different when compared to the previous two as the overall style of the title sequence with the style of the text merges very well and almost becomes part of the props and setting in the scene. This connection is made mostly by the text style and animation that is used along with the cinematic style of the opening sequence. The font style used is sketchy and the animation used on the titles creates a distorting effect as they flash and shudder which fits well with the editing and the overall style of the opening sequence as the scene itself is quite distorted at times with use of the manual focus on props in the scene, overlaying images and sudden cuts.

The placement of the text varies as some are just on black and some are overlaid on the footage but placed in dark areas of the frame so no detail in the shots are blocked or missed as most of the shots are close ups of props in the scene.

This technique is also something we can use in terms of placement of our titles as the scene we are looking to place them in has quite a few props in the setting that help to set the scene and we don’t want the titles to be distraction form that nor blocking off certain objects. Soundtrack used in this opening sequence is non-dietetic yet adds to the tense mood and enigma created by this scene as the use of cinematography with restricted narration allows the audience to piece together for themselves the picture of what is happening. The sound used contains static bursts and other similar noises that are coupled with the distorting imagery creating a rather unsettling atmosphere as the audience cannot see clearly what is going on and the beats of the music seem to progressively build up towards the end of the credits sequence creating a tense atmosphere.

For our piece I think combining techniques from both ’Misery’ and ’Seven’ would work well with our scene in which we plan to place the titles.

Tuesday 15th March

Today we have finished editing all our clips together and are now exporting it to add sounds and music using Garageband

Finished Filming

On Monday we signed out of college in the afternoon to go and film at Balcombe viaduct and we successfully finished all of our filming.

By Ollie Newson 

Animatic

This is the animatic showing the shots of our piece.

Monday 28th February - Editing

Today we have successfully finished editing the second scene of our thriller opening so all that is left to do now is film and edit the first scene.

Monday 14th Febuary

We signed out of the college and was absent from the lesson in order to film at least some of our thriller opening.

The equipment we took out from the media department include;
- 2 Lighting Kits + Tripods
- 1 HD Camera + Tripod

This was to make sure that we had enough light for when we started filming, and so that the natural lighting would not get in the way - as well as so the audience would not be aware of the passage of time during the filming.

Although we did not complete filming overall, we did manage to complete all filming requirements for Scene 2 - The establishing scene.

Synopsis - Ollie

On a dark evening, a man is walking an unconscious body down a mysterious field towards a bridge where a spade lay sticking out of the ground. But how did this happen? Who are these people? The film documents the situations of a woman with two deranged ex-boyfriends after her, one is a homicidal maniac, and the other just can't detach himself from her. An absolute recipe for disaster.

Sound Ideas - By Rasmus

For sound we have been looking at Garageband for suitable music.

So far we have found 4 sounds we feel work well with the style of our piece:
Ambient Noise 17
High Dissonance
Beautiful Tension Long
Disoriented Again Long

These are all the ideas for the first scene, whereby the action happens. This is because we've already partly decided on the sounds for scene 2, which would be diegetic sound from a radio within a room.

For the most-part, sounds for the second scene will not be a problem as it is a steady scene - which contrasts to our first scene, which needs to have the right atmosphere in order to keep the audience entertained and wanting more. To this end, the samples above were chosen, but we have more ideas such as faint heart-beat sounds, or heavy breathing, which we might record ourselves if Garageband does not contain such material.

List of Props

List of props that need to be brought specially for filming that are not already found at the locations.

Props needed for first scene:
 Rope
Shovel
Large torch
Fake Blood
Hockey Mask

 For second scene most of the props are already situated in the location as it is being filmed in an actual living room.
props specifically needed:
Radio
Phone
Keys

Alea Holland

Health & Safety

1st Location Risk Assessment:
Torches and coats must be brought along because it will be cold and quite dark when we film at this location.
There is a possibility that someone could slip on some mud or trip on a hole in the field so correct footwear must be worn and we must be careful when walking.
We do not need permission to film in this location because it is a public place.

2nd Location Risk Assessment:
There is a large step into my house that everyone will need to be aware of so that no one will trip on it.
Caution must be taken when lights are turned on and off to avoid injury to eyes so the 'lights on' 'lights off' procedure must be followed.
There is a risk of somebody being hit by a car in the street leading up to the house so everyone must be careful and very wary of cars when filming outside but very few cars come down here as it is a close.
Care must be taken inside the house because there are a lot of glass and china ornaments so everyone must be careful not to knock any over.
We need written permission from my dad to film here which i will get later and post on here.

By Ollie Newson

Lighting Decisions - Rasmus Klingstroem

As we'd be filming the first scene within a very dark public field, we'd need appropriate lighting to ensure that the audience would know where we're filming, and why we're filming there.
As it is a thriller opening the audience must be confused, but know the basics of what is happening within the scene. For this scene, we'd need; torches (for props and so we are aware of what's happening), Tripod lighting (in case torches are not enough), small LED lights (to make sure we are not lacking in lighting at all).

The second scene shouldn't have too many problems in terms of lighting, instead there will be problems with the white balance, and the realism within the scenes. Thus it will be determined on-site whether we'd need to use the big tripod lighting, or use natural lighting.

The third scene, whereby the character is walking outside, shouldn't need any additional lighting other than natural lights as it would be filmed outside, and the use of tripods could ruin the realism (unless it's a very dark day).

Planning Progress

We have continued to work on the storyboard, and I have explained what the inside of the house looks like to Alea so that she can draw it, and we have nearly finished it.

By Ollie Newson

Script for Film

Scene 1

Over the shoulder – POV – shot.

Victim is carried through the field, breathing heavily.

Able to see victim’s limbs.

Grunting as victim is thrown onto the floor.

Antagonist tends to the rope as victim tries to crawl away (victim occasionally looks back at antagonist)

-CUTS-

Scene 2

Close-up on Radio (happy music playing)

Pan to rest of the room (establishing shot)

Focuses (mid shot) on character picking up mobile phone

Close-Up of character reading text

Over-The-Shoulder shot focusing on phone

Extreme Close-Up to see text message

Close-Up of character texting (phone in shot)

Extreme Close-Up to see text message

Character finds and puts on coat/jacket (Track Character up to door (key rack))

Close-Up of character walking past and taking keys (camera pointing at key rack)

Character leaves house

Long shot of character leaving house, and walking down street

Pans with character TURNING into an Over-The-Shoulder-Shot



-Cuts-

Research

We have chosen Balcombe Viaduct as a possible location for our thriller opening.

 Possible establishing shot of the next scene in the opening.

 By Ollie Newson

Pre-Production Planning

Synopsis - Ollie
Script - Rasmus
Location - Group Effort
Props - Alea
Health & Safety - Group Effort
Lighting - Group Effort

Ollie Newson - Thriller openings

1. The disappearance of Alice Creed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP5OIlLJrGQ

Camera work and MES
There was a lot of camerawork present to create the very good effect that the opening to this thriller did. One of these things was lots of close up shots. These were used effectively so that we could see their facial expressions very well and we can see that they are quite nervous but confident at the same time. Furthermore, the many close ups used are so that the audience does not get the full picture, and so that it is open to interpretation. More over, slit framing was put to good use when one of the men is removing the numberplate from the van, and do this really adds to the mysterious tone of the opening. There was also a lot of good aspects of mise en scene used in this piece to create the effect it did. Everything, especially the room, has very dark lighting, and so this makes the audience think think that the characters are up to no good, and gives out a negative mood. This point is further strengthened when they are replacing nice things in the room with nothing or worse things.

Editing and sound
The editing in this piece uses very fast paced cuts that really make the audience think that something crucial is going to happen and the soundtrack really helps match this because the music is very fast and tension building. Also, the the is a lot of diegetic sound used to things like drills and the squeak of a wheel to add emphasis and build up tension.

2. Jaws.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPEHygqoKZU

Camerawork and MES
In the camerawork area, medium shots were used very often which is good because it is important for the audience to see what is going on in the scene. Furthermore, low angle POV shots were used to display the perspective of the shark which really adds to the realism of the opening. Mise en scene was used very well to document the opening scene to the film. Firstly, the scene took place in the sea which is very important because that is where the rest of the film took place. Secondly, the lighting was very dark, which created an effect of eeriness, and portrays the rest of the film very well.

Editing and sound
Standard wipes were used to document the fast paced action of this film well. The sound matches the editing well because it is very dramatic and builds up to a fast paced action level to match the editing.

3. Phone booth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSiNSg-oK3k

Camerawork and MES
In the camerawork side of things, there is lots of fast paced panning backwards and forwards used because it is essential because it matches the mood and sound of the film which is fast and tension building. Mise en scene involved is lots of long telephone wires which is important because they are very relevant to the film. Furthermore, Drawings of big city buildings fly onto view which is good because the film took place in a city.

Editing and sound 
Editing is used to make the names of actors and actresses in the film glide into view and there is diegetic sound used when this happens to create the fast paced and tension filled mood of the film. Furthermore, dramatic parallel music is included to accurately match the feel of the film.

4. Disturbia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUFrToykKYo&feature=related

Camerawork and MES
The camerawork in this uses lots of close ups and medium shots at eye level angle to show the emotions on the characters faces and their body language very well. There are lots of interesting aspects of mise en scene used too. To start, the scene is in a house which is important because the movie was mostly shot in the same place. Also, binoculars were shown which is essential to notice because they were used many times in the movie which is important because it gives the audience a clue as to what goes on in the movie.

Editing and sound
Slow transitions were used between many of the shots which is good because it builds up the tension in the movie before it really starts. The only sound in the opening is music which is parallel to the opening and so it flows very well and builds up a sense of mystery in the piece and there is no diegetic sound.

Preliminary Evaluation - Ollie Newson

Mise en Scene
Overall, i think our aspects of mise en scene throughout the piece where quite effective, our 'runner' was wearing a black jacket with the hood up and with big black sunglasses, i think this was a good idea because it gave the audience a feeling of mystery and that the character was up to no good. Furthermore, i think the room we used to shoot the dialogue scene was good, because it had a sort of eery and mysterious effect from it, because it was so old and small.

Camerawork
Alea chose a lot of the shots and angles used throughout the scene, and i think she chose very well. When the 'runner' walked into the room, a low angle medium shot was used, which i think really captured the characters dominance and confidence as he entered the room. Moreover, an over the shoulder shot over the character sitting against the window was used very well to capture the 'runners' reaction and him throwing the disk to the other character.

Casting
All of us featured as characters in the film which was very efficient, because it meant that we did not have to find other people to be in it, so it saved ourselves a lot of time. Rasmus played as the character we called in the script 'other', which he sat in the room and and waited for the 'runner' where he would seize the disk of him. Rasmus played this role very well because he kept a very good feeling of mystery about him, which was very effective. Alea played as a sort of evil guard for the character 'other' and she did this very well because she had lots of very interesting masks and fake weapons and so she filled this role perfectly. I played as the 'runner' which i think i did a good job of, as i had the right costume for it, and my acting was reasonably good.

Overall Evaluation
Overall, i think our short film worked out very well, because we achieved everything we wanted to do, and in the required time. Things that i thought went particularly well, were our editing skills to create the slow motion effect at the start of the piece. In addition to this, i think the continuity editing went very well, and it gave the audience a very clear perspective of what was going on, and did not confuse them in any way. However, there were some things that i think could have gone better. One of these things was the white balance, which kept changing itself without us realising, so in some parts of the film it was  a bit off. Also in the 'runner' and the 'other's conversation, it looked like we broke the 180 degree rule, but we didn't because we were panning the camera, but i think next time we should try and make it a bit more clear and steer very far from braking it, so to not confuse the audience.  

Match on action

We used the aspect of continuity editing called 'match on action' in our short film. It is a shot that shows a character moving and then the characters movements concluded in the next shot. We used this effectively when the character 'Mr Anderson' enters the room. We can see this from this screen shot:

Ollie Newson.

Preliminary Evaluation - Alea Holland

Directing
My area during the preliminary was directing and was mainly in charge of setting up the shots with the required elements of the 108 degree rule, shot/reverse shot and match in action and character blocking along with planning them using the storyboards which i was also chosen to do. During the course of filming this role was actually spread out in the group with everyone putting forward ideas of how we could couls shoot it which allowed elements of everyones ideas to be used in the film.

Locations
Rasmus was chosen as the location scout during this exercise to find suitable ares around the college that wouldnt be disturbed during filming and would fit well with the style of our story. The locations that were decided apon worked quite well as it fitted the style, allowed for experimenting with certain ways of filming and for the main dialouge scene we didnt have to avoid other students. However some complications did arise with the locations effecting the white balance on the camera causing us some problems and using certain locations caused comunication problems when filming with the camera looking at the character outside through a window so some shots were time consuming. Also we did not account for the noise level of other students in the college that can be easily heard in the film but could not be removed due to having diolouge in the scene.

Casting and use of Mise en Scene
As a group we had deliberated on getting other people to act in our pice but due to the time in which we had to film it we thought it would be best if we acted in it ourselves to complicate things less. It also meant we didnt have to rely on other people to turn up for the filming and could organise ourselves easily. Each member of the group had the responsibility for bringing thier own costumes for the characters each time we filmed to keep continuity the same and also add some realism to the characters. With my character of a bodyguard being dressed in black clothing, which is a traditional of villains, witha black coat as well as sunglasses and a skull mask to hide my characters identity and give an aspect of mystery and menace. Ollie was given the responsibility for sourcing the props and deciding what we needed to use however i managed to find some props that we could could put to good use and also add a small element of comic relief in our film. In addition we did expreiment with using lighting in the dialouge scene but due to the light levels already in the room it made very little difference on the camera so inseted used the natural light which turned out to work quite well in the final product.

Editing
In editing all the group were present and got a say in how it should be editied together with ideas such as putting the opening running shots in black and white  black and white  with people throwing in some ideas to try to add to the scene a bit more which all worked well in the end.

Altogether i think that the preliminary went rather well with all the group working together with the filming and editing and we tried to expreiment with differnt camera techniques that bent the 108 degree rule and allowed us to use different angles. However there were some problems with the production that could have been improved suh as the white balance and other aspects, some which were out of are contorl, but altogether i think it worked quite well.

Thriller opening research - Alea Holland

44 inch chest - http://www.ugo.com/movies/the-first-5-minutes-of-44-inch-chest

Camera work and Mes
The introduction to “44 Inch Chest” immediately sets mood with props being used from the very first shot creating enigma in the scene as close ups of the smashed props don’t allow the audience to see the whole setting and just slowly reveals different sections of the scene so most of the visual information on the scene is hidden which would provoke the audience to ask questions and piece together what has happened for themselves. The use of the still close ups use foregrounding to place the objects of interest immediately in the viewers focus with shallow depth of field used when focusing on a particular object in the frame and a large depth of field when the focus is on larger or multiple objects in the shot. The lack of movement with the camera gives the impression that the shots are still images which could be interpreted as last snapshots of someone’s life as with the setting the audience would expect there to have been a murder as is conventional of such films. This is followed by a tracking long shot which moves from the right of the room to the left. It starts with block framing as the camera moves past a piece of furniture creating a slow reveal of the entirety of the setting and full devastation in the scene as well as what appears to be a dead body on the floor further reinforcing the idea that there has been a murder. This tracking shot could also give a sense of a point of view as the audience would feel like they are walking into the room to discover what has happened.
As previously mentioned the camera work used in conjunction with the props as well as the setting which is a smashed up interior of an apartment containing household objects like televisions and sofas to make it believable with low lighting being used, which is often seen in thrillers, with the main light sources coming from the knocked over lamps in the room which also adds to the realism of the destruction in the scene. The main effect of the camera work used here is to created restricted narration as the close up shots create a puzzle for the audeince as they know very little about what has happened in the scene. 

Editing and Sound
The editing used in this scene also reflects the mood with slow transitions between shots with simple straight cuts that appear to match the beat of the music used which is contrapuntal as is it romantic and slow paced which does not fit in with the chaos of the scene, however, can be seen as fitting as it can reflect the broken mood of the scene. Also with this scene being the introduction to the film the audience could think that this could be a manipulation of time as they would assume they are not seeing the beginning of the plot so the story has been re-ordered. There are no diegetic sounds to be heard in this making the scene more solemn and lonely as the audience just have the mostly still shots and soundtrack to try and create atmosphere.
This works well as a thriller opening as it grabs the audiences attention and makes them try to find clues in the scene as well as presenting possible themes of revenge, betrayal and crime from what the audience can see along with a type of character with a victim that is surrounded by the chaos.



The Dark Knight - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYBEquZ_j0


Camera Work
The introduction to “The Dark Knight” immediately sets the story in an urban environment, which is a usual setting for a thriller, with an establishing shot of a skyline before tracking in to a side of a building where after the audience is introduced to the characters who are the antagonists as in the scene the audience sees them robbing a bank which would also set the theme of this film being a crime thriller. The main camera angles and sizes are eye level long shots and mid close ups of the antagonists allowing the audience to see them in relation to the environment and their body movement as with the use of clown face masks as part of the costumes body language would have to interpret more of the emotions in the dialogue.


MES
The main setting featured is the interior of the bank which has appropriate set pieces to make it believable like the vault and the cashiers with high key lighting to resemble the daylight and make the scene more realistic. Props are also used effectively to show the organisation of the group with the different technologies and weapons used effectively to get the job done. With the inclusion of dialogue in this scene as well as wide angle shots not much of the story is hidden from the audience and the only thing left to the audience to figure out is the identities of the antagonists as the costumes keep their faces covered at all times with the inclusion of the clown face masks.

Sound
The sounds used in this scene contrasts to the one in “44 Inch Chest” with the music being parallel sound and less dominant in the scene with much of the focus being on the action with the sound effects that stand out more adding to the realism and beliveablility of the scene.

Editing
Continuity editing is used in this scene with shots being edited in chronological order with straight cut to transition between shots for most of the scene and towards the end jump cuts are used to just show the important points in the story for example when one of the robbers is filling the bags up with money in the vault a jump cut is used to go to the next shot in the main lobby area of the bank with all the bags filled.
This works as a thriller opening as the themes relate to violence and crime thriller with the antagonists clearly being human. The story also jumps straight into the confrontation and skips the set up by immediately putting the viewer in the action with props used to show motive of the characters and the interior settings to reflect
the sinister action create realism.


Se7en - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY&feature=player_embedded

Editing
In the opening of “Se7en” editing is a dominant feature as it uses a great amount of discontinuity editing techniques. Jump cuts are used as transitions between the characters actions as well as slight manipulation of time with frames overlapping, shots being reversed for a small amount of time and other frames flash up in the sequence which distorts the image and therefore confuses the viewer and create an unsettling and tense atmosphere.

Camera
Camera angles used also add to this as during the scene the only part of the character that is visible is his hands so restricts the audiences view so is restricted narration. The close ups in the camera work allow for focus on the objects that the character is handling with most having a large depth of field which enables the audience to see the details in the props and help them try to piece together what the story is about.

MES
The props that are clearly shown and are the most dominant in the scene are paperwork and pictures of dead bodies people making it appear to be a crime thriller theme and also poses the question does this character work or the police or is he not to be trusted? Also with the camera being so close to the props no surrounding settings are revealed so the camera work is subjective but with the contents of the props the audiences assumption would be that he is inside in the daytime as the lighting is high key soft lighting to represent natural daylight to keep it realistic. With parts of costume the audience only sees the bandages on the characters fingers after he takes the skin of with a blade, with the knowledge that this is a crime themed thriller the audience can judge if he is trying to remove his fingerprints or possibly they could get a different reading from the text.

Sound
Dietetic sound is not heard during this sequence with no sound effects to mach any moment shown within the scene, however, music can be heard and is parallel with what’s happening in the scene and adds to an unsettling atmosphere with high pitched notes used in the soundtrack and that with the distortion of the images the sound of the music also distorts to continue to add to the feeling of suspense and danger.

This works well as a thriller opening as it makes the audience ask questions and with the use of restricted narration the story plot is not revealed so keeps up suspense and tension as the audience would not know what is happening or what will happen.



The Silence of the Lambs - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixv-BQtMZHY

MESThe opening of “The Silence of the Lambs” places the character within a conventional thriller setting in the woods with an extreme long shot at a high angle followed by a tilt which establishes the scene and reveals the character. This would immediately set a tense atmosphere as with the setting being a well known conventional setting the audience would expect some sinister force lurking within the trees. Also in the setting there are parts of obstacle courses that the character traverses which puts forward the idea of a military training ground but through use of costume the audience can see this is an FBI training ground as “FBI” is embroidered on the characters jumper. This now allows the audience to come to the conclusion that this could be a crime thriller with the introduction of the FBI character. Props are also used to tell the story as the location changes from the woods to the FBI headquarters where we see photos and magazine cuttings on the wall on one of the offices that depict murders and provide clues to the plot to the audience which sets up the 'Initial Situation' or 'Equilibrium' stage in the narrative.

Camera
With camera work the use of the extreme long shot previously mentioned allows the scene to be set and long shots allow the audience to clearly see the body language and movement of the character as in this scene there is no emotion that needs to be capitalised upon with close up shots. Tracking shots are used for the running shots and give a sense of pace but some shots could also represent a point of view when the camera follows in behind the character which is something that would be in the viewers mind considering the setting and also the music as the rhythm and style creates a tense mood as it increases in pace slightly along with the characters movements.

Editing
Editing in this scene used simply with straight cuts to transition between shots with the exception of one jump cut from the woods to the headquarters to cut down on unnecessary time. The shots themselves are mostly quite long in length which allows the audience to see the characters journey from one place to another and see them in relation to their environment.

Sound
Diegetic sound can also be heard over the music unlike in “44 Inch chest” and “Se7en” as we can hear the characters foot steps and heavy breathing used for realism. Dialogue is also used to introduce who the character is and her position within the story with some background information being given in the dialogue.

This works as a thriller opening as it uses a conventional setting very early on and slowly reveals parts of the plot through use of mise en scene and sound allowing the audience to be drawn in and try to figure out the main plot for themselves.


Run Lola Run - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2tCcWSQOJ8&feature=player_embedded
“Run Lola Run” is quite different when compared to the other thriller openings.

Camera Work and EditingCamera work is used to create a distorting effect with editing adding to this by speeding up the shot to confuse the viewer with the camera weaving through a crowd of people at a low angle and occasionally stops to focus on certain people prompting the viewer to ask questions about weather these people are significant in the plot or are just used as a point of focus to fit with the narration in the scene. Shallow depth of field is also used throughout this scene giving it a very hazy appearance which distorts the image more and therefore adds to viewer confusion. At the end of the crowd scene the camera focuses on a police officer at a low angle mid close up looking up to show his authority and importance as he is the only character in this scene that is focused upon and has dialogue. As previously mentioned the editing in this scene mainly consits of speeding up the shot which is a long continous shot with no cuts untill after the the officer has finished his dialouge to a birds eye view and then a zoom is used to transition into a cartoon animation opening which is a very unusual choice for a thriller.

MES
In the crowd scene it is not clear where the story is set as with the shallow depth of focus coupled with the lighting and the people in the scene no setting is actually establishes at any time. Costumes used in this are to show that this could be an ordinary scene in a street which could suggest an urban setting and along with the costume for the officer add realism to the scene. Props used in this suggest thay this film is based around sport with a football being used at the end of the offiers diolouge which also hints towards this based around sprt by talking about the duration of the game. Also at the beggining of the sequence the camers focuses on an old wooden clock with what apperes to be a dragon carving on it. However this does not give any clues to the plot as it seems not to fit with the rest of the sequence and only provokes the audience to ask questions about how its fitis within the story.

Sound
Sound in this scene is lacking with no diagetic sound but instead a voiceover and music creating enigma as it is not clear what is going on in the scene.

This works well as a thriller becuase like some of the others it allows the audience to make judments for themselves about the plot and the characters whislt keeping them hooked in suspence with the uses of the disorienting camera work. 

This can help in our thriller opening as it allows us to see what styles and conventions work well and interest the audience so we can replicate and use those methods to make ournpice more successful.

Prelim Evaluation - Rasmus Klingstroem

Location Scout
As there was a lot of filming which had to be completed in a very short amount of time before we broke up for the Christmas holidays, I decided to look around the college grounds to places to film which were not going to be disturbed by either students or teachers - such as the music rooms, the top floor business rooms at the end of the day / lunchtimes. There were also other factors I had to take into account such as the possible camera angles we could and could not achieve within these rooms, the lighting problems for the white balancing as well as the timeframe we would have to work around within these rooms.
Many of the possible locations would've worked really well, others would've worked horribly due to the lack of space, the lack of time, or the amount of background noise due to other students.
Some of the locations which I considered are on the blog in a post below.

This would be why I mainly chose a path and room which wouldn't really be affected by the background noise of the students around, and if it was, it would be editted out during the editing phase of the production. However I did not expect the amount of noise from the outside during the very short dialogue scene to be that intense - to the extent that it was extremely clear to the viewers of the film, and couldn't be edited out because of the dialogue within these scenes.


Casting Director - Group Effort
Due ot the fact that we were in such a small group, it would seem unfair to give an extra task to another group member, which is why we decided to pull our knowledge together when it came to the Casting Director role of the production.
Although this was a fairly minor role, it had to be discussed between the group members, as to whether we'd want to act ourselves or gather some of our friends to do it for us. We did choose to act ourselves from the very start as it was far quicker and easier than gathering more people and relying on them turning up to the filming when we had a very limited amount of time.


Props
From the very start of the story boarding, i've been considering, and debating with myself over which props would be used, as there would have to be some props, even if it is only minor, such as a suit jacket or sunglasses.
After we had the main plot of the story done, and the story boarding done, we had mainly decided on which props would be taken which would require me to bring a suit jacket into college. Although this was not as major a task as Alea, whom had to bring a lot of props as it was more convenient due to the fact she had a lot of cool props which would work really well in the film.

Finished Film
I believe the film was successful in fulfilling all the criterias required such as the 180 degree rule, continuity, and keeping the while balance as best we could. All of these things helped to create realism within our prelim task, although it could've been far better in both the editing as well as the locations.
The editing used at the start of the film was perfect, and created exactly the feeling we were aiming for, which was confusing in the audience as to why the character is running, and the slow motion effect was to help the audience with the establishing shot so they'd get a good idea of where this took place.

Although we did have to cut back some of the footage we had as it needed to be around 1 minute long, and we had 2 minutes and 30 seconds worth of film - the vast majority of the running was removed and the initial scene just prior to the dialogue was cut severely.

Overall I do believe our prelim turned out fairly well, which was helped a lot by the amount of time we spent debating on the linear order of the scenes, as well as the editing. We definitely spent enough time making sure everything was edited well and taken through garage-band in order to sharpen up certain moments of the prelim task.

5 Thriller Openings - Rasmus Klingstroem

Goodfella's

Camera-Work
This movie opening starts off differently to a lot of movies - it does not really give much in the way of an establishing shot, as shown at 0:42 - 0:51. After which it does give a little more information to help the viewer figure out where they are and what is going on, although it is very limited information.
The start of the film does not give any indication to what is going on, or who these people are until 2:00, which is fairly late to start giving information to the viewer, although it works very well to create suspense and confusion for the viewer - even though the viewers had figured out these people were not the protagonists by 1:45 which is when one of the men kills their captive.

Sounds
I believe that diegetic sound was used for realism during the first 2 minutes of the film, which was mostly silent, and the only input the audience recieved was some back-talk between the characters.
Although this changed after 2:00 which is when the internal monologue started for, what the audience must presume to be, the main character of this movie, which continues throughout the opening sequences of this film.

Editing
Was used very well throughout the opening sequence of this film - it even matches the internal monologue to the moment where the audience was taken back in time to his childhood, which helps the audience make sense of what just happened, and what was going to happen (the internal monologue of the character's past).


MES
The lighting of the first 2 minutes of the movie partly help to show the sinister actions these characters are making, although it is not fully revealed until the very end of the scene.
The props of this movie, such as the handgun used at the start of the film (1:45) helps to emerce the audience within the time period of the movie. Not only this, the state of the main character's parent's house shows the misfortune of the character's childhood, yet contradicts with the monologue which tells us he was "the luckiest kid" in the neighbourhood.

No Country for Old Men

 Camera-Work
There really isn't much to be said about the Camera-Work, other than it sets the mood and the setting for the movie. This opening is very general, unlike the previous movie which didnt really have an initial establishing shot, this one has plenty - some might even argue it has far too much of it, but I personally quite like it as it sets the tone of the movie, and what we believe to be the main protagonist, even though we dont see him quite yet.
These shots from 0:35 to 2:40 show the slow progression of the day, from dawn right the way through to midday (or clear sunlight) - and i would consider these shots to be more observational, to give the audience a chance to take in the scenery and to absorb the dialogue from an unseen character.

MES
These is an incredible amount of external settings used within the starting scene of this movie, the vast majority of this is outdoors, which can give the audience the impression that the rest of the movie might also be outside. The props, such as the antagonist's long hair, and pale skin helps to portray his evilness to the audience and helps us to accurately dislike this figure from a fairly early point in the film.
There really isn't that much low key lighting, or desaturated colour throughout the starting scene of this movie, because of the setting - which is in Texas, one of the hottest places in the U.S.A - and by using either of these, it could demotivate the audience from viewing it.

Sound
Non diegetic sound is used from the very start of the film, which would be the dialogue from an unknown character - whom the audience know to be the protagonist through the descriptions he gave, and the values this character seems to posess.
Other than that, the rest of the starting scenes of this movie relied on diegetic sounds to help create realism for the audience, as well as to contruct the mood of the movie - being an 'old western'.

Editing
Continuity was used to create a good sense of flow throughout the starting dialogue, although the audience may not have realised it at the time, the sun rose far far quicker than it otherwise would've but through the use of editting, this became less obvious and flowed very nicely into the movie.
Although this movie did not use any parallel editing, or cross cutting, it still had a lot of suspense due to the antagonist's actions after only a few minutes into the film - being the murder of a police officer.

The Dark Knight

 Camerawork
From 0:55 to 1:15 you see the generic establishing shot, which doesnt give too much information away other than the fact that the movie is based in the city, and that something bad is happening from the window which is broken at 1:15.
There is a really good example of shallow depth of field, which is at 1:20 to 1:30. The camera slowly zooms and focuses on one object, which is a clown mask, which gives us, as the audience, the impression that that mask is very important to the plot we are about to watch unfold.
Most of the scene is done via tripod, but certain elements of it are done with a hand held camera, to show the urgency of the matter, or to give us a subjective view of what is going on, rather than giving us a clear picture of everything that is happening all at once.

MES
Most of the scene is done internally, but the establishing shots of the characters involved is both internal and external.
The use of interior settings does reflect the threat which is about to be posed at the very start of the film, at 1:12. The generalised use of props such as the masks for each of the antagonists shows how they are unimportant, which is again strengthened by the actions of these characters after tasks have been completed (the death of one clown to lower the split in profits).
Desaturation is used at the start of the opening title sequence, I believe this is done to keep the audience entertained even though the movie has not started yet - however after the establishing shot has been shown there appears to be no desaturation of the colours, nor is there any low key lighting used.
Due to the fact that the antagonists are wearing clown masks, we are automatically suppose to dislike them, and us, as the audience are suppose to want a swift resolution to the conflict which occurs.

Sound
I believe some diegetic sounds were used throughout this opening scene such as the shattering glass at 1:12 or the gunshots at 2:14 or 3:32, this was intended to keep the movie as realistic as possible so the audience wouldn't be desensitised to the movie.
I do not believe any non diegetic sounds were used other than the music over the top of the entire scene to help create suspense for the audience.

Editing
There has definately been a lot altered to this movie in order to keep the audience griped, such as parallel editing, and cross cutting - throughout the 10 minutes of the opening scene, this was clearly used to increase the pace of the starting scene, speeding up as it reaches towards a conclusion.

Misery

 Camerawork
The start of the film is fairly important at understanding the character, which is why I believe the director took this opportunity to show us what type of main character we're dealing with. This is done through the use of clever, small clips from around this character's house, with the noise of a typewritter in the background.
This is done to show the audience that this character is very ordered, he already has his celebratory drink and cigarette ready for when he's finished what the audience must presume is a book he is currently writting.
Throughout this opening scene, there is no use for hand held cameras as nothing is really happening, instead the director prefered to use a tripod, to help the audience observe the character and his surroundings to better figure out what type of man we're dealing with.
 
MES
Props play a big part in the opening scene of this movie, as throughout the interior scene, you casually bypass several different props which you might otherwise not find that important, or not know the purpose of - however later in the scene, you actually find out what each of these props would be used for, and answering all the questions layed out in the first 30 seconds of the scene.
The costume and hair of the character seen within the scene is very general, not showing him off to be a wealthy person, nor showing him to be a poor person - although it does give the feeling that he is content with his life due to the order and attention which is shown given to the props, as well as  the clear bland look of the character through costume and hair.

Sound
Diegetic sounds are used within this scene, such as the typewriter, to help enhance the sense that he is working on something which he would find quite important. Other, very specific parts are also enhanced through diegetic sounds as the placing of the work inside the satchel, as well as the opening of the bottle - all these are done because of the fact we saw them earlier when we had no clue of their purpose.

Editing
The editing is fairly standard in the sense that it flows well, and the cuts are barely noticeable, in fact I believe the cuts are not noticed at all by ordinary viewers whom would want to be immersed in the story rather than critical of the piece.
Within the opening, there really is no use of parallel editing, or cross cutting as it is very liniar and we are not aware of any other characters to jump back and forth between.

The Book of Eli

 Camerawork
The establishing shot does not give the viewer very much information as to where they are, all it shows is trees and a corpse which doesn't help at all. It does however give a close-up of the dead corpse so the audience is aware that he is not alive, and it also gives a good close-up to the first living character we see in the film, whom turns out to be the protagonist. This is to give the audience good detail on the character, and the props he's wearing, which would be the nuclear hazzard suit, which both gives the audience some answers, hints at others, and raises more questions, which is a clever ploy by the director.
I believe the camera was only ever on the tripod during the initial starting scene to give the audience as much detail in the surroundings and the character as possible.

MES
There was no variety in exterior settings, the entirety of the initial starting sequence of the film is in the same palce, with no difference in location or camera angles at all, apart from the occasional close-up.
The props do help to give us a sense of the world we're trying to be immersed in, as well as the harshness of the current landscape - which is shown by the nuclear hazzard suit, and the dead corpse.

Sound
At the start of the scene, there is nothing but non-diegetic sound which would be the music - this is simply put in place to help create the mood of the first few scenes within the film. After a pan shot, it is then mixed in with some diegetic sounds such as the cat purring, and the sound of the character breathing heavily.

Editing
Throughout this scene, they try and use as few cuts as possible, which is why for the first 25-35 seconds, it is just one long panning shot across the entire scene, apart from the where character is sitting. This is to slowly force the audience to ask more and more questions as the scene progresses, rather than the majority of the questions asked at the start.
Cross cutting is used within this scene between the cat and the character, to give the audience a hint as to what is about to happen - being that the cat will be killed.

As the arrow travels through the air, time was slowed down using editing to give the audience as sense as to how fast the arrow was actually going - rather than having a 2 second clip which would be a blur to the audience.