Audience research

To get a better idea of what my horror opening should be like, I asked my target audience, questions that link to the product I will produce.
These were the six questions I asked:
1. What do you expect to see in the opening of a film?
2.What openings have stood out to you in film in the past?
3.What are the conventions of a horror genre?
4.What do you expect to see in an opening to a film in the horror genre?
Here is where I explain my own idea: 5.What do you think of my idea?
6.Would this opening make you watch the rest of the film?

Here is a short video featuring answers of my questions by Nathan Sanders, Poppy Frost and  Harry New:

 

 

 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to film my other people answering the questions:
So I had to write them down, here are they answers.

Answers from Steph Gosling (16)

1. An opening should included information about the setting for example years, the background, for example if the main action took place in a city.
2.  Notable openings for her were the opening to Insidious and Shrek.
3. In Steph's opinion the conventions were murder, blood and progression.
4.   She said that an opening to a film in the Horror genre should be an Introduction  to the main Villain, fear and maybe blood and violence.
5. After explaining my idea to her, she said that it was a good idea and would be interesting.


Answers from Ellie Payne and Ellen Whitmore (17):
1. They said:  The title of the film, introduction to the theme and an introduction to the characters.
2. Notable  opening for them were: Lucy, James Bond films ( Especially  the more modern ones such as Sky fall)
3.  The conventions of Horror in their opinion : There should be some tension, some dramatic music and Jump scares.
4. In a opening in a horror film there should be: The villain, confusion within the main characters and some tense music.
5. After explain my idea, they thought that it was: Enjoyable, Interesting and different from most horror films out already.
6. They said they would, however maybe have show more detailed in what's going to happen next, would peck there interest.  


With this information in mind when making my film I will consider the following, music; I will seek out the right music to create drama and tension, such as horror piano pieces. A full introduction to both characters.
Tension that should be created by the two leads, slower movement, fuller length shots ect.    

Casting

In my film I have decide to chose, two people for my roles in my opening. These two people are Jamie McGregor and Grace Peirson.
I chose these two because I thought that looked they right age. The suit my character chose and personality.
Typical characters in a horror film should have a frighten and unusual look, this adds to the genre of creepiness and fear in the horror genre. Sometimes in horror the characters behave in an unrealistic manner as this helps the plot more forward and the violence to happen. For example the character usually try a figure out strange happening by them selves rather than the realistic idea to call the police or they friends. Directors chose to do this to help the violence happen.



Grace has a the ideal creepy doll like face, to suit the horror genre, she is also quite young looking which would suit the false innocence's I want to portray. Horror females stereotypically look a little  innocent to create a creepy atmosphere when they are on screen.







While Jamie would be right as he has a quite determined face which would suit my characters personality, as well as being a stark contrast from Grace. He also looks the right age, 16 which would fit the character.











I also auditioned two other people two others to be in my film:
Charlie Woodrow and Becca Stimpson:


   
However I felt that they didn't feel right for the horror setting, as well as looking a lot older then my characters.

Target Audience

For film as is it a horror film, I believe that someone who is older will enjoy this film. I think the best target audience would be a teenagers at it is based on people in that age group 15-20. A typical person to watch this film would be a young horror film fan, who also has interest in the psychological and super natural. I believe that they would chose to watch this in the theatres to see the action and fear on the big screen.
I believe that my film will interest the audience as horror fans will enjoy the simple scary ideas that I want to show in the screen. The characters because of their age and their situation of being in high school.
I've asked people in this age group and general they all said that the audience is ideal for my film and its plot, they said they'd enjoy watching a film if it had violence in it.


These are the type of people that might watch the film, teenagers. Males and Females, over the age of 15.

 
 
 

My script

This is the script for my opening.


A field at a dusk, the sun is setting. In the field there is a boy (Adam) running away from a girl lying on the ground covered in blood. He then falls to the ground, rubbing his blood stained hands on to his face, then he hears a phone alarm, which wakes him up.

Adam: *Falls, closes his eyes*
Suddenly the scene changes to a messy bedroom, where Adam  has just woken up
Adam: *Sighs, looks at his phone, hand moves towards the phone.*
There is a cut across action as Adam is then opening his front door.
Adam: *Put in headphones*
He is now standing at the train station
Adam: *Checks phone, see a text from his mother* *Shivers*
Train comes in to the platform.
Adam: *Eyes widen*
A girl steps out of the train walking quite slowly. Her eyes look down, and then at Adam.
*BLACK OUT, CREDITS AND MUSIC*
There is not dialogue for my opening as I wanted it to be atmospheric and felt like having words would have been to difficult to fit my genre of Horror.

Locations

In my opening I want to have three Locations

The first location I want to use is a park, with lush, green open spaces to create a creepy atmosphere.
I hope to film in this park at dusk so the weather can also suit with the genre of horror. The park I'm thinking of using is Ketts park as it's large and green, with will help create the scene, to show the murder of who of my characters.
The trees in the park as give my opening more of a horror feel, as the low hanging branches give off a creepy atmosphere and will also giver of scary shadows which will contrast the bright colours of the green grass. 

The second location I'm thinking of using is someone's bedroom, which I will re-design it to look more like the character of Adam. I'm thinking of asking on of my males friends to use one of  their bedrooms as it will look realistic for the character, this will also create the idea of chaos in a setting normality.





The last location is where I'm going to have some of my main action will take place, is a train station. I want to use this as it fits in with the story and starts of the action. I want to use a train station as it will create a strange and chilling atmosphere as well as working with the story. I want to film this at Dawn, as the light will work well with the atmosphere because the light will be very bright and will create a lot of shadows. It will also work at it is a close in area which emphasizes the idea of no escape.  

Characters for my opening

Characters
In my film opening I want to have two characters, a female and male character.
There names are Adam Cooper and Angle Dubois, and they are both teenagers.

Adam
Age: 17
Personality: He is shy, quite young boy who can sometimes act arrogant.
Costume: His wears a normal outfit of a simple colourful t-shirt.
Relationships: He has a few friends, and a distant relationship with his mother and father, whom he hardly sees. He is a relationship with Angle for a few days, but breaks it off as he finds her creepy.
He is from Britain, Norfolk.





Angle
Age: 16
Personality: She is a very quite and creepy female, whom doesn't really talk to anybody.
Costume: A white lacy dress which becomes significant later on in the film.
Relationships: She has no family that is heard of and doesn't have many friends as most of her class mates have dispread. She is in love with Adam so much so that she kills anyone close to him.
She is from Britain, Norfolk.

Film Full synopsis

My horror/ thriller film will be called "Refresh" and it will have a complex story line, and focus on the strange and supernatural. During the film, the character, Adam and a girl called Angle will experience incredible story together.

The story of the whole is that, Adam experiences traumatic dreams and memory's though the month of October, ever memory is the same Adam is in an open air field, with a knife killing a girl he doesn't know. Adam is very scared by these dreams, they are consequently on his mind. He also feels that there is something not right about his life. Though some narrative Adam questions it. During the film he meets the girl in his dreams. Slowly she falls in love with him, while they do have a short, happy relationship for a few days, Adam finds her too clingy and is also terrified of his dreams. When he does this, Angle goes crazy, stalking him, threatening him and killing off his other friends. Then one night, Adam's walking alone in the park, when he see her killing his sister, in a rage Adam tries to kill her. However when he does he finds him self losing his memory and ending up back at the start of the month, when only the killing memory left. It turns out that Angle has super natural powers and keeps repeating time so she can be with him, as she has loved him for a long time. To stop this from happening, Adam kills himself at the end of the movie, the last thing he sees is her face.

At the start of the film, (The part I'm creating for my coursework) will feature him having the dreams and seeing the girl for his first time at a train station platform.

Pitch for our Sci fi film.

In groups we had to make a story using a couple of characters and a genre. Our groups story was to create a film around that to sale to producers.
What genre and character we got:
.Sci fi genre
. Sally
. Josh and his age  ( 8)
. A gun
The film "Sally"
With this we came up with the story of Josh being an 8 year old boy in a orphanage who loved aliens and had a toy gun.  In this film the young boy would be played by Oakiee Pendergast, even though he is not well known we agreed that his look was right for the film. During the film he meets an alien who will be played by Zoe Sandler, who will bring in audiences as she is quite famous. We picked her because we thought that she would look the part as she has played aliens before.
During the film the audience will see the advantages that Sally and Josh, the opening we will see the boy find the alien, with the prop of a toy gun.
We did this as we thought that this film would get a good audience of Sci Fi fans and fans of the old film ET. As well as the film will help the audience think about their own relationship with an older generation.  The film will be rated a 12 for moderated violence, and maybe some swearing.

This is us doing the Pitch and The poster of ideas we made:

Character profiles

Katniss Everdeen
The Hunger Games
She is from the highly acclaimed film the Hunger Games. She is 16-18 in  the trilogy. In this film the population their world lives in different districts. Katniss lives in district 12. She is fatherless as he died in the mines of district 12. She has a very deep relationship with the rest of her family such as her sister Prim.
She has one best friend, Gale, who's in love with her. 
She is young looking while be thin and lanky, with brown hair and green eyes. She is determined to survive and she is a introverted.
Though out the films she becomes more determined to do what's right and fight back. She is caring but bitter towards the capital.

John Bender
The Breakfast Club
John Bender is a character from the 1985 movie, The Breakfast club. His age is around 16/17 year old. He lives in America, with a abusive father and mother. He has a lot of friends but we don't see them in the film. He has a relation with the other character Claire which he shares a kiss at the end of the film. He is tall with brown hair. He is troublesome and don't care for the high power, often being hush and rude to those around him.

Regina George

Mean Girls

Regina George is a popular character from Mean girl, in 2004. She is from America and is 16/17, and lives with her step mother and her father. She has two best friends and is tall, blonde with green eyes. She is popular, cruel and materialistic. Her best friends are named Gretchen Wieners  and Karen Smith who are with her though the whole film, however stop being her friends near the end of the film.

My film opening; characters

Some directors thing of characters before they think of the plot of there film as the characters move the plot forward. Plus the more complex the character the more impressed the audience will be, if the characters are  more interesting  and have a good back story the audience will have more of a connection between the characters.
The directors who do this pick characters that will fit with the story. For example Tim Burton in big fish thought of the character of Edward Bloom before the story. As Edward Bloom was such a well thought out character it was better to make the plan out the story based on his character rather than make a character to fit the story. I think that Burton did this so it would make the film process easier as events of the film would only work with that certain character. As the events are strange and would only fit with a character which who like Edward Bloom is strange enough and kind enough to live in the situation like them.
Characters are important to a story as they flesh out the plot and increase likability to the film. In my view the characters are more important than the story as a bad plot can be fixed by some great character as they are the more remembered and most relateble part of the film.
In the past many ( Although not always) where stereotypes of certain types of people. The Hero, The Villain ect. As time has gone on creators have become more creative with there characters and making them more complex. This trend has happened in all genres of the film memdiem. Strangely the time we are in now has changed the main idea of the Hero. The heroes dynamics in most media have ( mostly in young adult, adult films) have become more dark and depressing. The changes between Adam West Batman comedic of the 60s to the Christopher Nolan dark, edge films of this era.  The characters of today can be excellent and well thought out or terrible examples of writing and human concepts.

As my Coursework is only an opening few minutes I can not create a well establish characters as there is too little time but I can use my characters to show the genre of my film or the roles they will that be in my opening. As my film is the genre of Horror I want to show that my characters are mysterious and modern in dress and aesthetic.

Typical horror movie teenagers:

Openings of other genres

Romance
The conversions of a romance film are quite simple. A romance film should show two people fall in love with each other.

Here are three openings of Romantic films.

The Notebook displays ideas of the love though it's soft music and sweet romantic colours of red with the sunset. It gives an impression that it will be quite a famous love film because of it's simple but sweet opening.
And the river shows that maybe it's a quite famous part of the film.
The names coming up slowly also makes the film seem more simple and sweet.
As well as show the gracefulness of the characters.

The Fault In Our Stars
The fault in ours shows the character is high sprites, laughing, smiling ect. This shows that the film will have romantic ideas in it and the relationship will be full of promise.
However it mixes it with a rather depressing speech about how life is which shows the ideas that it could included sadness. The mix of the two shows that the film will included romance with tragedy, which this genre sometimes uses this convention.

10 Things I Hate About You
In contrast 10 Things I Hate About You is a more of comedic film with romantic intent. So this film shows a contrast between two types of people. It shows two girls driving to school, one girl has popular ( for the time) while the other girl (later we find out is the main character) is playing hard rock music, while having a sour face. This shows the that film will surround this girl. Her moodiness shows that this film will show to contrasting characters will be the ones in love, as the conversations of America high school dramas is that the girl and guy will change each other to fall in love. This opening is simple and doesn't really show the genre plentifully but does make the audience interested in the film itself.

Examples of openings that are in the genre of Horror

Horror uses the conversions of being scary and tense. Here are three examples of openings which use this genre:

Arlington Road
Arlington Road's road shows of what you could do to create something thrilling, but not using a lot of violence.
In the film, we see the main character see a strange dying boy on the road. The film manages to show the fearful part by showing the mans desperation when he runs to the hospital, in a almost alienating way. This helps the audience to understand simply that this movie will be a scary film without the need of too much screaming and violence. Here is a trailer of the film.




The Purge

 The Purge,  is about the horrifying concept of having a night of no laws against crime. Thus this idea by the population is treated as a norm. During the opening the audience see the violent  beatings and murders, the director uses a peaceful song in the background to contrast the differences, all the while the information appears on screen. This relates to the characters not questioning the horrors of the new law.
This opening lets the audience understand what the film will contain because of it's easy to understand.


Birdemic

This is an example how not to make a film. Even for amateur production, the acting, effects and story are all shocking bad. The acting is very poor even by low budget standers. The effects are laughable. Most of all the  opening gives no impression of what the film is going to be about. It seems to be trying to show 7 different styles at once as well as being very boring for the audience.
 Here is a awkwardly film scene of Birdemic, which shows all the faults of the film.

Film idea: Refresh

The opening for my film I want to show a horror.
For this I going to film a boy having bad dreams/visions about killing a girl, in flash back film
(Using a filter to show it's a flash back)
Then I want to film him standing on a train platform, a little scared. This will results in the boy seeing the girl in his dreams getting off the train, which then lead to him getting a text,(Which the audience will not see what it is) then the film opening will end.
The film will included no dialogue as it feel like it will make more of an impact with the confusion of script writing and it dialogue would interrupted the suspense of the opening.
 The film will be in the genre of horror and I will research more information on how to create horror and how to use cameras ad film works.

Narration

Narration is the technique of a characters talking over the film about what's happening.
This is used to show it's from their perspective so that the audience, like the audience is inside the head of the character.
Usually this happens in a teen movie where it can be more relatable for the audience, as it gives more of an incite in to the mind of teenagers. Films such as Perk of being a wallflower use the idea of him writing to friend and use that in a narration in some parts that are intensely tragic or need explaining. Other narratives can be used by many different people, such as being separated across many peoples minds, such as the idea of growing up or different peoples experiences with the same  topic.
The good parts of Narration:
.It can make a film more interesting as it can expand the amount of empathy that the audience could have for the main character.
.It helps the audience understand the views of different people
.It gives extra information of the film
.It gives an idea in to what the film contains and what the resolve is

The bad part:
.Narration can bore some audiences if they dislike the main character.
.Narration can detracting from the main action in the main film
.It can side track the film
.It can feel outdated

Some films use something to show Narration, e.g have the narrator telling a story to the other characters, such as Titanic. Its a good idea as it shows how times have changed in from the story to it being told.

Villains

A Villains is a character who's actions and motives are "evil" which moves the plot forward.
In many films, the audience should feel hated about the villain, seeing there motives are horrible and evil, which make the audience want the hero to win. However this is not always the case.

The Villains motives in most films:
. World Domination- The dream of controlling the world and all it's people.
.Death- The dream of killing multiple people or planets.
.Getting rid of the hero- This Villain dislikes the idea of a hero doing good so spends they life turning to get rid of them.
.Revenge- The Villain has a bad past and wants to hurt those who made it that way.
 .Because they think what they're doing is right- Some Villains think what they're doing will help society.
Love- A powerful motive, a villain who would commit violent acts for the one they love
Self - Some Villains do horrible acts for ones enjoyment.

Over the uses, like all forms of the media ,villains have become more interesting and complex. The audience now can have many different reactions to newer films. Many now see the Villain as the best part of the film, if they are resemble and significant enough to stay with people. (The Joker in the Batman series for example) Some Villains of the last 30-20 years have had a the best and most fun lines. Directors and screen have put more thought in to the reasons and back story behind Villains, using from humorous irony to crashing horrors to create the Villain.
Some Screen writers make some Villains to make the audience get emotionally attached tot he Villain as they're back story is tragic and relatable ( This happens a lot in horror films where the villain is bullied or abused)
The Villain role has also changed over the years. In some films the perspective is the Villains, or there are lots of Villain characters. Or the true Villain isn't revealed until half way though the film.
In any case the Villain, at least in my view, is a valuable part of any part of the movie and can become a very interesting and enjoyable part of any film.

The start of reasech

My project has started to make own film has officially started. For this I will look it to the film genres such as horror and thriller. Looking at examples of films and watching them, such as many Alfred Hitchcock films and other thriller works.
 Here are some films I might watch that go with my genre.

I will also research, different ways different directors make and start they're horror films, and more research into the Mis-En-Scene of horror films.

Big Fish

Big Fish

Big Fish is a Tim Burton film, made in 2003, as it about Will Brooms (Billy Curdip) dying father, Ed Bloom (older-Albert Finney,  younger Ewan McGregor). During the film, it slides to the saddest of the death of Wills father, to the unbelievable, whimsical stories of his life which the father tells. Which all have mid 20th feel to them. It goes from the odd birth of the father, though the strange town he finds in his teenage years to Vietnam to the finding the love of his life. The father tells these stories to much to his family, so that Will is special of these stories, telling most people around him and his own father that they are made up. The ending of the film in true sweet fashion ends with the story's existing. The message of the film is fact vs elaboration of story telling and weather is right to discourage on for the other.

One of the parts of the film I found very good was its story. The story had similar feel to the 80s classic Forrest Gump, as the set up was the same. All though, the stories were impossible and verged on creepy, such as the Karl Giant and sometimes a little too cheesy, such as the moments with Edward and his love.
The story is also told though narrative, this means the film seem wholesome, interestingly  even it is the older Ed Bloom, Ewan McGregor takes centre stage as narrator, this is an odd choice from Buton as it the context it seems confusing. But the young voice of Ewan McGregor is soft and sweet to listen to as well as transporting us to the actual events of the stories.
However the story was enjoyable and a joy to watch resulting in some great messages about family and childhood. As this was a Tim Buton production I would have expected of more of a gothic style such as his later work such as Night Mare before Christmas and Sweeny Todd.
In this film however the film is stylised with deep and bright colours giving the film a childlike theme, giving the impression of a fantastic story being told. The effects are also a interesting aspect of the film, they rage from large fish in the opening to the lavutiving
popcorn when Edward meets the love of his life at a circus.
Big fish combines the use of intense story arcs and slightly sadder moments with the astounding visual effects and the use of colour, sound and whimsy.


The emotion in Big Fish is heighten though the use of deep emotional feelings of the relationships between the father and his son.
While watching the film I could feel the love between the father and son even after seeing there difficult relationship. There was a good moments such as when Will's father was dying, I feel like I was there in the film watching his father die.



 
 

Horror; Psycoloigycal

Horror is the genre which is main purpose is to scary or horrify the audience. The genre has changed in the resent years. Starting in the 1890s, horror was a style that included gothicness and  monsters. In recent times horrors have become move violent, as newer technology can be used to make the violence look real. The main idea of horror know is too Psychological creep out the audience, thus using fitting the idea of death with sexual violence.
America Horror Story a FX television show, excellently show cases what modern horror is about. It mixes the horrified social impact and the un human motives of different characters, as well as basic fear of the unknown. Created by Ryan Murphy, it shows though, story and the technical aspect of true fearful horror.

The pros of doing Horror:

• Horror can expanded the creativity side of filming making, choses can range in creativity from music and settings.
• The genre can really do it's intended purpose of  scaring the audience is the main point of fear is done well.
• It's less subjective than a comedy, there is less to go wrong.
• Scripts can be simple.

The cons of doing Horror:

• It can sometimes be overly glorified violence
• It can look faked if the effects are cheap.
• The characters can be annoying and stupid.

Company idents

In films, before the action it must pay respect to the company that produces/directed or funded it. Over the years companies have shown this in multiple different ways, which showcases a number of different techniques  to highlight the company.
Such 20th Century Fox logo is remembered as it combines the large gold font, stylist lettering and booming sound to have it stuck in the audiences head, it also gives the audience an idea of what scale that the production will be on because of the large and bold statement the logo makes.

Similarly the Disney logo, while it has change in the resent years when Disney main Blockbuster movies were 3D animation, the Disney castle is sweet and lovely animated. For Adults it brings back a sense on Nostalgia because of the impact of Disney films for a young age and the logo excites children because of it sweet romantic music and exciting castle.

In our own Media studies class, our task was to create a company ident , we did this on Adobe After Effects. As I wasn't experienced on this program  so my final ideas were very basic. With the program I wanted to make something quite scary to show that my film was going to be a horror movie. With this in mind I chose a picture of showing creepy and bloody.

I used different effects such as Glow and Fade to create the creepy shadowy effect. I chose these effects as they were simple to program and looked creepy with the scary picture I chose.
I will hopefully develop these skills to create a more interesting and simply logo with people will remember more. This ident will also help create image which will go with the theme of my film, the hand will show the scariness and violence that will be shown in my film. The faded text will show simple way I can show something creepy.

What genres I'm considering

Horror

 I want my opening to be a horror film genre but not be very violent, and focus on the psychological horror and have a certain mystery to it. Films such as Memento will influence me for my opening which I will use different aspects of filming to create a psychological thriller. To do this I will research lots of horror films and short films as well openings made by other students on YouTube.

Ideas for my film opening

As our media studies class has moved on from doing practice in groups, I have noe thought more about my own film opening. I want my genre to be mysterious horror film, as I think it could be rather interesting to film and  this also means I don't have to included much dialogue which I didn't want to do because it would have been hard to think of a full script. As this is the first stages I will possibly change my mind, but these are my first idea I want my genre too be.  

 

Credits and titling

The Credits and titling are the film exploration of information that gives praise to the people involved, the Credits show these people and what they have done to support the film. There usually come at the end of the film in a list, however many recent directors show the credits in a more interesting way, they use more artistic ways of showing praise eg, Some directors have drawings or cartoons which make sense with the film. This is mainly used in children films such as Ice Age have cave drawing of the characters, this markers more at children and makes the credits more creative. With big budget films Credits can get very creative, such as big movies such as Marvel films or Harry Potter take a lot of time planning the credits, showing them in a artistic style, Harry Potter as it has a lot of names to go though never fails to make the credits interesting and relevant, such as showing the names in a magical way.

Most films however do not have the budget for the creative and original style of credits in these types of films. Many just you the simple Black and White colour scheme and have small writing roll up after the films climax. These films use this as it's the most simple and cheap to provide, they all so know that many people don't stay for the full credits so don't want to take that risk. In my view I don't think fascinating credits are necessary but it does add that the film markers are more involved and more together with there project and care more about it. However this might not always be the case as a film could be very artistic but still not an enjoyable and vice vears.

Titling is more expressive than credits. The titles effect the style, the theme and the genre of a film. Most film if the title of is more then one word, use the most important part in the largest text, such as Harry Potter being the first thing the audience sees so that makes then relies what there going in for as it's a series of films.
Other films use there style of title to show the genre such as horror films show there movie title as scary and gives an incarceration to what the films going to be, such as making the title look like blood or spiders webs. It also interesting how older horror films used bolder titles with bold colours to make there films more important and that they stand out. Now as there is more horror films coming out every year than ever, Horror films are now using the approach to make there titles looks as violent or as creepy as possible.

This poster was made when famous monster movies were being produced a lot.
They wanted to show like the monsters the film was going to be big and bold.
   

In the future horror movies play more with the mind and psychological parts of human emotions, using violence and creepy sighs more often which makes the audience feel fearful. The text is used to alluded the creepiness of the film by using dark colour.  

The Set of a film

The set of a film is the place we're the action takes place. The Set lets the audience know where, what and time the film is. For example if the film is set in 19th century England, the set would be a house in that style,

Such as film like Pride and Prejudice, an iconic film which was set at a time of large fancy houses and traditional aesthetic.






The set designer uses their skills to show where the films taking place, using real in terms and objects which would be in the time or place of the movie, such as an old fashioned wall paper to show its in the past or show new technology to show it set in the future.

The Wolf of Wall Street which was set in the early  90s is shown though it's set as the set designer has used old wooden tables and researched the 90s office look using a lot of glass and old fashioned blinds.
While a futuristic film such as the new Star Trek shows that it is set in the future by the set designers use of modernism and blank white colour.





The set can also show what genre the film is as well. Such as a horror movie, the set will be more atmospheric and shot in a small space so the film is more claustrophobic causing the horror action to be closer by so the audience feel more afraid for the characters as they are closer to death.
Rather a funny film set is more open so there can be more freedom for background comedy and jokes.

What I will do this half term

In between filming my groups Comedy opening. I will use my free term to find classical and mondern films to watch to get an idea of what to make for my own opening. I will find films which have a interesting and enticing story ach, creative visuals and have a personal resonates with different groups of people. I will studied how these films are made so I can use these skills  in my own film making.

Edgar Wright- how to do visual comedy

Heres a video I found which explains visual comedy, using the director Edgar Wright ( Hot Fuzz, Worlds End, Scott Pilgram ect.)

Film soundtracks

Soundtracks is the group of music that go on behind the film. Some films use already made music by other artists, this means the film markers have to pay a sum of money for the rights to use the film. If a film uses the type of film music. It either uses it to be played within the story, so the music is made from that era when the film is set, an example is the 2012 film Perks of being a wallflower years songs from the decade ( The 90s) in it, some very notable ones. Others use ready made songs to fit with the tone of the film. Form example many high school America drama use this, having a rap song or a pop song in the opening tensions. Other films have a soundtrack with is instrumental, using brass, keyboard and guitars to create the tension and atmosphere needed. Some of these can become iconic, and everyone knows about them. Star Wars has themes that most film watchers can remember.
Film soundtracks can also be written for the film, and sang or the film. It can be sand with one of the actresses or someone paid by the film for that role. Films such as Sucker Punch use this as it gives information about the story and really pumps up the action in fight scenes.
Soundtracks can make a film more rememberal and enhance the film because good films will use catchy and good music can make the audience come back for more. Choose good music is important to make the film better, and more stylish.

Baked beans film theory

The baked beans film theory is comparing films like the companies who made baked beans.
This analogy of this is the companies used the main elements of how to make baked beans, but though time gave differences, this also works in films. For example romance films, some change the element to make the film more funny such as romantic comedy like 50 first dates and The Proposal. Others still use the theme of love and romance, by using the a more tragic style, for example The Fault in our stars and The Notebook. These type of films still have the same major theme of the two love interest, but such as the backed bean companies has added cheese, films also add different elements to keep the major idea but make it a different film. Other films however sometimes don't change anything apart from the actors, making it a carbon copy of another film.




A lot of low budget films do this. Other films try and imitate some of the greats, such as films trying to re make Romantic Comedy such as Love Actually.




 
 

How a opening should work

An opening should express what the film is going to be like and reflex the genre of the whole film. It should interest the audience in a short amount of time.
Most of the time openings are simple, only showing the main characters, some movies show the minor characters but  this is not often.  To make an opening good you must have an original idea and different way of using it. The elements should be used to a full extent. Set, filming, characters and actors are an important put of the process to make the opening envelope the audience interest.
For my opening, at this current time I don't have a full formed idea, but I do know that I will have the gerne of tradey and drama as my focus point.

My own film opening idea

I haven't thought of my full film opening yet. I do know that I want to make it dark and thought provking. I have ruled out Comedy as I think it is too subjective and too difficult to do well.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Director: Blake Edwards (1961)

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a classical cult film, which shows off the professional medium of old fashioned film.
The movie starts very famous actress, Audrey Hepburn, the film is famous for it's simple story and it's glamour and it's amazing acting.
The films light is also interesting, the film uses three point lighting, it full the black light giving the film a full colour and a bright feel. This type of lighting makes the character highlighted and the shadow is less than in different techniques.

An integrating part of Breakfast at Tiffany's is the dialogue. The film was made at a time period where actors had to have a special type of voice. Many  famous actors sounded important and classy. The language style is also something of wonder. Breakfast, uses many metaphorical language uses. Holly, (Audrey Hepburn) character speaks in strange riddles, and flulet poetic language, using saying sweet metaphors and the use of words such as "Darling" which really shows her kindness and the time period she is from, as well as her strangeness towards Fred/George.

The film is captivating to watch. From the visual it is on an impressive for its time, the sets look gorgeous, soft and alluring. Colours of the set are easy on the eye. Pinks, blues and creams all fit with the films sense of time, place and story. As well as the sights of peaceful New York in those times,give a sense of peace and tranquility to the film.

 The dietetic sound is minimal, giving the film enough space to use beautiful piano pieces. The famous Blue River  music help sets the mood of most scenes. Being that of romance and beaut.

This movie shows how movies at that time period can be interesting and classy. Rather a romanticized idea of the time but is sweet and gives a sense of refined class.

How does the BBC version of Cinderella conform with and challenge the convention of a fairy tale?
In our class we were given the task of looking at a modern telling of a piece of fairy relating to the works of Narratives.

The first thing we can say about this version of Cinderella is that it is modernized version, so it will change the state of Todoros equilibrium, as the film is modern the equilibrium will be less cruel and more of a run of the mill average life for adult woman. During the short film, the disequilibrium is she can't get an interview, such as her in the original story couldn't go to the ball, the situation has change to suit the time period. Like the Cinderella story, the structure and basic plot still happen in the same way, but the context and the time period make changes to how the story plays out, the story is more about the modern struggle of being in a job role someone hates, rather than a family. The equilibrium comes at the end which is when Prince relishing that his chose the main hero (Cindy). Like the story it has a happy ending, but is not as simple as the original story.
The times have changed so she is not forced to life in a family, but has gained independence and confidence this is because she is a modern women and is older. In this there are more disequilibriums as it is a more complex story. Such as the conflict between the two characters (Cindy and Prince) as it is more intresting story.

As for characters. Propps theory is still relevant, there is a differentiate  ideas of which character is which. Cinderella is still remains the Protagonist, however she is no longer all golden and sweet hearten like in old fairy tales, she now has move of a defined personality, she has more motivation. The re telling still keeps in with her character model of her being sweet and to shy to speak up. Other character are also made obverses, by they role. For example the profession Prince character is meant to be the Princely character, however during the short film, it is less romance between the Cinderella and the profession even at the very start the two share conflict together, this is done because it is more modern audience it's more realistic. The Antagonists are all keep same as well, but rather than ugly step sisters, the young female enemy have been changed to be students at a university students, which fits in to the general idea of the goal being a work post, and not a wife; this is because the time which marriage isn't a value anymore. The help character is similar to the old version, being a "God mother" but not in the litery sense, rather that a friend to help her. The characters also have different motives in this version, as this is made for modern audiences  the goal is more relateable, which is the character wanting a carer path of there dreams and there fight for it.

                                      The characters in there modern day aspects, there are
                                            easily shown as what type of character they are, but they are 
                                            more relaxed and less old fashioned than they fairy tale 
                                            counterparts. Cindy ( Cinderella) is center frame and looks 
                                            more tomboyish, showing her heroic and more relatable; 
                                            the other mains are shown around her, the step sisters are
                                            shown though there cruel manner and the prince is shown though
                                            his confident demeanor and the god mother though her kindness.
   
                                         
Barthes theory of codes also comes in to play, the technical code is not very large, it is filmed and edited in simple terms, the is no really big editing changes in this short film, but there are many dialogue codes which are important. Such as the modern use of swearing which would never be in the traditional version of Cinderella, and is used to fit it with modern contexts and make the characters more realistic and adult. One of the biggest code use is the symbolic code, this code uses the tropes and reconcilable parts of the fairy tale in to modern context. For example the "Pumpkin taxi" which mirrors the "Pumpkin carriage." and the focus on shoes which are the main focus of the fairy tale and what many people remember from it.

Editing

An important part of film is the technical aspect. This comperes the costume, the set and the props, the sound and the editing.
Editing is one of the important parts of this, editing is how the shots are put together. Simple editing is just different shots being put together in a simple line, this is called continuity editing.
Editing can be used artistically used in lots of interesting ways, such as dissolving parts of scenes as a transition and scenes falling in to each other such as a characters eyes being zoomed in, and the next scene appears.

Or a character falling in to the next scene.
Editing can also be fast to bring up the action and tenseness in action movies. Slow and diversities to create dark films or slow romances.
Bad editing can ruin a film. If the editing is too slow then it gets very boring for the person watching, if the editing to fast then it's hard to understand what the film markers trying to show or say.
The more editing practice someone has usually the better they get at it, as they are trying different and new techniques can really help a movie be different and more experimental.
An part of editing I enjoy is the editing style is Sherlock, the editing used here is stylized and creative ideas, also connecting it with the lighting, which is dimmed and colours which have a rich quality to them.


Another film which uses editing well in my opinion is Zak Snyder's Sucker Punch. This style of dark and edgy imagery combined with use of shadow techniques, editing helps Synder style stand out and be recognizable with audiences. Editing for this helps the film to create the three worlds. The editing is speed up for the fantasy scenes, for example these parts of the film have more disconnected quick shots all together. These are smaller for the action to take place in. There is also more risk taken as they is some more experimental techniques used, such as more pan shots and ECU's. While the Asylum use more still shots and long takes which show the boredom and miserable of the main characters life.  


An example of Sucker Punch's fight fantasy scenes, which shows off the different ways Snyder uses the speed of different scenes to give an effect and uses the context, such this scene being violent, so the editing uses shorter shots.

Location

Location

For our opening we would show a cold, British street. We chose this to juxtapose the humour of having the character scared by Hoovers. The street will be empty to show that it is just one mans fears and that is strange.
My group went to a small country side street at the early hours to make the scene look as strange and realistic as possible. This will be our location for the majority of the first scene.
Here are some photos from that filming day:

These show a very normal environment which shows the oddity of the situation. It also shows an open space to show the smallness of the Hoover to emphasize the ridiculous comedy.

Stroyboard

In our group, one of the people was asked draw a story board on a piece of paper; this is
what the came up with.

This is our story board which is drawn by the person in the group, showing what we wanted to happen in each shot of our openings, and what the audience wanted to see. It consists of 26 different  parts we wanted to show, roughly draw so it doesn't show that much detail but does give a outline of what we what to do.

Audience reseach

For another part of our project, we asked opinions of the people in our class about the film we wanted to make.  We asked people for responses of the plot of our film and what changes we should make accoding to the responses.

Poppy explaining what she thinks of our comedy film opening.

From this we can learn that our comedy idea will be good and intresting for viewers.  However some others we asked informed us that we should also use subtle humour such as dialouge and physical.

Prop List

This is the list of props we will need for our opening:

• Some fake documents or paper
• A name badge for Dr Smith
• A glass
• Clipboards

       Equiment    

• A camera
• An SD card for the camera
• A tripod for the camera
• A program that will put a filter over the video for the flashback

Costumes:

Johanny will be wearing normal everyday clothes, so the person playing them can wear what they normally wear.

Dr Smith's clothes, he will have to look like a doctor, so his clothes are more planned out, this is his costumes:

• A tweed jacket
• A smart shirt and tie (preferably ones that go well together) and a jumper to go over
• Smart trousers that go well with the jacket
• His name badge
• Maybe someone with glasses can be cast because stereotypically, people with glasses are regarded as 'nerds' or more intelligent.

Sprict for film opeing

Script and storyboard for film opening

The film starts in a dark street at night. Johnny is frantically running and we see shots of his face, feet, and long shots of him running. He runs down a dead end and turns in fear, we then hear the sound of a hoover and see its shadow against a wall as it approaches him. He screams and wakes up. He looks relieved as he realises it was only a dream.

The scene then changes to Dr Smith filling up a glass. He walks into a room with Johnny sitting down and he sits next to him.

Dr Smith "how's that?"

Johnny nods his head, not wanting to speak.

Dr Smith "right, lets get started"

This is the script for the film opening. I decided not to include much dialogue to try and show how serious he is about his fear of hoovers. Hopefully, the audience will find his fear amusing but I did not want to try too much comedy in the opening as there are very few comedies that have humour in the first two minutes.