Our Opening Sequence - The Don't Believe

Evaluation - Question 7

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

I have learnt a lot during this preliminary task, such as why its important for films to make a good impression in the opening sequence, why it will be helpful to aim for a certain audience and about the use of convergence and synergy, for example; McDonalds with Disney, and film 4 with a TV channel, website and production company. I have also learnt other aspects like why it is important to keep continuity in scenes.

For our thriller sequence it took a long time to get all the shots, as we took each shot 3 times, but most of them took more due to people laughing and doing things wrong. It took a lot longer to film than we had hoped because we had to arrange days when everyone was free, and we had a lot of shots to film.

In our preliminary task i had to learn how to use the camera and i was in charge in the use of cinematography. The preliminary task helped me greatly as it helped me to manage time and to understand the camera ready for our thriller sequence.

I have enjoyed my experience of creating an opening sequence and found the filming fun. I have given all my effort in this task and hope that it will be successful.

Evaluation - Question 6

Evaluation - Question 4 & 5

This is Jodie answering the questions;
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
5. How did you attract /address your audience?

Evaluation - Question 3

Evaluation - Question 2

Evaluation - Question 1

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

Effect	Scene	Evidence
Use of Narrative		The opening shot for the beginning of our sequence is the twisted pictures production company. We chose this production company as they are well known to make horror movies and it sets the mood for our film as the barb wire and dagger connotes the feeling of death. This then fades to a black and white shot of a young girls legs, skipping and doing hopscotch which connotes a flashback scene, usualy associated with thrillers as it is a common convention. We focused the camera on the young girls legs, in which her face is never seen. This connotes mystery and keeps the audience questioning. The sequence reveals the plot of the film as you see the antagonist and tension is built up. This is a common convention of a thriller as usually the audience chooses to watch this genre of film to get a thrill, and to start our film like this is necessary. We believe that our film follows the Levi Strous theory and we chose to base our narrative on "candy man" as we liked the fact we could use the mirrors for many of our shots.
Mise-en-Scene		We have set our film in a typical bedroom, with a double bed and big mirrors. This is a common convention of a thriller as it is a place that people would feel comfortable and they would feel nothing would happen in there. We also needed floor length mirrors for the part where Saskia is summoned. We did the filming of the flashbacks outside as this is where children tend to play. To give it a more creepy feel, we filmed  Saskia playing before she died, this acts as a flashback from her childhood. She is playing alone during the filming so this creates isolation as she is with no other children, this could create an insight to why she committed suicide. Most of our filming was done in the day and then for the bit where Saskia arrives we filmed it at night as the darkness is visible through the window and would create suspense as its believed most supernatural activity takes place in the dark. For the costumes all of the actors we decided they should wear their everyday clothes, this expresses a more stereotypical teenage group. For Saskia we decided to dress her as a stereotypical ghost (like 'the Ring' or 'The Grudge'), in a dirty gown with long, dark, messy hair and bare feet. This gives her a more creepy feel as she is unclean, which shows she isn't looked after. The props we used are everyday objects. This is a common convention of a thriller because  there is nothing suspicious about the items and can lead to a better thrill/scare due to the audience unaware of them.
Editing Techniques		We have edited our film in many ways such as black and white shots, slow motion, shot reverse shot and cross cutting. The opening of the sequence begins with Saskia playing hop scotch and skipping, to show this is a flash back we used black and white for the scene and slowed it down. We also added a sound bridge of jodie singing a nursery rhyme to add to the effect of the flashback and drawing people in to want to see what the flashback is about.
Use of Camera		We used alot of different camera angles in our filming and had to improvise to get some of the shots. We used a two person shot at the start of our film as one of the girls was leaving to show that they were more dominant, and were trying to peer presure her. This shot is a high angle shot looking down at them to show they will soon become the vunerable ones. To achive this shot I had to climb onto the bed with the camera. When the girl left we decided to use a high angled long shot out of the window to show how she was being dominated by her friends. This is a common convention of thrillers as there is always one out of a teenage group who is the vulnerable/weak one. We used the mirror shots due to our main film idea coming from the 'candy man' film, where alot of mirror shots are used because it is cleaver and makes you feel like you are there as you can't see the camera. Also you could see inside and outside at once by looking in there which is good for when you see Saskia outside. Towards the end of our film we used a close-up on the actors hand trying to open the locked door. This connotes isolation and fear as there is no escape out of the room so they are trapped with Saskia. At the end of our film we used an eye level shot on the floor as Saskia was crawling out from under the bed towards the camera. We thought this would be a good idea as it is placed where the phone was dropped. This also creates suspence as Saskia crawls from under the bed. 
Special Effects Characters		The only special effects used in our film is the film title and the opening credits. We didn't go against the conventions of a thriller/horror as we stuck to the colour red and used a sharp edged font which instantly connotes the horror/thriller genre. We have very stereotypical characters in our film, Saskia the ghost, is the antagonist who is a young female with long, dark hair and a white gown. We then have the group of friends, Keira, who is peer pressured into leaving early, and the two other friends who are the protagonists.

Analysis of a still image

The colours being used in this still image are typical blacks and moonlight colours which represent horror. They are chilling blues and greens, which show the light through the trees and makes the character stand out.
The most important elements of the image are; the character as he is in the front of the image, and the light which makes him stand out. Also the angle of the image is important as the low angle shot looks as if the victim is on the floor looking up at the character, this represents dominance.
The light is being used so you can't identify the character but you can see his mask, it also makes him stand out as the light is behind him.
In this still image the character being shown is Jason Voorhees. He is being represented as a bad guy as it is a low angle shot and the light is behind him. Also he has a sword which represents he is a killer.
The background behind the character is dark with light coming through the trees. This creates a feel that the film is a horror and that it is mostly filmed in the dark.
The character is wearing a mask and a dark coat. He is also holding a sword which tells us this is a murder film.
Young teenagers will be the main audience for this film as young people like watching horror films.
The conventions of this image are typical of a horror movie as most horrors are filmed in the darkness to represent fear.

Peoples Reactions

We decided to ask a friend to watch our opening sequence and filmed her reaction.

Advertising our film

I have been thinking of different ways to advertise our film. I thought we could create posters for the film, advertise it in magazines and even advertise on social networking sites creating pages for people to like or tweet about.

I also thought we could advertise on tumblr by creating a page, as it is a popular networking site.

I came up with another idea of creating a trailer to advertise to over 18's which could be shown in schools, colleges or in universities.

DVD cover

After editing our film Kelcie, who is the best at creating things decided she wanted to design a DVD cover for our film.

These are the different conventions and aspects Kelcie had labeled around the DVD cover to show what she had done and why. 

Twisted pictures production company

Film Certificate

Classification 18

We looked at a few different horror/ thriller movies such as The Grudge and Paranormal Activity which both had an age rating of 15. Due to the fact we have a hanging scene we decided we should put the rating as 18.

Opening title sequences

Why are opening title sequences important to the film industry?

Opening title sequences are important to the film industry because the first few minutes of the film are what the viewer sees first, and sets their expectations for the rest of the film. These are important because if it is not a very good opening the viewer may lower their expectations and may not want to watch the film, but if its a successful opening then it will keep the viewers interested.

Saul Bass once said, "making a main-title was like making a poster, you're condensing the event into this one concept, this one metaphor, a back-story that needs to be told or a character that needs to be introduced."

I researched on the internet and found a site that helped me understand why opening title sequences are important.
http://www.ifc.com/fix/2011/02/the-50-greatest-opening-title

Editing our Opening Sequence

At the beginning of our opening sequence we decided to put the Twisted Pictures production company at the start because they look very professional and do lots of well known horror/ thriller films.

This image is of the editing process where the Twisted Pictures production company intro fades into the shot of Jodie's legs (Saskia) doing the hop scotch.

Then we got the shots of Jodie skipping, playing hopscotch and her legs when she is hanging from tree. Over this we put the recording of jodie singing "ring a ring o' roses" which we recorded on garage band. This also was put over the the Twisted Pictures intro so it created a sound bridge as the scene fades in.

Kelcie edited the recording to make it sound more high pitched, like a young girl.

We decided to make the shots of jodie black and white so it would give it a flash back effect, which would help the audience understand what is happening.

We used a lot of fading to a black screen for the titles so it would stand out more with the red writing. This would help so it doesn't clash with the scenes so you can read it.

We edited the writing to slide across the screen rather than just stay still, before it fades into the next scene.

For the next part of the sequence there was a very noticeable jump between the two shots. Kelcie tried to edit it to make it less noticeable, so we thought that the titles should go over the jump but we then realised that kelcie needed to put the black screen in, like the rest of them, which cut the jump out. This was very effective as you couldn't notice the jump anymore.

For the text of the titles we chose Baskerville in red. We chose this font because its sharp and thin, which gives it a better thriller effect, and the red was an easy choice because its a typical code of horror/thriller films as it represents something sinister or even blood. We had the soft edge effect on the opening credits, and had the cross zoom effect on the title of the film where it slides to the side as you read it. These effects are a good stereotype of a horror due to the sharpness and the fading which is why we chose them.

After looking through lots of different audio clips on Imovie we found a few creepy, tension building clips that would be suitable for the genre of our film. We added these in throughout our film to create suspense and to make some scenes jumpy. At the start of our film, we decided on having Jodie singing a nursery rhyme as we couldn't find any suitable on Imovie. This turned out very successfully after we edited it to make it more high pitched, as it sounded like a young child.

Fonts For Our Title

For our title we have looked at various fonts;

We liked this font due to the fact it looks quite horror/ zombie like and that it also has a mirror effect which would work well with our storyline.

This font is quite good but we didn't think it would suit our genre.

We liked this font as it looks quite creepy, but we didn't think it would work with our ghostly film as it looks more of a gory font.

This is our most favourite font out of the four as I like the sharp edges and that it's very thin. I believe that it creates a great horror image and I think it would work best with our sequence out of the 5.

What We Did

For our filming, we all did a fair share of taking part. We all helped with the storyline and jodie done the script. I did the storyboards while Kelcie did the backstory and the character profile of Saskia. As we were filming, we changed the script slightly as there was one less person than we originally intended due to them not turning up previously when we needed to film.
We followed the storyboards but changed the last couple of scenes as Kelcie thought 'Saskia' crawling out from under the bed instead of sitting on the bed would be more creepy looking, which it did.

We have finished the filming and are now editing it. Hopefully we will get everything the way we want it.

This is shot of Saskia coming through the door;

And this is a gif (moving image) of Saskia coming through the door. We thought this was a good shot to put in our film but couldn't fit it in.