Mood Board

This is my mood board, I gathered images of things that I could take inspiration from it for my final opening. I took images from films that I had analysed to get ideas for possible costumes and Special Effects make-up that I might want to use at a later time in the production of my opening. I decided to do one of the shots for my opening scene in black and white to help show the audience that the two scenes are form different time periods.

First rough edit of Opening Scene

This is my first rough edit of my movie opening. I need to work on the audio and create a soundtrack that i can use for this scene. I also need to edit in a couple more pieces of footage to make the sequence longer and so it flows together like i planned it to. I also need to decided how i am going to incorporate titles into my opening.

Storyboard

I used this plan of my opening sequence as a rough guideline of what i would film. Some things were changed to make the opening scene flow together better.

Production Schedule

 

Scene Number	Date	Time	Location`	Props and Equipment
1	12/01/16	5 pm	Worcester Park High Street	Back pack Canon Camera
2	13/01/16	7 pm	Wallington (Viki’s house)	Laptop Canon Camera
3	13/01/16	7 pm	Wallington (Viki’s house)	Laptop Canon Camera
4	13/01/16	6:30 pm	Wallington (Viki’s house)	Laptop Canon Camera
5	12/01/16	5:30 pm	Worcester Park High Street	Back Pack Canon Camera
6	13/01/16	6:00 pm	Wallington (Viki’s house)	Laptop Canon Camera
7	13/01/16	7:30 pm	Wallington (Viki’s house)	Laptop Canon Camera
8	12/01/16	6 pm	Worcester Park High Street	Back Pack Canon Camera

Treatment for Main Production

Treatment:

Pitch- single line concept	Obsession can drive even the innocent insane
Director	Rhianna
Producer	Rhianna
Writer	Rhianna
Working Title	Obsession
Aprox running time	2-3 minutes
Genre/Style	Horror/Suspense
Target Audience	Teenagers, Young Adults.
Objective of the scene	To make the audience disorientated by the order that the scene is put together. To create enigma codes that make the audience question the characters intentions.
Treatment of Scene	The scene starts with a cold open of a woman walking down the street. It then fades into a black screen and deep breathing can be heard. I then cuts to a girl looking through photos of which consist of the first women shown on screen. It then cuts to different angles of her looking at these pictures to disorientate the audience. It then shows the first women sitting on a wall appearing to be crying. I then cuts between the girl looking at pictures of the woman and close ups of her face. Then it cuts to the woman walking around a different place at a different time to intensify the confusion the audience will feel. The scene will end with another shot of the women crying into her hands.

Film Opening Analysis

Film Opening Analysis

Name/Link/Genre	Brief Summary of events	Locations used	Characters introduced	Use of sound	Range of shots	Action and enigma codes	Use of titles
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Fantasy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PEIzXskHZg	In the opening nothing really gets explained but the audience are showed the magical talents that the main character has.	Bedroom	The audience is introduced to the main protagonist ‘Harry’ and are also shown ‘Uncle Dursley’. Personalities and character traits aren’t really shown in this opening.	Hedwig’s theme song is used in all the openings of Harry Potter movies. It creates a sense of mystery and magic which is important to the film.	Zoom Close ups	The audience are left with questions as the reason to why ‘Harry’ pretends to be asleep after doing magic isn’t explained.	The title transitions into the actual action of the opening scene and from there goes into the main title of the film.
Now you see me Thriller Comedy Action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_diRgwPCS8	In this opening scene all the main characters show their skills in magic. It shows what their personality is and what they want to achieve.	City landscape Airport Boat Arena	All of the characters are introduced during this opening scene. It gives the audience a bit of an insight on their personalities.	The use of music creates a sense of mystery and suspense which is shown throughout the movie.	Close ups	Quickly switch between character shots so you never get a full explanation as to why the characters do what they do.	No titles are used in the opening scene for this movie as it starts with a cold open and goes straight into the action of introducing the characters.
Furious 7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRqxHOCvnpo Action	The ‘vilain’	Hospital	You are introduced to the ‘villain’ of the movie first. You can see that he has a close relationship with his family.	The non-diegetic sound creates tension and a sense of danger.	Establishing shot Two shot	The audience is left with many questions as to why the ‘villain’ is acting the way his. This grips the attention of the audience.	The movie starts with a cold open. There are titles that filter over the top of the footage.
Trainspotting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC5zRvqnRm8	It shows what the characters do on a day to day basis. It shows the trouble they get in to and how they spend their free time.	Oxford Street Football Ground Apartment	The characters are introduced and you can see what their personality and responses are. They seem carefree and don’t care about what they do. The characters are introduced with a bit of action then a freeze frame with their name.	There is a voice over which shows what the main character thinks about the world and society	Close up Freeze Frame	The audience questions why the main character thinks this way but is given no explanation.	The movie starts with a cold open so there isn’t a title to introduce the movie, but titles are used to introduce what is perceived to be the main characters of the film.

Audience Information Key Terms

Audience Information Key Terms

Audience classification method	What are they?	Categories for classification
Demographics	Demo graphic information is used in media marketing to classify and audience into age, gender, race and other categories	Age, race, gender. Factors which the audience cannot change about themselves.
Psycho graphics	Psychographic segmentation divides the market into groups based on social class, lifestyle and personality characteristics. It’s based on the assumption that the types of products and brands an individual purchases will reflect that persons characteristics and patterns of living.	Social class life style and personality. These are things which the audience chose for themselves.
C.A.G.E	Categories that are based on factors which the audience can’t change.	Class Age Gender Ethnicity
Pearl and Dean	Pearl and Dean are a cinema advertising company.	They produce audience research

'Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone'

Analysis of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone: Opening Scene

In the opening scene of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone eerie music is used right from the beginning to set the scene as it creates tension and a sense of mystery. In the scene there is low key lighting which adds to the suspense which is already being created. These two factors do not let the audience know whether what to come is good or evil. There are enigma codes placed through out the opening sequence as two characters are discussing 'rumours' but do not elaborate on what they are. They zoom onto the letter with the name 'Mr and Mrs V. Dursley' which shows that the characters will hold importance through out the movie. They also zoom into the prominent scar on Harry's face which is the first introduction we get of the main protagonist, because there is such a focus on what appears to be a normal scar this makes the audience subconsciously start to question why bringing more enigma codes into the opening. The close up on the scar the transitions into the main title which has thunder and lightning in the background to create a dark and creepy atmosphere this hints that their will be a problem in the future of the movie.

'It Follows'

Analysis of 'It Follows' : Opening scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2d4_TgwZQc

This movie starts with a cold open of  an establishing shot which shows a suburban area which seems calm. There is ambient music playing in the background which makes the audience believe there is nothing bad going on. It then pans to the front of an expensive looking house, you then see a female character run out of the house she appears to be frightened and is breathing heavily. She then becomes the main focus for this shot as she appears to seem out of place in a calm surrounding. This puts the audience on edge as you can not see what she is frightened of and that her surroundings seem calm so her actions contradict it. This is something i would like to include in my opening as I think it is a technique which can engage an audience well and produce enigma codes for the rest of the opening. The scene appears to take place early in the morning as there isn't much light in the surrounding area.

It goes to an over the shoulder shot of the female driving in her car she seems to be speeding franticly like she is trying to run away from something. This creates a sense of confusion as everything so far with the surroundings has shown that it is fine but her actions suggests that there is danger. It cuts to a shot of her at the beach, there is minimal lighting in this shot which has been chosen as it helps build suspense, the only light used is from the car headlights. The female character is shown to be one the phone to a family member telling them that she 'loves them' this can be seen as an unusual thing to do in the circumstance she is in, this might put the audience on edge even more as they are still left not knowing what is going to happen. As she is one the phone the shot changes to a mid shot of her car with a sound of thudding footsteps over the top. This adds to the tension as you can not see what is causing the sound to happen. On a thud the shot changes again to a mid shot of the female characters lifeless face it suggests that the thing which caused the thudding footsteps also caused her death.

 The shot then changes to a long shot in which you can see the females mangled body with the ocean behind her. Its a strange shot as the beach looks very pretty and serine but the female looks gory and  horrid these two things contradict each other which might enhance the brutality of her death as it seems to be a place where happy memories occur.

Pros and Cons of Action

Action

Pros

• Action can be achieved through a fast pace
• Easy- can do a chase scene
• Access to a lot of potential cast
• Narrative does not need depth
• Can be easily created through music
• Easy to establish target audience

Cons

• Chase scenes are generic and overused
• Need access to expensive props if not doing a chase scene
• How will we achieve bird eye establishing shots (convention of the genre)
• Needs large budget or SFX software (not available in school)

Pros and cons of Horror.

Horror

Pros

• Can be created through set and music
• Simple story lines
• Easily get people involved

Scream - This movie is ironic on purpose and it points out certain features of horror movies that always come up. In scream a masked serial killer hunts down a group of teenagers, but the teenagers all   seem to have knowledge about slasher horror movies.

• Could go retro and be generic on purpose
• Simple shot can establish the theme.
• Don't need a big budget

Cons

• Easy to be generic and cliche 
• Hard to get through a sense of fear and panic
• No SFX
• Could be similar to other horror movies
• Majority of story lines have been done
• Hard to film because of location and light

I decided that if I was going to do a horror movie I would stay away from any themes to do with a Post apocalyptic world as I think the idea is very over used in the film industry. I think it would be very difficult to create original storyline for a Zombie movie as so many have been made throughout the years, some zombie movies have even added a comedic element to the style of movie.

Many horror movies are stereotypically set in isolated environments to remove the sense of safety the audience might feel. It is also a stereotype that the victim of the film is a female and the antagonist of the movie will be a hostile male character. This is to reinforce the old fashion viewpoint of females being weaker then men and not being able to defend themselves, however in more recent horror movies this idea is being rejected and females are starting to become the protagonists of the movie and save themselves from the danger they are put in. Horror movies also use a lot of violence to try and scare the audience or use minimal gore and focus more on tension and suspense. 

Survey and comment

https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-RYNQLPXS/

I analysed these results to help me gain an idea of what my target audience would be after with my final opening.