sound template for our film opening:

Horror music for the opening film of Affliction of Memory

This Opening scene of our film Affliction of Memory is about a mental woman as we based our film around a psychological thriller.

Planning: Initial Ideas for our film Affliction Of Memory

For our film opening we had two ideas either a psychological sub genre or a supernatural sub genre. Overall we decided that a psychological sub genre was the best option because we had a variety of ideas for it .

Our storyline is on a women dwelling on her past, mourning over her dead 7 year old daughter who died tragically. She is reflecting and memorising her daughter through different elements such as old photos, items of clothing and painted pictures drawn by her daughter. The woman is going to be portrayed as forgetful because she mentally still thinks her daughter is alive. She wants to seek revenge on her daughters murderer.

To visually show that she has lost her daughter we have decided that the mise en scene should be old photos of her and her daughter or just her daughter when she was premature to show that she is mourning of some kind of loss. Also we would include toys that belong to her daughter, paintings which her daughter painted and items of clothing from the audience.

The type of film opening we are doing is discrete/ stylised.

For sound effects we thought of an effect of a phone ringing then going to answer machine. This sound should be repeated several times.  We decided on the sound of running water also.

Special effects like the use of flash backs.

Props: Pills, wine, cigarettes and ashtray, old photography's with faces crossed out, A Note book, Candles, Items of clothing, Old letters soaked in tea bags to look old.

Ideas:An over flowing bath.

Location:Bathroom.

Props for the opening of our film AFFLICTION OF MEMORY!

In the opening of our film we will be using various props to give an emphasis to the opening of the film and a feel for what the film is about. props in an opening give an element of colour and thrill as they give the viewers a clue of what the character may be like. As for example in our film opening, we will be using, 

pills, wine bottles, cigarette and ashtray, diary/ notebook, candles, girls clothing, old letters.

 we have images of these items: 

Research; Analysis of a Previous Student Film Opening: The Rushes

In class we looked at a range of different A level film openings from previous students. I was quite glad with this task because I thought it was beneficial for us to help us prepare what techniques we could do for our own film openings. 


The film opening I will be analysing is The Rushes. I will analyse it in terms of sound, editing, mise en scene and camera.


This is a clip of a previous AS Media Group task work on their thriller opening called The Rushes.

Camera:
I really liked this film opening as I thought the quality of their camera was very good, including the scenes that they shot at the night. This inspired me because I know how hard it is to film at night without it looking quite dark and out of focus. It shows that they used a great camera. They also used various camera effects including one where they used the hand camera in the 5 second footage of the clip. I thought that was a clever thing to do as it showed all the footage happening in that scene showing through the hand camera. The storyline was interesting and engaging for me as a viewer. 


Mise en scene:
There were two scenes in the opening an indoor and an outdoor scene. The outdoor scene was shot at night and overall I thought it was good. It was shot really well, the fact that it was night time was not any problem at all because it was still clear and you could still see what's going on. The indoor scene was dark also but again it has no problem with the footage. 


Editing:
In terms of editing I really liked their credits appearing on a script rather than just appearing on a black screen. It looks great and makes it different to others.


Sound: 
I thought the sound was very good and generally works. 

Research; Different Types Of Structure Of A Film Opening

Structures of Film Openings are very essential when creating any kind of film.
There are four types of structures to a film opening however they are three basic structures which are:

Discrete Title Sequence

A narrative opening

Credits over a blank screen

Discrete Title Sequence: Discrete title sequences are separately edited sequences that stand apart from the film opening. They are stylised and heavily edited, and they support nearly all of the opening credits and film title.
 An example which shows a Discrete Opening  would be the film The Enemy Of The State (1998) or Arlington Road. Here is the trailer for The Enemy Of The State:

An example which shows a narrative opening would be the panic room. Here is the trailer:

And finally a film opening showing credits over a blank screen is an example from Donnie Darko:

               

Target Audience:

After looking at genres and sub genres we also looked at different target audiences. Most movies reflects different target audiences, which can be shown through advertisement, genres and trailers.

Some we looked at class:

In Time

By this advertisement we can tell that the genre of the movie is sci fi and action from the use of the of mise en scene such as the gun which Amanda Seyfried  is holding and the watch which Justin Timberlake is wearing. Also the background in the poster which seems to show a different world. I think that the target audience for this movie is a 15+ which is for adult and teenagers. I think this because i feel that people at that age would be more interested in this type of movie.

Harry Potter:

By this poster we can tell that the genre of this film is a Thriller supernatural, we can tell this by the location of where the shot has been taken. The locaton is shown to be the woods. I think that the target audience for Harry potter is a 12A which is aimed at children and young teenagers. I also believe that Harry Potter is aimed at families as a family movie.

Target Audience

In lesson we looked through different films and their typed of sub-genres then discussed what kind of target audience it was made for and reasons as to why we thought it was suited for that specific age group and here are some examples:

Genre/Sub-genre: Psychological Thriller

Target audience: 15+

Key signifies: The facial expression on Nicole Kidman's face, you can see that she looks very scared or perhaps she's in her own element. It seems as though she looking at something that is making her react like that. Another key thing is the typo and style of writing in the title and the subtitle "Sooner or later they will find you." This is foreshadowing coming events and just reinforces the the scared expression in her face. 

Genre/Sub-genre: Action comedy

Target audience: Teens+

Key signifies: The two main actors Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller are usually associated with comedy film but however the positioning of the characters at the setting contradicts that and adds to the action element.

Genre/Sub-genre: Sci-fi/Action/Romance

Target audience: Late Teens

Key signifies: As you can see Amanda Seyfried holding a gun up to Justin Timberlake that adds to the action aspect. the way they are holding each other in a loving way reinforces the romance aspect and in the background you an see a modern city which contractions the whole moving  as it's about buying time to stay alive

Genre & Sub-genre

A genre is the similarities in which a film or the way in which it is constructed. For example elements that make a certain type of film, so whether it contains a lot of action and is more loud or is it shows more of a romantic lighter side. Genre is important because it gives the producer a template to work on so they know at least what type of movie they want to make and therefore what type of audience it will appeal to. Also it can give them and idea of the sort of cast they want to have as some actors/tresess only associate themselves with certain genres.

A sub-genre is a subcategory within a particular genre. For example both films would be categorized as 'thriller'. However just by looking at the posters you can see they would be under two different sub-genres. The Others is a more psychological thriller as you can see from the woman's facial expression she looks as if she is in her own element. Also looking at the type of font the title is written in and the typo on the letter 'O' you can straight away define it as a psychological thriller.

Fair Game however would be under the crime thriller sub-genre. This is also very noticeable from looking at the poster. As both characters are dressed in a very formal manner and look very serious. The stamp outline could also suggests that they are apart of some sort of police force and actors/tresses involved are usually associated with these kind of films.

Genres and sub genres:

Genre: Genre refers to the method based on similarities in the narrative elements from which films are constructed.There are many types of different film genres, the main genres of films are action, horrro, thriller, sci fi, adventure, romantic, musicals, comedy, drama and crime.

Action.

Thriller.

Romanctic



Sci fi 



Crime



 













Sub genre: A sub genre is a subcategory within a particular genre.For example there are many sub genre within the genre of ,for example thriller horro,thriller crime, phychological thriller,political thriller and supernatural thriller.



Thriller horro



Thriller supernatural

Thriller physiological



Thriller crime



Thriller political

Research; Genre + Target Audiences

In class we looked at different types of sub genre's and what we thought was their target audiences and the key signifies to why we thought a certain group was the audience that they are targeting.

'The others' is a psychological horror film. It stars Nicole Kidman. It was a 2001 film and was directed by Alejandro Amenabar. I believe the profile of the film aims at teenagers and above that likes to feel frightened and scared. The age rating is most likely rated at 15+ because her facial expression and the font style hints that it may not be suitable for younger viewers. The key signifers that show that 'The Others' is a psychological horror thriller are:

- The women in the poster's facial expression; The look coming from the actress face shows that she is terrified and scared. She seems to be looking at something from the corner of her eye anxiously with meaning something is wrong;someone or something is after her. 

- The font style; The font title is written in spooky text style which signifies the sub genre of the thriller. The letter O is played about and has a glow that could be used to brighten up the dark background. 

- The black background; The colour black always represents something bad. It could link to death, something that could happen later on in the film.

- The sub title; 'Sooner or later they will find you'. This is a scary saying and suggests someone is after her and she is in danger.

'Fair Game' released in 2010 starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. The film was directed by Doug Liman. The profile of the film is a far cry from any childish and fun humour. It looks more appealing to an older audience, targeting at late teens and above.  The Sub- genre for 'Fair Game' is Political Thriller. The key signifiers that show that 'Fair Game' is a Political Thriller are:

- The facial expressions of the actors; their facial expression is very sturn and serious which you can tell they are working on something serious.

- The actors clothing; through the characters clothing you could tell they look like they are investing in a crime.

'Tower Heist' is a crime comedy film that stars Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy. Directed by Brett Ratner and released in 2011 it was a blockbuster success with a box office gross of $142,679,520. I believe the target audience aims at older teenagers(15+) and above because they may be more suited towards crime. The key signifiers that show that 'Tower Heist' is a crime comedy film are:

To do with the choice of the actors; Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy are in most comedy films and they are most known to have successful films with the genre being comedy. They are positioned at the front of the poster so that audiences can recognize them and be able to guess that this film is a comedy. 

The title; The word 'Heist' is a term used to describe a robbery from any institution like a bank so straight away the audience will know that there is crime involved suggesting that crime plays a lot to the film. 

'Friends with Benefits' is an america romantic comedy film directed by Will Glurk starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. The target audience would be aimed at a younger audience who would be mostly females because the use of the actor Justin Timberlake who is seen as a 'heart throb' to many. The key signifiers that show that 'Friends with Benefits' is a romantic comedy film are:
The title; The title of the film suggests that the genre could be a romance.
Body Language; The way the two actors are posing it looks like they are posing in a comedy way, they do not look too serious which could reinforce the fact that the film is not that serious too. 

'In Time' is a 2011 science fiction action thriller film that stars Amanda Seyfried and Justin Timberlake. 'In Time' was directed written and produced by Andrew Niccol. Again I believe the profile of the film aims at a younger audience, targeted to mostly teenagers and above because of the actor Justin Timberlake who is well known and successful to the younger market. Audiences will get the impression that he and Amanda are the main character's because of the way they are so close up on the image. This would be a great thing for members of the public who like both actors or one of them. The key signifers that show that 'In Time' is a Sci- Fi action thriller film are:

- The Image; The connection between the two actors seems very intimate and tactile. Justin Timberlake has his hand held very protectively on Amanda Seyfried's head. The closeness shows that they are both in a team and the audience would see this connection linked to the action aspect of the film.

- Props; On their arms they both have numbers with their own time imprinted on them which goes back to the name of the film. There is also a gun held on Amanda Seyfried's hand which audiences will instantly know it is an action movie. Audiences will pay to see this even more as they are seeing a female holding a gun often the role of a male actor. Nowadays men do not have to action all the action movies, women can do that too that men have traditionally dominated.

- The Background; Visually the background image looks futuristic and science based that links to the sub- genre to be Science Fiction. 

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1' is a fantasy film released in 2010 starring Daniel Radcliffe Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. It had a world wide gross of $956,399,711, the third highest grossing film of 2010. I believe the Target Audience for the film aims at younger teenagers, rated 12A as it has child humour and mature themes deemed for 12 year olds and above. The sub-genre for 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1' is Adventure. The key signifers that show that 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Harrows Part 1' is an Adventure film are:

The background image; The woods in the background gives it an adventure feeling to the film as the character's are seen running.

The main image; Harry potter fans will know that the three character's in the profile are the main character's and the image itself shows the importance of the character's to the audience. They seem focused in running to where ever they are going which could hint of some sort of adventure they are heading.

Finally, 'Kung Fu Panda' is a animated action comedy film directed by John Wayne Stevenson and produced by Melissa Cobb. It was a 2008 film that stars the voice Jack Black. 'Kung Fu Panda' was a major box office success with an impressive box office gross of $631,744,560. Instantly I would think the target audience for this film is for young children because of the type of genre and the way the film poster is presented. The age certificate for the film is actually PG. The key signifers that show 'Kung Fu Panda' is an animated action comedy are:

- Choice of the main actor; Jack Black is an actor that is known to be in most comedy films however he is also known to be an american comedian. 

- The image; The image shows an animated character at the centre of the image which suggests that this character is the main character and the film involves animated characters only.

- The colours; Bright colours such as red orange and yellow have livened up the image making it look more fun and child friendly. This gives an insight to the type of audience the film aims at, a younger demographic.

The font of the title; The font of the title has a simple and easy style in order for the younger audience to read it and understand. The title is written in a big size of lettering to also be easy to read and to not look too complicatedly presented.  

Research; Genre & Sub Genre

A genre is a way of categorizing a text through style and form.  In film Genres are formed by conventions that change over time. The use of old ones are replaced by new inventions.


A sub-genre is a subcategory within a particular genre. Sub genre's have their own category, subject matter, and unique style to a film genre. There are many sub genres.
-For example, psychological thriller, action thriller, romance thriller, supernatural thriller and political thriller.


The sub-genre that inspired myself and my group the most was Psychological Thriller as it includes less thriller aspects and we liked the challenge of focusing more on a mystery and drama side. Psychological thrillers are also interesting to identify a character and this is great for using it to influence our own thriller film to engage our audiences. 


-An example that I looked at was 'The Dream House' (2011):

From looking at the poster an instance reaction is that it looks spooky and strange. Instantly you would guess that it is a psychological thriller because of the way the two girls are presented, camouflaged with the walls. It makes the audience focus on them as a character as to why they are positioned like that and why one of them is looking mysteriously into the camera.The colours used in the poster are dark and mysterious which also connotates to the genre. 

Using soundtrack Pro:

After editing and adding transition to our final cut we decided to add sound to our video, we done this by using SoundTrack Pro. This took longer than expected as we couldn't find the specific sound we wanted to match parts of our video. Therefore the process took longer as we had to look through the list
of the different foley sounds, until we found a sound effect which suited our ending.

The sound we chose  suited the ending most as we see the character in their own element which portrays mental characterisation. Also the sound reinforced the fact that the clip was coming to an end and added to the psychological thriller aspect we were going for.

Final Prelim Video

This is our final version of our Prelim video. We included a match cut shot at the beginning  of our video when Danriet is walking down the stairs and opens the double doors. Another important shot we used was over the shoulder shot when Danriet and Sasha was having a conversation with the use of dialogue. We included text in our video as we know it's an important aspect to include which we've learnt from previous lessons. We added the text in the correct order which follows the opening of the film conventions. Finally we included the use of different transitions such as the fade in and out transition used in the very end. However when filming a character we forgot to address the rule of thirds as when looking back at our scenes the characters didn't fill the fall camera frame which meant there were empty spaces above their heads at the sides.

Addding transition to Prelim video:

Above shows us adding transition to the final cut of our Prelim video, we wanted to keep the transitions simple, however we decided to add a fade out at the end of the clip which concluded the sequence.

Prelim Storyboard:

This is the storyboard we created before shooting the scenes for our prelim video. Before planning we decided that the sub genre of our movie was going to psychological thriller as the character was portrayed to have a mental illness. When creating our storyboard we thought about the important shots we wanted to include such as long shot and over the shoulder. We then drew out what we had imagined the clip to look like as a group. However when filming we interpreted the storyboard in different ways as we included extra features which we thought were relevant at the time such as the added scene towards the end.

Looking at past AS student final piece:

In lessson we looked at various different previous A level thriller film openings. This was helpful as it helped us gain ideas and see what techniques we could use to make a successful film opening. The previous thriller openings we looked at was Paper trail, Signature, No name and The Rushes.

Paper Trail:

Paper trail used the best sound effects and the most effective editing. Paper trail used the best sound effects as the effect drawed you into the film opening more. Also the editing used in Paper trail was good and it showed various different transitions such as the camera shots used when the swan dropped.



The camera shot taken from below when the swan dropped.



Signature:

Signature used the best mise en scene as they took a lot of thought in the use of the make up and the bathroom scenery. Also the cross cutting of the women puttting on her makeup to the man un conisous in the bath full of water, worked very effective as it showed the audience the connection between the women and the man.

This show the mise en scene used from the bathroom to create this scene.

 

No name:

No name had the best choice of storyline which made you want to continue watching more of the film. It was a good film opening  as the editing was smooth even though it was filmed in different locations. The different locations made the film more interesting to watch.

This was the scene taken from the beginning of the scene which sets the story. 

The Rushes:

The Rushes used the best camera as they used a various different camera effects for example the use of the hand camera. I thought that this was an effective effect as all the action which occurred in that scene was shown through the hand camera. I like this one because of the stylized editing used for example the use of type writer showing the producer and editor of the film e.c.t.

The use of the hand camera within there scene.

Arlington Road with added sound :/

Structure of film openings:

In lesson we looked at four different film openings. These were 'discrete', 'traditional', 'credits over black screen' and 'stylized editing'

Discrete: Discrete title sequence shows random images from the film with title suprimposed over the top the images. Discrete title sequences main focus is mise en scene ensuring to includ the main features from the film. It sets the mood and the atmosphere of the film introducing  main characters and main locations.

Traditional:  Traditional film opening, often begins with  several different shots of the setting or the location of the film, with film titles rolling over the top of this.

Credits over a blank screen: This is a very simple film opening as a blank screen appears where credits roll over the bank screen. This is then finished with with a fade which fades into the image of the opening sequence which should either introduce the location or character.

Stylized editing: Stylized editing opening sequences normally opens up with an discrete or taditional type. However stylized editing shows a very stylish opening which has been heavily edited.

We then analyised 3 different film openings which we then had to figure out which each film opening was. The 3 film opening we loooked at was 'The orphanage', 'The taking of the Pelham 1,2,3' and 'unknown'
.
The orphanage:

The opening of The Orphanage starts with an traditional film opening with a black screen with white credits rolling over the top.

This is then followed by a fade out into a pan down to the main setting of the film. With the use of sound effects of birds tweeting and the use of a classical instrumental soundtrack which is then followed by the sound of children playing.

However this is then followed by a stylised opening with an added soundtrack which sounds scary.

The Taking Of Pelham 123:
The opening of The Taking Of The Pelham 123 starts with a stylised opening which shows fast transitions which was used to emphaise the fast movement of the busy city. Each transition was showed differntly some transitions was slower.

Unknown:

The opening of the Unknown is a traditonal film opening which shows cloulds which is then zoomed out from areoplane window. Also mysterious music is used to create the atmosphere of the film.

The style that me and my group prefered was DISCRETE we decided that we preffered discrete better than the rest as it we found it more visually interesting and more creative.

Title sequence to Arlington Road

Taken

The action thriller Taken was released in 2008. Its was a Luc Besson's Europacorp production, was directed by Pierre Morel and distributed by 20th century fox. They had a budget of an estimated $25,000,000 and on the opening weekend in the UK made £1,165,986 alone.

The film is follows a 17 year old called Kim who’s the "pride and joy" of her father who is a retired agent. When her father allows her to travel to Paris with her friend, on their arrival an Albanian gang of human traffickers kidnaps them. When her father hears the kidnapper promising to kill his daughter, he travels to Paris to try and find and save her from them.

Taken Trailer:

At the beginning of the trailer, the first scenes you see are of the father and the birthday girl (daughter). From this, you can automatically see a strong bond between the father and daughter from their body language towards each other to the lighting and peaceful music in the scene, which creates a happy atmosphere. When the scene changes to the airport, the music is still quite upbeat and it still feels like a happy atmosphere. As you hear the flash sound of the picture being taken, the scene switches and the music stops and instead you hear a loud drum noise and a phone ringing which creates a lot of suspense. It turns out to be the father on the line to the daughter however, something does not seem right and the scene and music contradicts each other. This is maybe foreshadowing the coming events.

Throughout the movie there are many scenes which i believe create a build up to suspense or mystery.  

In this scene you see a mysterious close up of someones footsteps and the other of the friend dancing. This automatically leaves the audience wondering and reinforces the sense of suspence but the seriousness they are trying to create. Then in the next seen is when you see the friend being abducted by unknown people and a close up of Kim's reaction.

This is when you see the daughter being dragged from under the bed by the kidnapper after she had been on the phone to her father telling him what is happening. In this scene, the lighting was very dim highlighting that it is supposed to be a serious scene.  

This is a scene shot of when you see someone being tortured in an electric chair however you don’t find out who until a couple seconds later building on apprehension.

Thought Taken, there were not many special effects that were very noticeable; I think this was deliberate as it was supposed to be an action thriller. However, the use of suspense and creating an atmosphere for the audience was a big part of the film.