Opening Sequence Risk Assessment

By Hollie Fowler

Opening Sequence Animatic

This is the animated storyboard for our Opening Sequence 'Have You Seen...'. It includes the pictures from our story board, and an idea of the titles that will be included in the sequence. I have found a piece of music at www.freeplaymusic.com, but cannot add it to the animatic yet as i am currently requesting permission to use it. 

By Hollie Fowler

Opening Sequence Location Recce Sheet

This Location Recce will determine where the filming of our opening sequence is taking place, and how suitable the location is.

By Hollie Fowler

Opening Sequence Production Schedule

This is the production schedule for our opening sequence. It will tell you the dates on which we will be filming, where we will be filming it and what scenes we are going to film. 

By Hollie Fowler

Opening Sequence Shooting Script

This is the Shooting Script for our opening sequence. It shows you what is being shot, the type of shot we are going to use and the sound that will be in the scene. 

By Hollie Fowler

Opening Sequence Storyboard

This is the story board of our opening sequence. It shows you what the scene is going to look like, the type of shot it is, the audio and the action in the scene.

By Hollie Fowler and Alice Hogan

Opening Sequence Script

By Hollie Fowler and Alice Hogan

Opening Sequence Character Development

This is the character development for our opening sequence. It will tell you how the characters are represented, what they will be wearing and the props they will be using.

By Alice Hogan

Opening Sequence Title

Alice and myself came up with 3 names that we could possibly use as the name of the film that we are making an opening sequence for. The names we came up with were:

• Have You Seen...
• Not What You Think
• Vulnerability

In order for us to decide what name to chose, we asked 12 people which they preferred and these were our results:

As you can see from the results, the most preferred name was 'Have You Seen...' because our film is about abduction, and this name refers to someone being missing. As this was the most preferred name, we will be using it as the title of our opening sequence.

By Hollie Fowler and Alice Hogan

Opening Sequence Title Development

The titles we are going to include in our opening sequence will the producers, and who is starring in the video. They will look something like this:

I have chosen the spooky font because it matches the genre of the film. I plan to have the fonts animated to fly onto the screen, or have the letter appear one by one giving the impression that it is being typed. I also plan to have a spooky soundtrack playing whilst the titles are being shown.
By Hollie Fowler

Opening Sequence Mind Map of Ideas

Here is the mind map of what we want our opening sequence to be like. Includes characters, locations, story-line etc. 

By Alice Hogan

Step 2 - Interviews, showing the wants and needs of my target audience.

By Hollie Fowler

Step 2 – Investigate the wants and needs of your audience"

I am aiming to make 2 or 3 videos of an interview, where I shall ask people of my target audience what appeals to them in films. I will be asking the following questions:

1. What films of the "thriller" genre appeal to you?

2. What is your opinion on our opening sequence idea?

3. What do you enjoy about films of the 'Thriller' genre?

4. Do you think that social networking websites can be dangerous these days?

By Hollie Fowler and Alice Hogan

"Step 1 - Identify who your target audience is"

By Hollie Fowler

Opening Sequence analysis

The films I have chosen are ‘Hard Candy’ and ‘The Lovely Bones’. They are both based on abduction, which is what my opening sequence is going to be about. In this essay I will be talking about the opening sequences of these films and how the camera work, mise en scene, lighting, sound, editing, and the representation of characters are used.

   Hard Candy is a film about a girl who enters a chat line and agrees to meet up with someone. However it isn’t exactly like what we are planning our sequence to be, as she is the one who abducts the man as he is a paedophile and she is making him pay. They first scene is of the titles of the film, showing the actors names and directors etc. After the titles, it shows a conversation on the internet between the girl and the man, and the only thing you can see is the screen.

The camera work throughout the opening sequence only consists of panning shots that go up and down the computer screen in order to see what is being typed. There isn’t a wide variety in camerawork as it adds stillness to the conversation on screen making it sound quite tense. As the sequence is so simple there also isn’t much element of the mise en scene apart from lighting, which is only on the computer screen so it is quite high key. The sound in the clip is diegetic, as you can hear the keyboard as the girl types and the sound on the computer when she receives a message. As the scene is very quiet and you can just hear the typing it adds to the cold, quiet mood of the sequence. There is only 1 editing shot within the sequence and this is the 180 degree rule. The characters aren’t represented much in the opening sequence because the only thing you can see from the characters is what they are typing, which is clever because it gives a mysterious vibe to the extract. I think this film had a big impact on my final idea for the opening sequence because it shows me how to film a conversation from the internet.

   The Lovely bones is a film about a young girl that gets abducted by her neighbour and killed. The whole film is her journey in the afterlife. I have chosen this because it has the same story line under the theme of abduction.

The Opening scene of this film shows the main character as a little girl, and the relationship between her mum and dad being so fresh and sweet. Then in the next scene it is 12 years on and the parents are older and less interested in each other. The sequence includes the name of the film, however it doesn’t include names of the actors of producers so I presume this is going to be shown at the end. The sequence does have a funky sound track in it, because the film is set in the 70s.
The camera work throughout the sequence consists of many close-ups to introduce the characters. There is also mid shots and long shots that show people together so we are able to see what the relationship is like between them and their surroundings. After the title that says ’12 Years Later’ the first shot is an establishing shot that shows the audience where the film is set and what their house looks like.
The editing throughout is rather basic, until the main character is introduced, and her first few scenes are jump cuts, that give us the idea that she has a rather quirky personality. There is also use of the fade to black technique that introduces a new scene and ends the scene of the girl.

Over all the shots and editing throughout both of the opening sequences for the similar films tells me that I need to introduce the characters, place, relationships etc. I can do this by using a wide variety of camera shots and editing techniques, and this will help me with the basic opening sequence that shall fit in with my theme and genre.  

By Hollie Fowler

Opening Sequence analysis - Similar films

The films that I have chosen to base my story on are
Taken -
 

The Lovely Bones -


Both of these films are based on abduction, which is what my opening sequence is based on. The way the opening sequence of these films is done will help me plan my opening sequence as I have a similar plot.
By Hollie Fowler

What is an Opening Sequence?

An opening sequence is the first few minutes of a film. It gives an overall idea of what the film is going to be about and includes features such as titles, of the producers, makers and main actors. These are shown to give credit to the people who created the movie, and put all their time and effort into starring in it. They may also be shown as a form of advertising, for example if someone created a movie and the film is a huge hit people will know them by their name, and they may also be hired to create future movies. It is used because without it, the film would just be jumped straight in to. Opening sequences tend to include a soundtrack, this is played whilst the opening credits are shown, and the track usually fits in with the genre of the film, for example a horror would have dark gloomy music, and a chick flick will have up-beat pop songs.
By Hollie Fowler

Proposal - Initial idea for my opening sequence

By Hollie Fowler and Alice Hogan

Prelim Evalutation

Evaluation

Making my prelim has taught me that when filming, I need to loosen the tripod; this is because on certain scenes when moving it to the side during a shot, it jogged a lot and made cracking noises which affected our video as we had to re-record the scene and mute the original. Another problem I found we had with our prelim was  that we used the microphone built into the camera for scenes, and when we shot outside the sound of the wind was louder than our voices.

The skills I have developed from making the prelim are how to use Adobe Premiere, as I hadn’t used the programme before and now know exactly what I am doing. I have learnt how to cut scenes down and move them through the timeline, how to add effects in such as ‘de-crackling’ to improve the audio. I also learnt how to download certain audio files from the internet and add them into my prelim.

I have received feedback off Mrs Black, who told me that my prelim is to a good standard, however there are some problems with continuity, such as clothing throughout scenes because we had to film the prelim over a matter of days, some of which we were wearing different clothes. As we ran out of time and couldn’t change this, we have learnt that it is something we must work on in our next task.

I could improve my prelim by using more advance technology for the sound. This will focus more on the sound of our voices and not on the sound of the wind. I can also use a better tripod and loosen it to make the video look smoother. Another thing I could work on is the continuity of the video, so I would need to make sure that I bring in the clothes I wore for previous scenes.
By Hollie Fowler

Prelim Shot Log

By Alice Hogan

Prelim Video

By Hollie Fowler and Alice Hogan

The script for my 'New Student' film

By Hollie Fowler and Alice Hogan

The costume and props plan for my 'New Student' film

By Alice Hogan



The Camera set up plan for me 'New Student' film

Story Boards for my 'New Student' film