ROUGH CUT - Miss Georgiou

ROUGH CUT

Audience feedback is important to a production because it helps us as a group identify the strengths and weaknesses of our opening sequence. Another reason why it is important is because we can then think about what is the most important parts we need to change and can help us plan when we will re do these.

Our group received various amount of feedback in various different ways.

We as a group screened our production to the class so we could receive feedback on what worked well and what improvements we needed to make. We received verbal feedback from the class and found this was very effective. We received feedback of our focus group which meant from ages of between 16-17, which was good for us as our opening sequence was rated at 15+. With this feedback it means that the target audience was hit and we would be receiving accurate feedback. We also received feedback from YouTube, this was after posting our opening sequence. Any member of the public could watch our post, like and comment, giving us as a group feedback. We found that all these ways were helpful for putting new ideas into our minds and highlighting to us what does not work so well and what does.

The public giving me and my group feedback meant there would be another set of eyes analysing the opening sequence and maybe seeing things that we don't. This also shows to us that one small change could make a large difference.

From all three ways of feedback we found that there was many positive amounts of feedback. The first main positive piece of feedback being the editing; the audience found this was very good and stood out. The editing was a huge part to our opening sequence and too get good feedback was great. The large amount of editing which we gained good feedback from was the section in the opening sequence where the mask appears. The lighting was just right for them to see the mask in a quick flash on the screen. However the music behind this section could have been bolder and louder, catching the audiences attention just a little bit more. When adding these filters we made sure that they were all in timing and were the right brightness and opacity so there was a constant flow throughout and you couldn't notice any small blips in the camera angles or that all the scenes were filmed on the same day. Another positive we received from screening our production is the amount of conventions of a thriller that were used, for example; low key lighting, female victim and hidden identity. The female victim meant there was more suspense and tension brought towards the audience and they found that a larger relationship was created between the two, which is what we intended to happen, and found as group from the feedback that we was happy and it was the right choice to make. Mine and my groups peers found that the low-key lighting left them waiting for more and in suspense about what was going to happen next, as not much evidence and clues were shown on screen. The class also liked the fact that the opening sequence was left on a cliff-hanger, from this they found that the concluding narrative was interesting and wasn't boring for them to watch. All of these main positive pieces of feedback has shown to my group that the story boards when planning was important and helped to maintain the good narrative that was noticed, as well as editing skills and conventions.

The main constructive feedback we received firstly was the title frame which was shown half way through the opening sequence. Me and my groups peers found that the title worked well and the music fitted in well, also blending in and out well to match the next up coming scene. Although some improvements could be made on the opening scene after the title, we as a group found that the lighting was quite dull and needed to stand out more to the audience, as well as adding some more dramatic music to show to the audience that the scene is concluding soon. Although apart from this, us as a group were happy with the ending scenes. The feedback about the opening credits we received was varied, although as a whole we received feedback that they wasn't on screen long enough and were just a little too small to read quick enough, although we had already discussed this as a group and were happy and conclusive with the feedback given. 

When receiving comments and feedback, positive feedback is useful and helpful to as it has given our group an insight of what elements do not need any additional changes and why they have helped to make our production successful. We have taken these comments from both the screening of our production and the comments left on the YouTube video that we uploaded of our thriller opening sequence rough cut. Firstly our feedback suggested that our transitions were well selected, in the way it wasn't too obvious that we were transitioning into the next scene and swiftly changed into the next scene keeping it professional looking. Another comment made was the fact it was clear in what our narrative was. I personally think we spent alot of our time making sure it was clear for the audience to understand the order of our thriller and what the narrative was, so this feedback was very helpful showing that our work in trying to reach this has worked. Another positive comment from our feedback from our YouTube video was that the sounds that we ended up using on our opening sequence, which were many overlapped created a good effect. 

The changes we make to our thriller opening sequence will be based on the comments and amounts of feedback given, we will make sure all pieces of feedback are taken into consideration are taken and changes in places we as a group feel is right. We will change the font sizes throughout and think more closely about our music; changes in the right places e.g. more dramatic and concluding music will need to be used. Overall asking for feedback from varied places has helped us see from different perspectives, looking from a different point of view on what does and doesn't work well.

PRODUCTION ROLES - Miss Miller

PRODUCTION ROLES

• Each person must have a role allocated to them
• To explain why they've been given this specific role
• Evaluation of how they did in this role (what went well, could have gone better) and why

People need to be allocated specific roles when creating a film as it enables every member of the production to contribute especially towards one area, making every member of the production team to have a significant role in production. The main roles that are necessary for creating a film consists of;

Producers - Hannah, Ollie, Ella
Directors - Hannah
Actors - Ollie & Ella
Director of photography - Hannah
Music Producers - Ollie
Screen play writer - Ella
MES Co-ordinator - Hannah, Ella, Ollie
Editors - Ella

Deciding on production roles before we start filming our opening sequence will help us stay on track and help prevent any mistakes when filming. For each eight roles we have at least one person, our first role is producer. A Producer a person responsible for the financial and managerial aspects of the making of a film or broadcast or for staging a play. A producer helps to prepare the whole film, including the narrative. When planning we all decided and contributed on our narrative, so we was all happy with the final ending decision. We decided that every person in our group ( me, hannah, ollie) will all be a producer, this is because we all put input into what we are going to include in our opening sequence and how it will work well. All of our input has worked better than just one person being a producer this is because we worked together well and came up with better ideas on how and what to film, we had weekly discussions had produced our opening scene together as a team. A Producer is the most important job in film making and we came to the decision that we are all important in our group. We have all planned our own ideas for editing, music and mise-en-scene and this all comes under being a good producer. If we selected one person from our group to be the producer then this may has caused friction between the group as the decisions haven't been made together and discussed properly, i found that in my own opinion because neither me or my group members had been a producer in any production before, working as a team worked best as we learnt of each other and took it in turns to take the lead, this way it was fair.

The second role of producing a film is a director. A film director is a person who directs the making of a film. Directing is a large part in film making and without the director nothing would really take place. As a group we decided to make Hannah the director. We chose to do this as she took media at GCSE and was a director here. She has learnt all the techniques and is good at taking charge of situations. Her role as a director means that is the boss of the film and has to direct everyone in the right direction. Her skills will help us explore new ways into creating a better thriller films and add different touches to any other normal thriller. As a director Hannah will be in charge of nearly everything in the scene, e.g. deciding on whether the shot taken looks right and needs to be taken again, this will help us with the best possible outcome and engage with the audience well. After our first day of filming I found that Hannah was a good director and gave clear specific instructions on what do to. I found that this helped as we didn't miss any of the scenes out and each scene we filmed was filmed well with good structure. Hannah made sure the background scene usable and worked well with the atmosphere we wanted to create. In my opinion I found that Hannah didn't do anything wrong, the planning before hand helped us to move on faster and not forget about anything that needed to be included, although after a group discussion we found that Hannah needed to come to conclusions about finalising scenes before, and not make new decisions In the middle of filming, we found that this wasn't a large issue but did cause a little concern at the start of our filming.

The actors in our opening sequence was myself (Ella) and Ollie.
An actor is a person whose profession is acting on the stage, in films, or on television. We as a group have chosen to use two actors for our filming. Our first actor is ollie, who is playing two parts in our opening sequence, he is going to be the antagonist aswell as a victim. His role as a antagonist will mean he will have a different personality than to the victim. His role as a antagonist means his personality will be very masculine and tough. As an actor ollie will have to use his acting skills to play both the parts very well and not show to the audience that it is the same actor playing two parts as this is important and one thing that me and my group are worried about. We felt that ollie has a strong charachter and would be good as an actor, he uses alot of expression in his tone. The other actor we have discussed as a group to use is myself (ella). We as a group decided to use myself as our second actor as i express qualities that would be good for a young vunrable female victim. Our actors both show good qualites that will show strong emotion to the audience and intrege them into what is being shown.

The third production role is director of photography. This simply means the person filming the whole scene/production. Hannah has taken on the role of director of photogrpahy as this is because she took media at GCSE and has learnt about the camera skills before, so could suggest to the other members of my group what camera angle/technique may work well in a particular scene and why. The director of photography can look through the camera and decide what looks good and what dosent when filming a scene, similar roles to a director. I think in my own opinion that this is a very important role as without this role the opening sequence wouldnt be filmed as well as not being filmed to a high enough standard as what hannah produced. When filming we found that hannah done a very good job of filming, she used all camera angles which we discussed that we was going to use and the quality of filming was excellent. Although we didnt try using two people as our director of photography so we couldnt compare the quality of filming, we didnt find this a problem but next time we feel we should decide afterwards.

The fourth production role is music producers. This role allows the allocated person to pick certain sound effects and music for scenes in our thriller. For this role we as a group decided that Ollie would be the music producer. Before filming as a group we researched conventional sounds that aure used in thrillers, these sounds build up tension and suspense and the typical convention such as a heartbeat. It was very hard to pick sounds before filming as we didnt know how our filming was going to change and could excatly decided so we waited until afterwards. After fully filming our opening sequience ollie took on the role of looking at specific scenes and deciding what sound effects should go where and why. Ollie decided that a run through of the music would play throughout aswell as other sound effects ontop. For example; when the antagonist is on screen and seen to be surrounding the victim, a heartbeat will be played to represent the victim and how scared he is, this will create a relationship with the audience, creating tension and making them feel vunrable of him. Music makes alot of difference in thrillers as it can sometimes build up more tension than what is actually shown on the screen, this is why it was important for ollie to get things right. Overall i feel in my own opinion that ollie has done well, he has picked conventinal sounds that are well known to the thriller audience and are well known to making the audience feel scared and nervous. Although, i feel he could have researched further and maybe have used sounds that appear out of the blue and arent well-known, creating our thriller opening sequence to be different to anyone elses.

The fifth production role is screen play writer. This the credits shown on the screen. Obviously because we are only creating an opening sequence the credits will be shown the whole way through at the beginning and not the end, just to show to the audience who is in this opening sequence and what roles people have taken on. I (ella) have been selected to be the screen play writer. We decided this as a group as

OPENING SCENE NARRATION - Miss Miller

OPENING SCENE NARRATION

Our opening sequence will be from 2-3 minutes long, and will include different techniques from cinematography, sound, editing, miss-en-scene and conventions.
Our opening sequence is a thriller production.

Our opening scene begins with a black screen, this lets the audience listen to what the opening scene is and what is going to happen throughout. Over the black screen, a voice over will be heard, this is a lady with a deep loud voice reading a news report,the news report opening (tune)will be played first to indicate thenews has started. Her voice is loud and bold and attracts the audiences attention easily, as she speak clearly about the latest headline on the news. The opening sound to the news lets the audience engage quickly, as its catchy and is known to the audience as the opening to the daily news. The scene then slowly arises and opens to a new scene, here the lighting is low-key and very minimal. The background shows a dimmed sky. The front room scene contains a mid-shot of the window and the top half of a brown sofa in the room. The two girls sitting on the sofa discuss the news report and general activities in their life styles. The night begins to darken in and the two girls discuss taken her dog out for a walk. Whilst this is taking place, the antagonist in a white scary mask, appears at the window. The antagonist is wearing a mask, black dark clothing. This protects the antagonists identity and keeps the audience intrigued. The antagonist at the window is only seen by the audience and not by the characters on scene. This is the first showing of the antagonist to the audience and may cause some surprise to the audience. The cinematography used in this scene is zooming in and and a close up, the close up shows the importance of the mask and why it is there to create suspense for the audience. We chose to used a close up and zooming in as the slow gradual zoom grabs the audiences attention quickly, instead of a normal shot which will leave the audience bored and constantly waiting for the next scene to take place. Zooming in also shows the apointed image faster, working better in thriller films, e.g. a ticking clock or ringing telephone, but in this situation a mask. The scene soon fades by either using an transistion or effect so it fades slowly and smoothly, this will then show a scene change to outside. This scene will be gradually getting darker, we chose as a group to use the sunset sky as it is a convention in thriller and felt that from previous research it build tension and brings suspense to the audience. The two main girls will walk down the road with her dog, the cinematography used will be a hand held camera, this will give an instance to the audience that the antagonist is following these two girls and tension will begin to rise on the scene. Everything in this scene (mise-en-scene) will be dark and gloomy to give the effect to the audience that the two girls are vunrable and there is no escape from what they are being surrounded by. The two girls will walk off the screen heading for a dark surrounding forest. This will be a long shot showing the victims full bodies, aswell as the background. We found this would work well as showing the background shows to the audience where they are going, this helps the audience elaborate on the story line. The entrnce to the forest is an impotant scene asthis is the scsne for the rest of the opening sequence. he fores scene will be shown iin many cinematogrpahy uses, for instance the next scene shows the antagonist entering, here will b a mid-shot and a slight zooming in whe the antagonist looks back and his scary mask is shown. A scary mask in a thriller film is a typical convention as it can scare the audience quickly and easily. An editing skill used here will be montage, throughout m and my groups openin sequence will be a montage, this is quick flashes of different scenes, this will show to the audience that the antagonist is approaching and the audience should feel scared and victimised. The opening sequence soon begins to speed up and the pace of the film increases, the audience now know what the antagonist looks like and should feel scaed for the victims, as they have no idea what is following them. A long shot is then used to sow the two girls screaming as the are approached by the antagonist, feeling patronised. This impression is shown to the audience that something really bad has happened, this will also be heard with a back sound track of eerie music, this will be playing throughout the whole opening scene narration aswell as other soun effects/music over the top. Screaming is a convention of thrillers and we as a group decided to use this as it brightens up the whole scene and brings thrings alight to the screen. Music throughout being played in cnoventiona as it grabs the audiences attention more, especially erie as it is creepy and intreging. The lighting in our montage scene reflects to the sounds being used, a bright ligt is going to be shown when flickering from scene to scene so wehave decided to use a loud gushing sound which will reate to this. After this a fliker of the antagonists face is going to be shown iin a tree, here there wlll be an over the shoulder angle used, this shows the victims point of view and eye shot to the audience, giving them the impression that they are in their shoes, feeling wha they are feeling, which is what we want to create. From this short clip we now know that there is no escape from the antagonist and he is surrounding the forest, although to conclude his actions we have included small flashes of another victim, this was a last Minuite decision as we found this brings more suspense to the screen if we introduce a vunrable young boy who has recently gone missing, this audience picture the puzzle together and finally realise that the news report at the beginning of the opening sequence is about him. The boy will be shown on the wet, dirty, muddy forest floor, tied up to a tree. This will indicate that is he secluded by the antagonist and he is almost hunting down his pray. An editing skill used on this will have a blurred effect around the victim and his face will be bright and very noticeable on the screen, this will show his facial expression; scared and patronised. The use of zoom on will also show this as it will show to the audience the intricate detail of what he is feeling and why he is feeling it, making the audience feel more involved. The scene is finally coming to an end and we see the antagonist exiting the scene. The calmer angle is very low and shows an image of leaves and partly some of the upper scene, in this clip you see the antagonist walking away from the camera dropping his mask Infront of the camera, not giving away his identity but the dropping of the mask will be close to the camera, almost asif he has just dropped the camera as he is finished with his victims. The sky will be dark as it has fallen darker from sunset when the victims first entered the forest. Carrying on with our short clips of montage, after this scene we will include another flash back scene of the pictures being burnt on the wall, almost as a montage of the same clip repeated as it is flashing on screen to give a sense of enigma as this confuses the audience as they do not know what is happening.  The final ending scene is

GROUP STORYBOARD - Miss Miller

     GROUP STORY BOARD

After planning our individual story boards and agreeing on our final decisions, together as a group we have created a group story board, of 20 frames.

 A group story board helps us to create final ideas and conclude on what final techniques we will be using. From our individual story boards we each came up with different ideas and putting them onto our own story boards, from this we used different features from each of our group members frames and drew the final frames onto our story boards. From looking at different features we found that the different ideas helped us to come to a conclusion quicker, and helped us to listen to each other more carefully.

In our first story board we have created four frames, these four frames include pictures as well as specific details about the scene. Our opening scene shows a black screen ( low-key lighting), this is because there will be a sound recording in the background of the news, revealing to the audience that there have missing people in the area. Without any picture on the screen this will immediately alert the audience watching and create a sense of eagerness of wanting to watch more. We found that from all of our individual ideas the back screen as an opening would work best as it doesn't give away any clues of what could jump out on the screen next. As the scenes move on the scene soon opens and shows the living room of one the girls houses. Here there is low-key lighting, two characters present and slow zooming in to create tension and suspense. In the third frame there will be eery, slow music that will build tension on the screen. The quiet music will be unexpected and will gradually build faster and faster as a third character (antagonist) appears at the window. The low-key lighting is conventional and easily adds tension to the scene. The low-key lighting in our film is showing to the audience that its night time, an easy time for the antagonist to arrive. A small whistling noise will be present whenever the antagonist is around in the opening sequence, although he may not be present on the screen, it will not only scare the audience but the characters in the film too as the noise will be present in both.

 In our second story board, again we created four frames. Although in this story board the scene changes and the main key lighting changes. In our first frame we  have the ending scene of the front room, here the lighting is still the same and includes all three of the main characters. This scene is shown differently to the audience than to the characters. The audience see the background behind them (antagonist) whereas they don't, building suspense on the screen, creating a relationship between the audience and the characters as they will be eager to tell them that there mystery killer is behind them. The second frame changes the scene quickly, and this is where the flashes of montage begin to appear on the screen throughout. The road ahead shown on screen is long and conventional for thriller as there is a long shot shown of the characters showing to the audience the darkness and what danger they are really in. In this scene natural lighting is used (darkness with small amount of lighting), this captures the audiences attention more as they can see more on the screen and most of the characters clothing and facial expressions.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 In our third group story board we started going into more detail as more things were starting to take place at the same time. All of these frames are filmed outside, although with different settings. We are using flashbacks of different photos e.g. in this we flash back to the antagonist drawing all over the pictures of the victims he has in his sight, this will scare the audience, as the chartacters dont see what they are seeing and almost feel patrinised. Each of these scenes will happen fast, short and snappy, this will create the audinece to feel scared and waiting for the next arrival on the screen. Another scene which we found from research which works well is frame 3, where we are burning paper ( pictures of victims ). The background will be low-key lighting with only the fire light showing what is taking place, this brings tension and suspense to the audience watching. The fire will represent what the antagonist is going to do to the victims and represent to the audience who his victims are. The Montage around the tree will slowly show one of the antagonists victims tied up to a tree, this will be a quick flash and will not show much to the audience, making them more intrigued as they feel that they have to watch closely.


The fourth storyboard we then created as a group began with the two girls in the forest wondering around, which immediately creates a sense of foreboding as two vulnerable, young girls are in the middle of an isolated setting without any escape or anybody near by to there them if they are in danger. This gives a sense of an isolated scene, leaving the characters feeling venerable and needing help, giving the audience the chance to create a relationship with them, 

Overall, I think that our storyboard works well as the scenes flow well after eachother. There is a range of different camera techniques throughout the opening sequence, including a long shot, point of view shot and a high angled shot so it is not one continuous mid shot scene.

FILM SCHEDULE - Miss Georgiou

Film schedule

·       Why is a filming schedule important to have?

·       Did you follow the schedule while filming, or did you make any changes?

·       Include your filming schedule

A filming schedule is important to have as it allows me and my group to plan before we start filming and ensure we have all the necessary equipment ready, for example a camera fully charged or the planning for that specific scene.

A a filming schedule is also important as it helps me and my group to meet deadlines of when we need to have filmed a certain scene, this helps with the editing phase as we will not be behind with work, and means we can put a lot of time and effort into our work.

 A filming schedule meant that we planned to film on 5 days overall, these would not be full days but would ensure that it would be roughly about 2-3 hours on each day. This amount of time meant that we could film before it got dark and meant we had enough time to film each scene properly without rushing. 

We originally began filming with sticking to our filming schedule. The first scene that we shot was of the two girls walking out of the house taking their dog out for a evening walk. This night we also shot the scenes of the girls entering the forest, and also of the antagonist walking into the forest. However, once we reviewed the scenes we realized quickly that they were too dark and needed to be re filmed. At this point we had already not followed our filming schedule precisely. 

Although the weather started to affect our filming and meant it was hard to film in the times that we wanted to. During this time we decided to film inside the scenes were the antagonists sets alight the pictures of the protagonists. This was originally meant to be filmed last, but we changed the order as this time was more suitable and convenient and could be then out of the way. This was a good use of our time as during this time the weather cleared up, after allowing us to go out into the forest when it wasn't raining. After the weather changed we was then able to film the scenes we wanted to and use our time wisely. When filming in the forest we found that the floor was slightly muddy from the rain, we then re scheduled to do some scenes e.g. Leaves russling on another day as it would be easier and found would create more atmosphere on the screen.

Overall I feel that planning a filming schedule helped with planning ahead clearly and helped me and my group make time for filming. Our set dates meant there was no complications.

RISK ASSESSMENT - Miss Georgiou

RISK ASSESSMENT 

A Risk Assessment meant that me and my group could discuss the possibilities of what could go wrong throughout filming our opening sequence. To show this, we created a table to show the hazard and how it could be prevented ( the table above ). If we consider these risks before filming then we can plan ahead and take precautions so nothing interrupts our filming or anyone gets hurt. Before filming in a certain place we will evaluate the scene to make sure where we are going to film is safe and compatible for what we need.

Risk assessments are very important as they form an integral part of a good occupational health and safety management plan. They help to: Create awareness of hazards and risks.

Planning ahead gets us ready and means we are all aware of the risks that could happen. One of the most important hazards we thought of was 'fire'. As our finalising scene is a piece of paper burning with pictures of victims on, we thought that the piece of paper could easily catch alight, so we will be using a suitable area with sources around that can help prevent this from spreading.

Another common hazard that can take place when filming is hanging leads from the plug to the camera. This is a hazard because anyone could easily trip and hurt themselves, or cause the camera to stop working in an important bit of the film. We can prevent this by either charging the am era before or hiding any loose wires under a mat or tucking them behind where no one can hurt themselves. Another hazrad that links tho this is the darkess, if the weather is bad and the night is approaching then there will not be much light available in the forest, this means that extra precuations should be taken with hanging wires aswell as what is on the floor e.g. large branches or stumps on the ground. A torch should be used at all times to ensure safety for all group members.

Nature cannot be helped when filming and as we are in the forest this may be a hazard. Animals such as a fox may approach us when filming a scene and this may distract us or prevent us from filming. Being aware of this will prevent us from being harmed or even distarct us from filming as we dont want this to happen, the time we spend filming is crusial as its hard for me and my group to film when there is light.

All of our hazards are important and need to be taken seriously. The next hazard is the weather. Again this cannot be helped, although some precautions can be taken. Before filming check the weather to see what the forecast is, all group member agree on whether we thingk this is accpetable to film in or not. Another precaution we can take is having an umbrella close by to hold over the camera itself aswell as the tripod. This ensures that the lense will not get damaged and no mechanical faults can take place throughout, putting aside any risks to me and my group members.

Overall i feel that me and my group have outlined all of the major hazards that can take place when filming our thriller opening sequence. We have taken the necassary precautions to ensure our safety aswell as the equiptment we are using. If anything is to go wrong when filming then we have all the necassary precatuions/equiptment ready.

PLANNING INDIVIDUAL STORYBOARD - Miss Miller

PLANNING INDIVIDUAL STORYBOARD

After discussing our final ideas and planning everything up to filming, planning my own individual story board has helped me to express my onw ideas for our group narrative. Although me and my group have come up with a basis to our narrative, we have each created our own individual narrative and when completed will bring them all together and have a group discussion about what small things we think work well and whaat dont.

For my individual story boards i created 20 frames on 4 storyboards. Each story board itself had 4 frames which included picture space and all of the editing, iconography, lighting and sound skills i would use. For each frame i drew a picture which represented what would be shown in that scene, for e.g. in my first frame i drew a plain black screen. The reason for this is because the voice recording of the news will be shown and a black screen will slowly be opened up to a long shot of the living room of the house. The black screen will slowly fade with the voice recording of the BBC news fading too, the low-key lighting will slowly disapear and the screen will be bright introducing both of the main characters. Whilst this is taking place, the credits will be on the screen introducing the actors, director, music etc.

 In my third frame a black figure will pace past the window in flickers, bringing tension to the screen. In this scene the lighting will be flickering to low-key as the pace of the opening sequence will be quite fast not giving anything away to the audience. I took inspiration from past media clips which me and my group have analysed and taken notes from, this helped us to explore what works well in an opening sequence and why. We found the flickering of the screen worked well as the pace was fast and kept the audience on the edge of their seats wanting to see more than the opening sequence.

In my third story board, i chose to use a long shot. This long shot represents and shows a picture of the two main characters behind, the lighting that i have planned to use is low-key lighting with shadow features on the ground. There will be two actors and the editing will mean the audience see them flicker down the path quickly, almost in a blink of a second. This will keep up the pace of the opening and keep the audience interested. The same movement will be used when the antagonist passes the window, the editing will be fast with black flickers on the screen. Both of these uses will be at different points in the short opening and mean the antagonists face and body features will not be shown, thjs will leave a mystery as it is very hard for the audience to get a good look at the antagonist.

I hope that the audience will be kept in suspense from my opening sequence. I hope this because of the cliff hanger ending where the audience are left wondering what has happened to the girls, if they are in danger, and what will happen to them next. Not only this, but I hope that the audience will also be shocked and surprised at some scenes, also feeling sympathetic to the characters. This could possibly be from the scene were they see the young boy tied up to the tree. 

I think that my own storyboard was well thought out and that it had clear thriller conventions. It also has good camera techniques that are typical of the thriller genre. It has an engaging narrative which will keep the audience on the edge of their seats for the whole sequence. It will also create the three thriller conventions: Shock, Suspense and surprise.

Each of my frames are in much detail and all show to the audience what I am going to do and use. From these individual story boards we created a group story board, this meant discussing ideas.

Our group story board is 24 frames, which is 5 story board pages. We found that planning this in detail helped us look at intrecate details we need to use and make sure we include.

This is an example of a blank story board that we used, this shows the space for pictures as well as writing. We had to include the length of the scene and what frame number is was, this helped me and my group stay organised.

PLANNING OPENING CREDITS - Miss Georgiou

PLANNING OPENING CREDITS

Opening credits are important in any opening sequence to a film. They introduce the characters, directors, producers etc. Opening credits can be shown in very different styles and ways, after research into opening sequences we have discussed our own ideas for our own. 

For our research we looked at an opening sequence to a film called, s7ven, which is a well known thriller film.


This film showed the purposes of film credits; shows the title, introduces characters, represents the mood & style of the film and shows the different job roles. 

From watching this opening sequence of credits I noticed a lot of things.

The first thing being the conventions. From this 2 minutes clip I noticed; flashing lights, dark scenery, low-key lighting, using black and white features which represent good v evil. The flashing lights in the credits shows unbalanced effect of instability of the antagonist, this can give ideas to the audience on what type of thriller film this is and how it is going to give them clues and intrigue them into watching the rest of the film. Although most of the conventions we see in thrillers usually take part throughout out the whole film, a lot where squeezed into one short space of time and me and my group feel this worked really well. 

The second thing me and my group looked at was order of appearance. In thriller films the credits are presented differently and may be shown to present the actors first or the title, each film is made differently. From analysing this opening sequence of credits we found that the company name was shown first, this is to show the audience who had made the film that they are watching, and give them small clues from this what type of thriller this is and on what other films have been made from this name before. The second thing to appear was the director. This was done in this case for this film because he director is very famous and showing his name before the actors often persuades the audience to watch and feel welcomed by the fact that the film making itself will be good. After this, the actors we're shown first; again the more well-known actors we're shown first, e.g. In this film it was Brad Pitt. Then the music, then the co-producers and costume producers and then the director was shown again to the audience. I found that from researching what order the credits we're shown it helped me to think what order I should use within our group opening sequence and why they should be used in that order, will our actors be famous enough to be shown first? 

The third thing I analysed when researching the opening credits from this film was the colours used. The colours shown can show what type of thriller is going to be shown. From these opening credits I found that most of the background colours and text used was black, white and dull colours. The black and white could represent death & mystery and bring suspense for the audience. For a thriller the conventional colours used are usually dark and mysterious and do not show much colour to the audience. A thriller film likes to keep the next scene a secret and things in darkness. This use of constant black and white has inspired me to discuss with my group about using this as I think it works really well.

The last thing me and my group analysed was the style of credits. The style of credits Is different in every film and shown in different ways too. The credits we're shown in this opening sequence to be handwritten, this could indicate that the antagonist is a psychopath and is mentally unstable, from first thoughts this is giving away clues to the audience and keeps the audience in suspense, keeping them wondering what he is planning and why. Other styles I noticed was that the title was in bold, meaning the director wants the title be shown and seen straight away, also a lot of flashing on screen and an diegetic electrical faint sound. This is an eerie type of noise and builds up tension quickly creating an easy relationship with the audience, keeping them intrigued. 

From this research I have gathered my own ideas and made a first draft of my own opening credits. I have taken ideas from each section of my research. The first thing I found which helped was the colours used. From my research I found that the dark intriguing colours worked well. From this I used dark colours as it introduces the film opening quite slow and keeps the audience wondering what is going to happen next. 

This is the opening picture of one of my group members; Hannah. This clearly shows the title, in bold writing. From the research I can clearly see that she has use black and white colours, although a very light background. This attracts the audiences attention quickly and the red can represent blood and danger, a small flash of this on the screen.

 

Ollie's opening credits takes the form of blood flowing down the page from corner to corner. At the end of the credits there is a puddle of blood with the name of our film above it (Obscurity). It is very conventional of the thriller genre because blood is known as being linked with death and harm. My title is going in the centre of the page to draw the attention of the audience towards it and also to make it bold and protruding. The colour of my font will be red which is very conventional of the thriller genre because red links to blood and murder. My background is black is to show death which again is conventional to the thriller genre.

PLANNING MISE-EN-SCENE

PLANNING MISE-EN-SCENE

Mise-en-scene is the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a film or play. We have had many discussions about what we will be including in the scene of our film. Mise-en-scene consists of the setting, characters, iconography, facial expressions and body language, lighting and colour and the positioning of the characters in the frame.

Setting
Settings can engage the audience by creating certain expectations and bringing a twist to scene. From much discussion we have chose to use two scenes for our opening sequence. The first is a small road in a village, this road will be fairly quiet with houses the whole way through. The setting will also be dark, creating tension and suspense when the antagonist rises. Leading on from this, the scene will change to a dark forest, which will consist of enclosed areas. We found this will work well as its a smaller space for the characters to feel victimised and easier for the antagonist to move around and follow the venerable victims. The forest is an ideal place to feel isolated and this is conventional in a thriller sequence, also creating fear. Victims almost always feel captured and insecure in thriller films and this is how they show empathy to the audience, this is what we want to create and also show this through the use of facial expressions and body language.

Facial expressions and body language

Facial expressions indicate how the character is feeling and can tell a story to the screen about what they are going to next. Music can also accompany the way someone is feeling, for example; creepy music which rises up may show tension or anger. Body language can show to the audience how the character is feeling within that moment or how they feel towards another character, portraying there relationship to one another e.g. hate, love, compassion. We will use a range of facial expressions throughout as it can change the way the audience feel about the characters easily. One stage in our opening sequence where our facial expressions will change very quickly is the ending scene, here the two main characters will feel trapped and enclosed, looking innocent and scared at the audience, although after a few seconds of looking at the unknown black figure in the near distance the two girls become possessed and there facial expressions soon change to angry and frightening. Throughout we will concentrate on the range of facial expressions that we use, for example things such as laughing and smiling when they are enjoying conversation at the beginning of the scene. Although, the audience will not be able to see the antagonists face in the opening sequence as we are using a mask to create greater effect when he is looking through the dark window. The body language used will not be slouchy or unsympathetic. When the two characters see a young boy being victimised by an unknown character, the two girls feel sorry for him and feel an emotion to help. There facial expressions and body language will be strong and engage the audience.

Iconography
Iconography is the visual images and symbols used in a work of art of the study or interpretation of these. The first peice of iconography we have discussed using is a mask for our antagonist. Hiding the antagonists personality and identity creates an mysterious atmosphere for the audience. The mask we have chosen to use will be white with black distinct features. We have chosen to use this as the openi sequence will be at night and we need the mask to stand out and be an attraction for the audience, aswell as the characters. The white mask will almost be an white glow and stand out widely to the screen, this may cause the audience to be suprised and may create a feeling of suspense. The relationship created through mask is hard to show as we cannot show any emotions or facial features to the audience, although a mask does create a sense of hidden identity and can leave the audience wanting more and asking themselves questions. Do we really know the person that is underneath that mask? As the aim for our audience is 15+ the audience will be more intreged as the actor for our antagonist will be around the same age. 

Another prop/feature of the film we will be using is an animal; a dog. An animal used in films especially thrillers can create empathy towards the characters quickly and we found this worked well from research. A relationship from the audience to an animal can sometimes be stronger than one to an characters. This is because animals can't speak and show there emotions so the audience guess and think of the conventional way they would be feeling.

Lighting and colours

Everything in the scene itself consists of colour and lighting, whether it is very dull or a bright flashing light. From much discussion and planning we have decided to film overall in the evening, this will mean the sky is falling in darker and sunset will be taking place. This will give off a range of wide colours to the audience. Colours such as red, white and black are conventional of a thriller film as it can make a woman look innnocent or a man look scary and a criminal. The lighting that can be used which we found when researching is red beams or a white bright light in a dark setting. In that dark e.g. a forest like our setting, a white torch light can show dimmed features of the charachters bodys and faces, this can show there emotion or facial expressions to the audience. Although we will not be using any beamed lighting we may use a torch to show more of the charachters body image. We felt we should do this as it will be dark outside and we want the scene to stand out to the audience and keep them intriged.

PLANNING CHARACTERS- Miss Miller

PLANNING CHARACTERS

The purpose of using characters in films is to help engage and create a relationship with the audience. This helps the audience become more intrigued within the film and after seeing the opening sequence it leaves them wanting more.

After discussion we have chosen to use two main characters. The stage names we have given is Amy(Ella) and Chloe(Hannah).
Amy: young girl, teenager, blond/brown, innocent and a good friend. All of these are her characteristics of the character for our film.
Chloe: Young girl, ginger innocent and has a good personality.
As you can see from these brief descriptions both of the main characters are very similar and we have done this so it creates a better relationship between the two and the audience. With two young teenage girls it can create empathy easily and make the audience feel sorry for them. 

These two characters will create empathy and different emotions throughout so it is important that we use the right characteristics for both.

I want the audience to engage easily and keep them on the edge of their seats during the whole opening sequence. Introducing the characters in an opening sequence is vital as the audience get to know who their seeing and who they will be watching throughout the rest of the film. In our opening sequence both girls are introduced to the screen and are shown to the audience to be friends.

Although we have two main characters we do have a antagonist in our opening sequence, although the face will not be shown and only used for small amounts of the opening sequence, for example: flashes at the window and the antagonist holding the camera, to give an effect to the audience that they are watching in his eyes, building tension quickly. We will also include background charachter as throughout; e.g. Walking down the road either beside or on the other side, this will not create a relationship or any emotions to the audience but show that the setting isn't a busy place and is quiet&innocent, representing the two main charachters personalities.

Another conventional character is the antagonist. Which will also be played by Ollie, but in different scenes. The antagonist is conventional because the antagonist in our opening thriller sequence is very tall, creating a sense of dominance over other characters. Aswell as this, our antagonist is all masked, with a hidden identity, this helps to create a sense of enigma which is key to creating a successful thriller film. 

Teenagers (15+) is our target audience and then watching creates shock and easily builds a trusting relationship between the two. This is good as it intreges and the audience easier and quicker, keeping them guessing and wanting more. We think this will work as we have chosen to use young characters, instead of older women as it will be more interesting and social.

I found that planning helped towards making our characters as it helped to indivually plan who the character was, and why there rold was important. Not only this but it helped me to show which characters would not be necessary within the thriller opening sequence as the plot could have become too confusing.

PLANNING EDITING - Miss Georgiou

PLANNING EDITING

Editing styles in a thriller scene is important because they work well to engage the reader and build a gradual relationship with the audience. Editing styles creates elements of shock, suspense, suprise and tension.

In our thriller opening sequence we have chosen four things to include, the first being slow editing. Slow editing is conventional in a thriller film as it builds up tension quickly in a short amount of time e.g. a phone ringing, the camera slowly zooming in and capturing the charachters face. In our opening sequence we have discussed using slow editing in our opening scene. This editing shot will be used after panning as the build up to the window will create suprise to the audience when they see a black figure hovering around. In this scene the characters will not be able to see what the audience can see, meaning the audience will empathise for them and create a relationship through being scared and feeling sorry for the characters themselves. Slow editing can change the mood quickly and in our case we are hoping that it will. The camera in this ecene will be kept still and the zooming in to the window will happen slowly and gradually.

The second editing style we have chosen to use is montage editing. Monatage is the technique of selcting, editing and peicing together separate sections of film to form a continuous whole. We have discussed using montage editing when the reaction shot is taking place. Lots of mini shots will be taken at one time and edited together. These shots will be quick flashes of the characters faces and facial expressions when they hear a loud whistle in the forest. The montage will be quick and fiesty and show the facial expressions very quickly. Montage editing is a convention of a thriller film as it can get through to the audience quikcly and show to them what emotions are being felt. Although we feel this will not create much of a relationship with the audience, we do feel that they will have the image that they are in the scene and feel the same emotions that they do, creating a sense of shock and suspense. Our overall discussion came to a conclusion that the suspense aspect will state a feeling of excitement or anxious uncertainty about what may happen next.

The third editing style we have discussed, researached and chosen to use is fade/dissolve. This is a gradual transisiton from one image to another or fade into complete darkness or a blank image. We have decided to use this editing technique when the two main characters walk down a long stretch of road. This fade will end the scene and slowly open the next scene. Closing the setting leaves the emtrom of the characters hanging and leaves emotion. Although, we found that this technique will not create a relationship with the audience as there is no emotion shown through the characters and no close up shots spoken directly to the audience. This scene pourly shows a shot from behind (hand held camera).

The last use of editing we are using is a Reaction shot. A reaction shot shows the reaction of a characters facial expression or body language or can show a reaction taking place in a scene. After much research on reaction shots we have decided we are going to use one in our opening sequence. We have chose to use our reaction shot when the two main characters walk into the forest and hear a whistling noise and scattering of the leaves.

all of these editing skills will help to capture the audience even more. for example the reaction shot will show to the audience a quick shot of what has just happened and a clear glimpse of what they are feeling and why there reaction is.

GROUP PLANNING - Miss Georgiou

GROUP PLANNING

Our group consists of three people; myself, hannah and ollie. Group planning is vital and helps when making decisions. Group meetings mean me and my group and discuss and contribute new ideas for our opening sequence, meaning our ideas will be to a high standard. Group planning is  essential as it helps us develop ideas, produces structured guidance, helps us gather inspirations and finally discuss the four main points of a thriller; shock, tension, surprise and suspense.

Our first group meeting consisted of discussing our first narrative ideas. Each of us contributed ideas, writing them down one-by-one so we could see all the ideas put together. We looked at ideas about taking an idea from each of ours but finally came to a conclusion of using Ollie's idea as we found it had a good narrative. Although when fully writing down our first narrative idea, we made small changes to improve certain areas, for e.g. changing the scene to be a forest and adding a new background character. All of these helped contribute to it being a better opening sequence.

Furthermore, we also discussed our inspirations. Our inspirations discussion consisted of what each of us felt inspired by and why. We came up with ideas from our previous posts and research which we had already done.

Another group meeting consisted on talking about mise-en-scene. Two of our ideas were the setting and characters. Within our opening thriller sequence the setting we will use of a forest is conventional to the thriller genre. This use of mise-en-scene will be used when the girls enter the forest, to find a boy tied up looking possessed, and are unsure of the reason why. The entire scene will be mostly filmed within the dark forest. This is conventional as it is will be dark and confided place so it's easy to see the main point on the screen as well as being hard to escape from the antagonist. Also another reason why the use of a forest is conventional to the thriller genre is because at the time we will use the forest it will be dark and gloomy. We wanted to use the forest at this time as it creates a sense of fear as it is unknown what lies within the forest, and creates a sense of foreboding as it is unknown what will happen next.

When creating ideas we wrote them all down on an A3 sheet of paper. Our first discussion which we wrote down was, the name of our film and the 8 different things we need to include in our opening sequence, these were; miss-en-scene, cinematography, soundtrack, editing, target audience/age certificates, codes and conventions, research into thriller films and finally representation of characters. For each one of these 8 things we wrote down ideas which would be included in our opening sequence, a few examples of these are;
1.Mise-en-scene: forest setting, 2 main characters.
2.Cinematogrpahy: panning and close up.
3.Soundtrack: footsteps and diabetic leaves rustling.
4.Editing: high angled shot, jump cut
5.Target audience: 15 age certificate
6:Codes&Conventions: low key lighting&death
7:Research: Looking at the film halloween
8:Representations: Young male victim who is defenceless

The A3 sheet we composed was about planning cinematography. On this A3 sheet we chose 6 cinematography shots we are going to use and wrote about them, two examples of these are; panning shot and zooming in and out. For these two we wrote about where they would be used in the film and why they would be used here, this helped to conclude further into our opening sequence. Planning cinematography has helped us contribute ideas about what uses of cinematography we will use and why; we have decided to use shallow focus as it intensifies the scene and brings certain characters attention to the audience.

Another A3 sheet we composed and came up with ideas is soundtrack. We divided our page into four and wrote about diegetic and non-diegetic sounds that could possibly feature within our opening thriller sequence to intensify the scene and help to create as much suspense and tension as possible. We have decided to use non-diagetic heart beat sound, footsteps, diagetic leaves rustling and whistle ( subtle ) whenever the antagonist is around. Another sound we will use is the non-diegetic sound of an exaggerated heart beat. The heart beat helps to intensify the scene as it shows how scared the character is. The audience will then sympathize for the characters as they are a similar age and can not help but imagine themselves in the same situation and how scared they must be. We will use this when the two characters first spot the dark figure in the series of montage clips. Not only does this give the audience a sense of uncertainty but it also builds suspense and tension as the audience think something will happen or jump out at the characters at the end of the sound. Soundtrack planning as a group has let us elaborate on new ideas and individual ideas. One of the soundtrack ideas is Diagetic leaves rustling. This is a diagetic sound as the leaves will be shown on the screen on a low angle shot.

The third main point of our thriller opening sequence is editing. From discussion we have chosen 4 editing skills to be used; high-angled shot, low-angled shot, reaction shot and montage. All of these will help to bring shock, suspense, suprise and tension, which are vital for creating a thriller film. All of these will help to show different angles of the charachters aswell as the scene.

In our last group meeting we discussed which editing techniques we were going to use. Firstly we will use is making the scene faster, this is when the pace of the editing is increased. This would most likely be used alongside the montage editing and when the hand held camera is being used to show that the pace of the unidentified killers walking has also increased as he follows them. In addition to this I think it would be effective to have a non-diegetic heart beat over the top of this scene as it shows how frightened and scared the two girls are. 

Overall, although are group meetings are yet to continue to discuss new ideas and plan further into our thriller opening sequence. The planning we have done so far I feel has been done well with a good structure to what has been said. Each topic we have discussed we have made detailed notes and wrote down what we will use for each, I found this good as when we came to writing about them, we all knew what we was talking about; aswell as when filming, we will all be knowledgeable about which parts of the film we will be filming and what will be included. 

-add more group planning discussions in future.

Date	Meeting	What We Discussed and Achieved	By Who	Discussions

17/10/2014	1	Ideas & Plan our intial Group Narrative	All	Discussed ideas for narrative on a group mindmap.

24/10/2014	2	Ideas and Planning for Cinematography	All	Mindmapped & finalized Cinematography on A3 paper.

06/11/2014	3	Ideas and Planning for Sound	All	Mindmapped & finalized Sound on A3 paper.

07/11/2014	4	Ideas and Planning for Editing Styles	All	Mindmapped & finalized Editing Styles on A3 paper.

07/11/2014	5	Ideas and Planning for Opening Credits	Individual	Planned Individually our Opening Credits

13/11/2014	6	Ideas and Planning for Characters	All	Mindmapped & finalized Characters on A3 paper.

14/11/2014	7	Planning and Finalising Group Storyboard	All	Mindmapped & finalized Storyborard on 5xA4 paper.

17/11/2014	8	Planning and Finalising Filming Schedule	All	Planned our Schedule on Edexcel to follow.

23/11/2014	9	Planning Risk Assessment	All	Planned our Risks to avoid them during filming.

01/12/2014 10   Filming our Opening Thriller Sequence. All Took into account all of our planning & filmed sequence.

Our group planning meant we could discuss as a group and come up with the best ideas. I found this worked really well andAltogether I think that group meeting have helped to keep my group organised and has helped us to understand what needs to be done next. In addition to this it has helped to expand and broaden our ideas to develop them further helping to create a better opening thriller sequence as this is all of our ideas combined.