Evaluation; Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

To gain knowledge and understanding the forms and conventions of an opening title sequence we were required to watch a number of thriller movies. The main forms and conventions we found in majority of title sequences are the institutional ident of the production companies, the movie title and titles of which inform the audience, for example, who the director and editor/s are. The conventional opening title would introduce the main character/s of the movie and would also introduce the setting and location, and finally, the use of sound indicated the theme, tone and genre of the up coming movie. To demonstrate our knowledge of the forms and conventions, whilst planning our sequence, we made an effort to include as many as we could and as many would fit our title sequence to help illustrate what we wanted illustrate. We compared our title sequence to the opening title sequence of "The shining" to highlight the conventions we used.

In our thriller opening we chose to use the convention of an institutional ident. Ours being "candistudios" a low budget production company. The screen shots of "The Shining" dont show the ident, but one is used at the very beginning.
From the moment our film starts we are introduced to the main character of the film, "Cohen", and the entire sequence follows him on his journey. During this time we are introduced to another main character, unknown, dressed in black. In "The Shinning" we aren't introduced to the characters but are introduced to a small yellow vehicle which we assume plays an important role in the movie.

Titles then begin to fade into and out of shots on the screen. As it is an opening title sequence we expect them. "The shinning" Shows title also, but movies such as "Collateral" do not. The title of the movies are both shown at different points of the opening. Ours being at the and and "The Shinning" just before the end.

The location in our sequence is vital, we see a shift from residential to rural areas (forest). As ours was low budget and we had minimal resources, the showing of location was not as clear as "The Shinning" as aerial shots were used.

The sound plays an important part in the opening of a title sequence, the soundtrack we created was upbeat at faced paced to indicated the fast pace of the theme of the movie and genre overall. "The shinning" uses an orchestral soundtrack to open of which creates an eerie atmosphere and gives the audience a clue of what the rest of the film holds.

Evaluation Q7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Problem 1:

The positioning of the camera was incorrect, as Rico's character was captured out of the frame. This could have been solved by using a pan. There is also too much space in the frame. We sorted this out by making sure that the character was in frame during each position of the action completed, and by doing this George starts off in long shot and moves in to a midshot without moving the camera.

Problem 2:

There is too much empty space in the frame. All the action in this shot is going on to one side of the screen. This makes it feel unbalanced and uncomfortable for the audience to watch. In our final product, we fixed this by making the action go across the screen from one end to the other.

Problem 3:

In this shot, the eye-line is too low down the frame, and there is too much space above Rico's head. In the real film, we ensured that the eye-line of the characters was in the top 1/3 of the frame and that there was little or no empty space above the heads of the characters.

Problem 4:

In the preliminary match cut exercise, there is too much camera movement in one shot. The movement is also very jagged, as we used a chair on wheels as a dolly, therefore we lacked the precision in camera movement that would make the shots look professional. In the real film we fixed this by making sure we moved the camera smoothly using the arm on the tripod.

Problem 5:

In the preliminary match cut exercise, this example of a match cut does not work in terms of continuity. It looks like a jump cut because of the position that Rico is now in. In our final product, we made sure that in the editing process that all our shots matched. We paid particular attention to shots of characters walking - we made sure that we cut the shot on the character standing on the same leg as they are at the beginning of the next shot etc.

Sadly, when filming the preliminary match cut exercise, the microphone did not work. This meant that we did not capture the short sections of dialogue in the storyboard. To improve on this, we always made sure that the microphone was picking up a substantial amount of sound whilst filming our final product.

Also, we could not take mise en scene in to account when filming our preliminary match cut. This is because we were given the task during one lesson with no warning. This meant that our actors were not in appropriate costume, we could not secure an appropriate location and we had to use what ever props we could find in the short amount of time between storyboarding and filming.

The editing pace we used during the preliminary match cut was quite loose; in several shots, we could have cut to the next shot at a much quicker pace than what we did. Through completing this task it taught us the power of editing pace, so we became much more vigilant about the editing process. We followed advice from our teacher to bring the shot in at the last possible moment, to cut at the first possible moment and always to cut on action. This was important in maintaining a dynamic pace to the film which would make the audience feel exhilarated as they feel like they are moving with the pace of the film.

Q5 EVALUATION- Who Would Be The Audience For Your media Product?

The Target audience for my media product would be a man called Bob Dick, He works as a Business consultant and makes 36K a Year. He drives a Bentley and has a blackberry curve for work. he wears glasses because his sight is not up to par which makes him look like a nerd.

Bob would be my target audience because he tell me he likes conspiracy theory film just like the film we have made and after we had a cup of tea he gave me two ticket to watch Micheal Jackson, unfortunately he died.

Q2 EVALUATION-How Does Your Media Product Reflect Differant social stereotypes?

The typical stereotypes our media product shows are The Bad Guy dressed in black which was me and my co-actor George jackson as the agent.

Another stereotype that strikes up interest is the fact that the bad guy is black and the stereo type is that black people are always getting into trouble, and the secret agent was white which is also typical as James Bond (007 Films) and Jason Bourne (Bourne Supremacy) are white.

Evaluation Q5- Who would be the audience for your media product?

Meet Tim. Tim is the typical member of the target audience for 'Outsider'. His interests include conspiracy theories, cult films, spy movies and music from the 70's and 80's. He is a self-confessed nerd, and could be considered a tech savvy person (with his iPod classic and iPhone). The fact that he enjoys spy movies means he will enjoy the plot involving agents going on throughout 'Outsider'. Tim also enjoys cult movies, which means that he would be a devoted fan. If he were a devoted fan, he may talk about the film with his friends and spread the word about it on the internet. Tim is 30 years old - government topics concern him more than the average teenager, so topics raised in the film will be more tailored to him.

Evaluation Q2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When making a film, social groups must be represented accurately to make the film convincing to the audience. For example, if a businessman was filmed wearing a tracksuit, the audience would not believe his position in society and therefore question the rest of the film.

'For Your Eyes Only' was an inspiration to our film, as the plot revolves around missing or stolen documents. The James Bond franchise is also extremely popular, as the leading role is very dynamic and likeable. We wanted to adapt this feature of the Bond films and take it into our own film. There are a few similarities between our characters that make this link apparent. Both Bond and Cohen (the 'good guy')are wearing smart suits. This indicates the social class they hold (Cohen would be a middle class working agent) and their position in business - in this case they are both government agents. This immediately demands some respect from the viewer, as we know that the character is high up on the social and business hierarchy. In this picture, both characters are wearing red ties. This makes them stand out on screen against darker backgrounds. However, Cohen is holding a briefcase whereas Bond is holding a gun. The different connotations behind these items is very important in creating suspense just through the character; with Cohen, we know he is important but we are not sure why as he is only holding a briefcase.

The Bourne trilogy was also an inspiration to 'Outsider' as it is all about government agents constantly chasing someone. The costume we chose for Rico's character (as the 'bad guy') mimics that of Jason Bourne. Rico's character would be working class, and this is represented in his casual clothing. The darkness in their clothes suggests that they do not want to be seen and want to remain anonymous - this arouses suspicion in the audience which creates suspense, as they can sense that something is going to happen. The casual nature of their clothing suggests that the characters want to blend in to the crowd, or just not stick out at all. This also arouses suspicion, as if they were completely innocent the character would have given this no thought.

Evaluation Q3+4 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

'Outsider' is a low-budget British film made by a group of amateur students. Taking these circumstances into consideration, 'Outsider' would be released by a low-budget production company - similar to WT2. However, we decided to release our film through Candi Studios. We chose the fictional production company Candi Studios as it is a low-budget production company that specialises in unknown amateur film-makers like us. This makes Candi Studios the ideal production company for our film, as it would tailor the release of our film personally to the target audience without breaking the bank.

On such a low budget, we could not afford to release our film in such a widespread way as a production company like Paramount could. This is due entirely to funds, so OOH advertising would be very limited with Candi Studios. However, using the internet is free and extremely accessible by many people. Our thriller film could be distributed through many websites, including: YouTube, Vimeo, 4docs and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. This would be a successful way of distributing the film, as you can find things very easily online and when you see something on the internet it is very easy to share it with friends. The larger the fanbase during the pre-production stages, the higher the chances are that the production company would endorse and distribute the film.

It is possible to attract a large audience for a film purely over the internet - as illustrated with these examples of online student films:

You can watch the title sequence to 'Outsider' on Facebook right now:

or on YouTube:

Evaluation Q8 part 2 - Audience Feedback and Comment

This is a video containing several voxpops about our film 'Outsider'. After the official screening of our title sequence, we asked people to give us feedback on what they liked and what they thought we could have improved on. This was very helpful to us, as it gave us a different perspective to the film, and told us what we achieved particularly well throughout our time of working on the film.

Evalution-Q 5: Who would be the audience for your media product?

As our film is about a government conspiracy and is similar to the stories of James bond and bourne then our film would be best suited for the male gender as they would be in to a spy films and a government conspiracy and who's age group would go from a teenager into a manf 30 or even 40s.

This is a montage of all the things of the target audience would have and use in there everyday life's:
This is what the average man like "John" who is a 25 year old man and these are some of the things that he would use in his everyday life as he would use a wallet his watch which most men would use and a mobile phone and also as this film is for the man he would also use aftershave.

Evaluation Q6 - What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

This is a short animatic that we created to show what we have learned throughout the year to successfully produce a short film. To make this animatic, we took still photographs of how the camera works and screen grabs from various editing programs. We then put them together in Final Cut Pro, and George recorded a voiceover to explain the process. Making an animatic is a skill that we learned during the course of the year, so we chose to exploit it once more in the evaluation.

Evaluation- Q 3&4: What kind of media instituion might distribute your media product and why? how will you attract/address your audience?

Me and my group have made an armature film so we decided that our film would be best suited for a low budget production company like working title two. Instead we opted to go with candi studios as it is a fictional production company and we felt it would benefit the release and distribution of our low budget film.

ways in which we could distribute our film would be through the Internet and networking sites like YouTube, vimeo and 4docs and we could also distribute our film to websites such as facebook and myspace. Once our film had been recognised than we will seem to have a strong fan base and that is what we would want to achieve as we would be working for a low budget production company. as we would distribute our product online then that means it would be assessable by everyone so there is an opportunity for us to make a name for ourselves as a lot of small time movie makers get to make their name through the Internet.

These are some examples of As coursework found online on a website called youtube:

Here is a link of our video on two diffrent netwrok sites facebook and youtube:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1430388040464&subj=1255744690#!/video/video.php?

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp_q-lnNOqo

Evaluation; Q3/4 what type of media insitution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

Because myself and group members would be seen as amateur film makers i think that our film would only be successful if it was distributed through a low budget film production company, much like working title 2. The production company ident, "candi studios", we used in our sequence is a fictional production company we felt would benefit the release and distribution of our low budget film.

Ways in which us as students would distribute our film to begin with, would be through streaming websites such as YouTube, Vimeo and 4docs. Once people recognize and demand our movie we will know we have a fan base which is key for any level of success in the future. With a strong fan base pre-production, small production companies will be likely to take on the job. The internet is accessible by everyone and from personal experience, things seem to spread through the net rather quickly like a virus and so automatically hold opportunity for amateur movie makers.

Below are some examples of student made productions with a strong fan base.





Their are many ways in which we could attract our target audience, even with a low budget. A range of billboard posters, magazine and newspaper advertisements, internet pop ups, possibly even some form of broadcasting on radio stations. They would have to be bold, eye catching and intriguing without giving away too much of the plot.

We decided to put our title sequence in the eye of the public and uploaded it to:
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp_q-lnNOqo
And Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1430388040464&subj=1255744690

Evaluation; Q5 Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

John is your average 27 year old working class guy who enjoys read fiction novels and watching conspiracy thriller movies. He works a 9 to 5 job in administration and has two children under the age of 5. This would be the contents of his bag on a usual day, on some occasions may have documents also.

Evaluation; Q2 How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

After looking for characters from thriller movies that are in some ways similar to one of the characters in our opening title sequence, i came up with Roger Moore as James bond in the 1981 movie "For your eyes only" not only are some of the characters similar, but in many ways the plot of the film is similar ans they involve missing/stolen documents. And in some ways the Bond collection of movies inspired us.

Both Bond and our character, "Cohen", are clearly presented in smart business like suits. This clearly shows that each of the characters have some status and wealth in their fields of works. In this case both being types of government agents.
Their clean cut hair and sharp clothing suggest their character personality; sharp and witty. Both characters are seen, in my point of view as friendly and welcoming people. Even though Bond is pointing a gun, but in comparison to Cohen (holding an innocent looking briefcase) seems slightly threatening.



Another character inspired from a movie is the unknown spy. Even though Jason Bourne in the movie "The Bourne Identity" is seen as the "good guy", our "bad guy" is show to be very similar in a number of ways. One main way would be the clothing our spy wears; dark and very sleek clothing which looks rather suspicious to many.

Evaluation- Q 2:How does your media product represent particual social groups?

The outsider had two main characters which are both shown in the picture above me George Jackson who played an government agent and Rico Francis who played a mysterious spy. These two characters in some way are very similar but in most ways are very different as one is seen as a good character and the other as bad. Rico portrays a bad character as he is wearing all black and most of the film he is wearing a balaclava. I on the other hand play a good character and a complete contrast to Rico as I'm wearing a suite and seem very business like and not mysterious I seem to be very Innocent whereas you look at Rico and you expect there to be trouble as he is the bad character in this film.

This pictuire of james bond is where we got the idea for my character as he is like my charcter as i just like james bond is a goverment agent.

Q3&4 EVALUATION- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? How will you attract/address your audience?

Candi studios is our movie industry and we choose them because they offer a great route for those starting as film directors and offer great reliability for any project and mostly students because they have a bright future if the film is a hit which, we would have if given the opportunity by Candi studios, and the route we would take isCandi studios a low budget company which invests in many student films Although Candi studios do not have a channel on T.V They have a partnership whit cinema's around london which suggest if the fil is good enough it will go to the big screen where ove 100 people can watch it at once. Also the marketing for our film could be done by using the Internet by making social networks regarding the film this is because 1 in 2 people have internet access and also using public spaces for our advantage meaning we could stick notices of our release date or the date the film is going to be shown on film four, also if the financial department have enough funds to use billboards to stick posters and other sources of marketing would be using the radio to reach other audiences. However all this marketing clearly depends on the budget Candi give and also the amount needed to produce the film itself yet, the best mean of promotion is word of mouth therefore meaning no cost is needed and it is the most efficient method and this could also lead to great exposure in the long term.

Evaluation Q8 part 1 - Audience Feedback and Comment (wordle word cloud)

Our thriller title sequences were shown to a preview audience (before the official screening) made up of 4 other groups in our class and the people were asked to give feedback about the sequences they had just seen. The way in which they did this was by answering a series of questions along the lines of and including 'Does this film have any intertextual references?' and 'Pick 5 words to describe the sequence you have just seen'. This word cloud shows the responses we got to our thriller title sequence, 'Outsider'.

Evaluation; Q8 Audience Feed Back and Comments (part 1)

Our thriller openings were show to an audience who then asked to give feedback on our sequence. One of the questions of the many questions asked was to pick five word that described the sequence as a whole. I chose to put the words chosen by the audience in to a word cloud(created on wordle.net) to clearly demonstrate them.

Evaluation- Q 8: Sequence feedback word cloud

This is an extra part of question eight in the evalutionit that we decided to do it is a word cloud that I created, where I obtained all the words from the other groups in my class. I created this word cloud on a wordel website where you can make and create your own word cloud's and make it in any style you wish. when I was creating this word cloud I decided to hand pick the words that stood out in their evaluation that seem to sum up our film. I believe that the other groups in my class have identified correctly as these our the words that help to show how I wanted my film to be perceived.

Edit of rough cut with soundtrack

This is the rough cut of our title sequence with the added soundtrack. We edited the rough cut to take on board criticism that we received regarding the titles, transitions and general editing. We were also advised to change the name of the film from 'The Briefcase' to 'Outsider', as it makes the rest of the film more ambiguous.

The soundtrack is almost finished. We decided to make it sound contemporary with a processed drum kit, electric bass and a synthesizer. The soundtrack is not quite ready - it needs to be remixed, as the levels are not quite balanced enough for the ultimate cinema experience.

Soundtrack

This is the soundtrack that we wrote on Soundtrack Pro. It includes instruments like synthesisers, processed drum kits and electric bass guitars combined with sound FX like heart beats, heavy breathing, camera flashes and the thudding of a person hitting the floor. We hope this will help to increase the tension made throughout the film.

Planing Preliminary Match Cut Exrecise

In this lesson each group was given the same task to create a short clip where a character must open a door, walk into the room, sit opposite another character and share a speech of dialogue. this clip must have some essentials cut to its which were one match cut, shot/reverse shot and illustrating an understanding of the 180 degree rule.

there was no Requirement of what this clip had to be about or what sort of genre it had to be, it did not have to be a thriller. the purpose of this clip was to learn how to use the camera and learn how to get all the successful cuts like a match cut which we achieved successfully. we had many ideas when we sat down and had to come up with a short clip but we decided to opp for a briefcase swap where there would not be no set speech we would just make it up on the spot but the main purpose was to make this clip a smooth edit.

Our story board shows an suspicious character walk down the corridor and walk up to a coded door, of which is zoomed into when the code is entered. when this charter enters the code he walks into the room and sees another character sitting down at a table waiting for his arrival. during the conversation between the two characters a brief case is swapped. once the character has the brief case he leaves the room quickly and starts to hurry down the corridor with the briefcase.

this exercise was a useful exercise to teach us how to use the camera and to make a short clip with the key essentials which we all achieved. this exercise also helped us to gain confidence in our groups as in this activity we had to share responsibility for preparation for our thriller title sequence.

Skills Audit: Creation of Titles

The titles of a film are very important in establishing a mood. The different factors that make the titles so important include font, colour, case (upper or lower) and the format (narrative opening with titles running throughout; a discrete title sequence; titles on a plain background).

To make our titles, we used the text tool that already exists within Final Cut Pro. This is because it had the exact font that we required, and it was easier to manipulate text within the film if it was created within Final Cut Pro.

In our title sequence, we decided to combine the format of narrative opening with titles running throughout with titles on a plain background. This was to change the pace of our title sequence, as the titles on a plain background make the sequence more disjointed. This creates suspense, as the audience wants to carry on watching the film, but a title gets in the way.

We also decided to use a font that looks like a typewriter. It is a serif font, which connotes serious underlying themes. This is because our thriller is supposed to be a political conspiracy thriller - the government are involved in serious issues, so we used a 'serious' font. We also decided to put the titles in white, as it shows up over all the footage.

When the titles of the starring roles appear, a camera shutter sounds. This is to emphasise the freeze frame that occurs on each starring role. We chose to put a freeze frame in to make the audience pay attention to each of the characters.

Rough Cut - The Briefcase

This is the first rough cut to our thriller 'The Briefcase'. There are still some technical glitches in it (in terms of editing and continuity of the titles).

Camera Equiptment Tutorial

During this tutorial, we was introduced to the camera's and equiptment we will be working with in order to produce our thriller clips. We were firstly shown and told what each part of the camera was called. We were then showed how to insert our memory cards, how to zoom the camera, get the lense into focus ect.
We then were then told the safety regulations for the equpitment, which were:

• Making sure all bolts were tightened properly on the tripod before inserting the camera onto it
  
• Making sure the camera was secure on top of the tripod before letting go.
  Carry the equiptment responsibly.

Analysis of 9 shots from art of the title sequence

The style of the titles themselves reflect the point in time which the film portrays. The way the titles are written look like they have been handwritten with a quill and ink that would have been used in that period of time. Also the background of the titles have a 'old parchment' appearance which further represents the period of time the film is set in. The titles shown on this image gives the title of the film, the people who wrote the screenplay, the story its based on, the executive producers, music producers, warner bros production and the director who is Guy Richie. The main types of shots that were used in the images were mid shots and mid close up, especially on the top left image of sherlock holmes, played by Robert Downey Jr.
I really like this title sequence because it fits exactly with the time of which the film was set in and it really carried on the whole theme of the film. Also the style of writing is very effective and it really makes the ending of the film even better. It even keeps the audience wanting to see the rest of the credits.

Match Cut

In today's lesson me and my group were given the task to plan our match cut film.

We were given the brief to have one person walking into a room in order to converse with another person.

We were given a storyboard and we decided to have the situation of Me going to see a a man with a breifcase.

We decided to start the scene with an overall shot of the door and me walking into shot, which then lead on to shots such as an Extreme Close Up of My hand pushing down the handle. Then we decided on a Close Up of Goerge's face then a piont of view shot of goerge telling me to take a seat. We then planned to have a Medium shot of the scene of me and Goerge which has me asking him if he has the stuff. After that there is a close up of goerge giving me the breifcase. We then have a shot reverse shot between me and Goerge. We then show a close up of me leaving the room with them breifcase. the final shot was a close of me then running out of shot.

Cameras and health and safety tutorial

In this tutorial we were taught how to use the camera as well as the precautions we need to take while using the camera. We were shown how the camera works, what buttons we need to use while filming to get the best possible results. We were shown how to use the tripod and how to place the camera safely on the tripod. We were shown how to focus the camera, where the slot is for the memory card.

While we was in this lesson we learnt rules we have to stick to when filming our opening title sequence for our thrillers such as if it rains we should take umbrellas to cover the camera because if the camera was to get wet it would break and we would not be able to film. when we film we should not touch the lens otherwise you could get fingerprints on the lens which means it will ruin the quality of our film as fingerprints will be over the screen and also finally we should close the lens we are finished and make sure it is turned off otherwise the battery will run out.

There were many safety precautions we were told to take. One was to make sure we don't put our hands or the fingers on the camera lens because it would affect the quality of the filming. Another one was to make sure the camera was placed on the tripod properly as it might fall off. We were also told to open up the tripod properly because if it was not open properly then it might be unbalanced and unsecure.

Skills Audit: Editing

The editing process of any film is extremely important - especially a thriller film. The quick editing pace in thrillers is important in creating suspense and keeping the audience engaged.

When editing, we were given the advice to bring the clip in at the last possible moment, and cut the clip at the first possible moment. This is to make sure sure that the audience only sees the important parts of the plot.

To cut down the clips that we have filmed, we used the 'razor cut' tool. This helped us to make the most accurate cut possible and is made at the exact point that we want to cut the clip. This makes the whole sequence flow together cleanly and makes the editing pace quicker. This ensures that the audience only sees the important parts of the plot.

This screen grab shows us applying an effect to the clip. We applied a glowing effect to this point of view shot, as we wanted to emphasise that this is what someone is seeing. By changing the glow and combining this shot with a heavy breathing sound clip, the audience gets the impression that the character is panicking. This helps the audience to empathise with the character. This creates more suspense, as the audience actually feels what the character feels.

Health and Safety Tutorial

Before we could film and use the cameras we had to have a lesson on health and safety tutorial where we looked at a slide show where it taught us how to use all of the equipment. we watched the slide show and had this lesson so we know how to use the equipment properly and also so we would not brake or damage them or anyone with them, the equipment we learnt how to use was:
- Tripod
- Memory Card
- Battery
- Video Camera
- Video Drive.

In this lesson we learnt how to use the video camera properly and how to use all the different functions on the video camera for example how to zoom in and out to get shots like a crash zoom which would be used for effect, we also learnt what mode to put the camera in when you are shooting. we also learnt where to place the memory cards when we are shooting our thriller title sequence because we would need to save it on to the memory cards and then transfer it on to a card reader and then onto the hard drive where each group would be given their own one where we will save all our work like the film, soundtrack, live type and final cut pro.

While we was in this lesson we learnt rules we have to stick to when filming our opening title sequence for our thrillers such as if it rains we should take umbrellas to cover the camera because if the camera was to get wet it would break and we would not be able to film. when we film we should not touch the lens otherwise you could get fingerprints on the lens which means it will ruin the quality of our film as fingerprints will be over the screen and also finally we should close the lens we are finished and make sure it is turned off otherwise the battery will run out.

Art of The Title Sequence

This title sequence really stood out for me because it was different and what really stood out for me was the actual titles and the colour and animation behind the titles for instance the colour of the titles is red and red is meant to represent blood which is affected and it sets up the film as being a thriller and as my film is a thriller it gave me ideas for my thriller as to make the colour of the writing to be significance to the story. However with the transition of the titles and how they move around of the blood running down the screen is really abstract and i like the idea of using abstract title sequence as it is different and if it goes with the story like this title sequence i think it could really impress the examiner.

what I also liked about this title sequence is how it is not just titles it has action in it as well and shows part of the film or the story which is a really good idea because even though it is only a title sequence which is seen as a rest period before the film begins it captures the audience straight away and gets them into the film which is one of my key aims in making my title sequence. As it is not just title sequence which are usually boring as nothing really happen in them I found this one exciting and it caught my attention and this was one of the only ones where I found myself after looking to watch the film and make it carry on which is a good way not just to make a good title sequence but to make a good movie.

As this title sequence is very abstract with the writing but also with the types of shots used for examples in this title sequence there is an establishing shot of loads of people in a room which is black and white which in itself is an interesting shot as you want to find out why its old and who are those people but there is also closeups of main characters, which gave me an idea to use in mine as i want to show the story as well i think it is important that show who my main characters are and the best way to do so is close ups. there is a many variety's of shots in this title sequence that make it interesting such as extreme close ups and many different cuts in black and white which make it a very interesting title sequence.

there are many things that appeal to me about this title sequence such as the cuts used and how it is edited to news affairs and how that is in black and white and the close ups of people with blood on them which correspond with the actual titles as they are red which represent blood and Gore and the audience can expect blood as they are told in a subtle way which is a clever idea. this title sequence gave me many ideas for my thriller title sequence in to show action and to make it abstract in the edits and the actual titles to make it different and to help me impress the examiner.

Skills Audit - Editing the Speed of a Clip

This is an experiment that we decided to do to manipulate the speed of a clip. We intend to do this in the real version of our title sequence, so we thought we should practise slowing down and speeding up clips accurately. We did this in Final Cut Pro, using the razor cut tool to pinpoint the frames that we wanted to manipulate the speed of.

Similarities....

After simply browsing YouTube for thriller movies I came across a trailer for the film "Devils Racecourse". The plot for the movie caught my attention, " On an annual hiking trip, a group of college students find themselves caught in the middle of a government conspiracy. Now they are stalked by those determined to keep this secret from ever getting out." As did the location of the trailer because both are very similar to what we chose for our final title sequence.

Skills Audit - Filming

When we were on location, we decided to take some photos of ourselves setting up the equipment and filming.

We always kept the tripod balanced evenly by checking the 'balance level' on the tripod. We made sure that the tripod was evenly level to ensure that we achieved the best possible capture of each shot.

This is the 'mechanism' we used to keep the briefcase shut when George was running with it. We wanted to have the briefcase slightly open so we could capture lots of paper with our titles on flying around in the air. Sadly, it was not possible to capture this paper, as we could not get it to leave the briefcase in the correct way during filming.

This is the opening shot being filmed. The title sequence starts with George walking down the road towards an unknown location. However, on the other side of the road, a female agent is surreptitiously watching him and calls her associate to proceed and follow him.

This is a still photo of the closing shot to the title sequence.The piece of paper has the working title 'The Briefcase' written on it. This comes from the idea of showing our titles entirely on the paper in the briefcase. However, we changed the name of the film and did not include the paper in the air sequence, so it would not make sense to show the close-up we originally had of the paper. This is why we decided to show the paper with the red tie and briefcase clearly in view.

This is George and Rico on location in between shooting takes.

This is Kirsty and Sam on location

Location Shots:

Prior to filming, we were required to pick a suitable location for the setting of our opening title sequence.
As majority of the sequence takes place in a forest/ woodland, we required exactly that or something similar too, and so we chose Oakwood, Enfield as our location for filming. Parts of our sequence required a residential area; surrounding the woodland is a residential area, something that attracted us further to this location.

Animatic of Storyboard - NUMBER 2

After showing our storyboard to our teacher, we realised that our title sequence wasn't fluent and didn't make much sense. In this storyboard, we have taken out the idea of flashbacks from the city to the forest. Now it is entirely in the forest, and follows the plot that a man is holding a briefcase and is being watched. He then realises he is being watched and runs, falling and dropping the briefcase. At the end we see a shot of the briefcase, the man's tie and a piece of paper floating on the lake. This end shot creates suspense because we want to know what happened to the man.

match cut prelimeary exercise

In this lesson me and my group had to make a short film and then edit it, the idea was to have a practise with filming and edit before we start filming our opening title sequence to our thriller film so we could get a feel for the camera and how to edit it and make it a smooth edit and have at least three match cuts in this film to make it look like a smooth running clip.

with this film I liked the three match cut edits we had and they all came one after the other like the edit we done with Rico walking up to the door then typing the number into the door in order to get in and then opening and closing the door which I thought worked really well as it looked like it was a smooth edit and with this edit u could not tell that there was an edit there and that is the whole point of a good edit so I thought that in a practise for the 1st real time we have edited I thought it worked out really well as it was a good edit.

However as it was a practise there was some things that I thought that we could have done better like the position of the cast and the camera because in most shots with in the room there is to much space in the background or round the sides of the room which makes the characters in the film look smaller because there was just to much stuff in the background and it would look better if there was not all that space. Also we could have made the film look better when Rico is leaving the room we could have got a close up of his face and then done a pan and follow him to the door which would have looked better and then we could have got a nice edit of his face when he opened the door and this wood off made it look more professional.

I think for a practise run, we made a good attempt to make a film with three match cuts and to make them look smooth where you can not tell a match cut has taken place and i think we achieved that as all match cuts look professional. however with all practices we could always improve like next time we would know how to position people and to try and cut the space and try not to show to much in the film and only show the people in the film and a bit of the background. so for a practice run I think my group made a good attempt because we set out to do the task and have edits in the film and make it look professional and i did learn good tips in how to improve my film for the main coursework with the opening title sequence.

Pitch - 'The Briefcase'

This is what we, as a group, presented to our class and teacher. This proposed our ideas for the title sequence, and presented our plans in an organised way.

We felt that the pitch went well, as our teacher said that our idea was good and our ideas were received well from the class. We also felt like we presented it well as a group, as we all knew what we were talking about and felt confident sharing these ideas with the class.

The opinions of the class were very useful, as they have helped us to adapt our idea further.

Open Title Sequence Ideas:

After coming up with many ideas for a possible opening title sequence, some conventional to the 'typical' thriller and others we saw as more of a challenge to the 'typical' thriller. Our general idea to begin with that we believed to be 'typical' was a male following a female through the streets. We wanted to elaborate this idea as we know, from watching other thriller movies, it works well in capturing an audience within suspense. But at the same time we wanted to be more creative and more complex idea, of which would fit the political/conspiracy thriller genre well (it could be said our current affairs blogs had some inspiration or the genre as well as our location of central London). After the suggestion of many possible ideas we finally came up with the following outline for our sequence and soon after began to storyboard and choose possible locations for shooting.

In our opening title sequence we will see a conspicuous looking man in suit with a brief case walking confidently through the city of London. It will involve many close up and extreme close up shots of the surrounding city to establish location and give the audience a real sense of busy city life, as well as the city’s busyness being reflected in the quick editing pace we intend to use throughout the sequence. There will be use of flash back/flash forward narrative giving the audience and insight into the movie, but not giving away the plot line. This change in narrative will show the same guy not so confident, instead fearful and is the victim of something unknown to the audience; he is running through a forest, being followed by an unknown character. Dropping documents on his journey. He is unaware of where he is going and needs to dispose of important documents.

To give the opening sequence a real edge and thrilling effect on the audience we intend to use different filming/editing techniques that will allow us to distinguish the different narrative, mainly through the use of colour. During the future scenes of the movie, darker, more intense and threatening colours will be used. With only the occasional hint of colour, which is likely to be bold and eye catching e.g. red. The present day scenes will be more neutral and dull, but will have focused and close up shots of red objects, for example London transport. Sound used will also help to distinguish the different narrative. Busy city sounds will be used in the present. Whereas the future scenes will have intense and atmospheric music to represent the characters fear, creating suspense.

The opening titles of the movie will appear on the documents that are being dropped by the running character; they will flow around the frame freely, or will float in the river we hope to find on location. The movie title will ideally, be bought into the frame in the present day scenes by a huge red bus.