Audience Response

The audiences response to the film opening was generally good as they mentioned strengths like;

• The music helped to create a disturbing atmosphere during the main stalker section,
• The use of camera during scenes such as the picture of the setting to the moving film, when the camera is the POV of the stalker and it went into the tree, the shot of the two pairs of feet and the POV tracking shot at the end.

They also mentioned weaknesses such as;

• There was too much camera shake during the end shots,
• The strange use of transitions and the timings of them,
• The stalker being too close at the start of the start of the stalking section of the film.

I myself noticed that Ieuan, who recorded the film, is shown as a reflection in the picture frame at around 13 seconds into the opening.

Evaluation Of Film Opening

Our brief was to make a film opening from a thriller film. It was aimed at teenagers around the age of 15-18 years old. we had to use a variety of shots to convey meaning and tension. We used as many codes and conventions as we could to help add atmosphere to the scene.

   To begin with, I looked at a wide range of thriller films opening including scenes from Cape Fear, The Secret Window and Silence Of The Lambs. These helped me to understand what the codes and conventions of thriller films are and how they can be used to emphasise the tension and darkness of the scene being shown. Examples of this are in 'The Secret Window', they are seen because the opening scene is set during the night and is dark so it reflects the characters mood at the time and also helps the audience to understand how Johnny Depp's character feels in this opening. We used several of the codes and conventions in our opening, this helps to engage the audience more and make it a darker storyline. Codes and conventions we used are setting it at night, making the victim innocent, keeping a mysterious vibe about the stalker and setting it along a muddy, unused trail to create a sense of isolation from any other people.

  Codes and conventions that are in feature length thrillers are mainly big orchestral music used as the soundtrack, with the string section often causing the most sound, darkness is often used to created atmosphere and shadows help convey mystery and strange feelings towards characters.

  Another feature I looked at were the opening titles of films. I mainly looked at Alfred Hitchcock films including Vertigo, Psycho and North By Northwest. I discovered that Saul Bass created many of these films opening credits as well as making the titles for 'Goodfellas' and 'Cape Fear'. I also found out that he inspired the 'James Bond' franchise openings because of how similar they are to Saul Bass' original work.

  I believe that our piece works well as it creates a dark, tense mood in an audience. This means that the group were successful in using the codes and conventions of thriller films to our advantage and showing we had a good understanding of what they were and how to use them.
  It worked well because of how we represented the characters within the opening. The protagonist is represented as young, innocent and happy with life because of the use of camera angles and her costume, whereas the antagonist is represented as mysterious and unknown because we never see the stalkers face due to the mise-en-scene and camera angles. These are very stereotypical and help the audience to understand what is going on a lot easier.

  Throughout our planning we had one main idea, which was that the killer would leave cryptic clues on the people that he murdered. This was based on the film Zodiac which follows an everyday man who takes up the task of decoding messages left by the killer. as the term went on though we realised that the idea would be far too complicated and so we simplified it quite a bit. Now instead of coded sentences we decided to use pictures to guide the victims to a location where they would be alone and easy to overpower. We also added the instruction "Follow the pictures" because it would help the audience to understand what the picture would mean.

  Other challenges included when we could find time to film so the whole group went out one day and tried to film as much as we could in the middle of the afternoon. When we viewed the clips after we filmed we found there were not enough to pick from incase we needed any different versions, otherwise our film opening would have been like an Edward D Wood Jr. film, jumpy and full of errors. To over come this we re-filmed during the day on the weekend and then used a certain special effect on iMovie, Day into Night, to make it look as though it was filmed during dusk.

  We took our inspiration from one of the films that were made a coursework for last years Year 12 coursework, Hallutionation by Jay Boucher, Adam Bowler and Ben Hopkins but our main idea came from the film Zodiac. We used this to develop our idea because during the late part of production we experimented with some transitions to cover up some noticable jumps in the film. We then changed it to suggest that the stalker may just be a figment of the girls imagination because of her fear about being isolated from other people. This can explain why the audience never see what hapens to the girl after the hand reaches out.

  The title was based on the idea of coded messages being left on a victims body, but in the end result the 'codes' part of the title referrers to the pictures that were in the envelop. We incorperated the encrypted codes in the title by using the numbers 3 and 0 as the letters e and o. If I could redo this I would use this idea in the credits section of the film as well.

  I would use the internet to distribute my opening because it's quick, easy to follow and it can be acessed by  many different types of people all over the world at the click of a button and then they can tell their friends via email, etc, etc. This opening would be aimed at teenagers around 15-18 years old as these are the most likely to watch a thriller film. I would attract my audience by sending the URL of a Youtube page that would show the opening when someone clicked on it. This is because it is a quick and simple way to get people interested in the films opening and then maybe the whole film.

  I have learned a lot about how to edit a film using iMovie and I think this will help me with future projects if this system is required to used to edit. I have learned how difficult it can be to get the shot you need and that it is necassary to keep a bank of shots that can be used incase you run into difficulty trying to find the shot you want to use. I began to understand how techniques such as slowing down a clip  and making it darker can be used to my advantage as it seems to add a great deal of tension to the clip as if made the subject even more daunting. Other things I learned using iMovie was how to put titles on the clip, how to add pictures to the video, adding special effects to certain clips and how to edit the scene together without any major jumps in the film.

We chose the name Zodiac Productions because of the film our piece was based on. I then decided that it would be better to use a symbol of the zodiac as our companies logo. We used the sign of Capricorn because it was one of the first zodiac symbols. To finish I believe my group did fairly well considering how little time we spent together outside of school, mostly because of difficulty to meet up and discuss ideas for the film. If we had more time though I think that what we could have done would have been many times better because we could spend more time on what we needed to sort out and not worry about it and have it pile on top of everything else in our lives.

  Looking back at the preliminary task I feel that I have learnt many things over the course of the project because at the start I didn't even know how to work the type of camera we used to film both the continuity piece and the main task.



Note: If pictures do not appear, clicking the blank space where they would be takes you to a separate page and shows the picture. Pictures are on this page.

Broken Codes Opening

This is the opening for the film Broken Codes. it was filmed by Ieuan and editing by me and Ieuan.

Script

Broken Codes 

Written by

Ieuan Griffiths & Rhys Causon

FADE IN: INT. HOUSE - NIGHT 

The victim Gareth Gracey, Medium height, 

short hair and full faced features,age 17.

The hallway is late at night and Gareth receives

a letter through his letterbox,

so like any teenager he is curious to what is in

the envelope, so he opens it and 

looks at the photographs and a note inside which 

tells him to follow these photos, through woods.

EXT. LOCATION TO WHERE PHOTOS WERE TAKEN - LATER THAT NIGHT-LOW ANGLE SHOT 

We see young Gareth journeying through the deserted path

he is following the photos and it is getting dark

outside. He crosses 

a bridge and walks. 

P.O.V Killer - Handheld Shot 

The killer is watching Gareth but gareth does

not know this, the shot then carrys on 

with the killer slowly following gareth.

LOW ANGLE SHOT OF FEET - FURTHER DOWN THE PATH

The feet of Gareth go past the camera then the

feet of the killer goes past, 

gareth starts to feel uneasy and turns to look and 

sees nothing so carrys on walking.

 P.O.V KILLER - HANDHELD SHOT - FURTHER AGAIN DOWN THE PATH

The killer is still stalking Gareth when we see a bat coming out

from the corner of

the screen about to hit Gareth.

 FADE TO BLACK

WITH THE SOUND OF A BAT 

HITTING SOMEONE

HIGH ANGLE SHOT OF GARETH - END OF PATH

We see the body of Gareth laying on the floor and the feet of the

killer walking away from his heinous crimes up some steps.

END OF SCENE 

Media Film Music

 found by me on the site
http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?genre=Horror

Character Ideas

Stalker: Casey Dilenger, mysterious and secretive, not many people know what he does during his spare time a male of stocky build, with a short temper that can easily get him in trouble.

Victim: Katie Williams, easily fooled and gulible, younger sibling of Ryan Williams and daughter of Nige and Nirissa Willams. 11-12 years old. small and innocent.

Examples Of Scripts

EXT. FOREST - NIGHT
          
               A dense forest on a dark, misty night.
          
               YOUNG EDWARD CARNBY (age 10), small, thin, and terrified,
               runs for his life.
          2
                The forest is pitch black. Young Edward ducks between trees,
               under branches, not stopping for anything, GASPING for
               breath. He doesn't turn to look behind him. He just runs as
               fast as he can.
          
               P.O.V. CREATURE:
               Tomething chases Young Edward through the dark forest. Its
               P.O.V. is skewed, inhuman. It is gaining on him.
          
               As Young Edward runs, beams of light become visible through
               the closely packed trees. Something is up ahead, something
               bright. Edward runs towards it.
          
               Young Edward bursts out into a clearing in the woods, running
               towards the bright light.
          
               P.O.V. CREATURE:
          
               The light stops whatever is chasing Young Edward at the edge
               of the forest. What is making the light isn't visible, only
               Young Edward's silhouette running towards the blinding light.
          
               EXT. FOREST - LATER THAT NIGHT

This is the opening scene from        Alone In The Dark.

   

         FADE IN:

          INT. UNKNOWN ROOM - NIGHT

          Darkness. Silence. After a long beat, we hear movement,
          confined and contained.
          We then hear the sound of a man, PAUL CONROY, groaning,
          making confused attempts at words. We hear his movement;
          short, abrupt shifting, ending almost immediately with the
          sound of his body banging against wood.
          He screams, though it's clear from the sound that his mouth
          is covered by something.
          After attempting to sit up, he immediately bangs his head
          against something. It's terribly warm and his breaths are
          labored.
          He attempts to move to his left and right, only to find that
          he is confined on those sides, as well. He frantically
          shifts about, only to discover, by touch, that he is encased
          in something.
          Something is very wrong, and he doesn't need to see to know
          that.
          Finally, we see him, lit by the flame of the Zippo he holds
          in his hands, which are bound together in front of him with
          rope. A rolled-up, dirty rag is tied tightly around his
          head, stretched across his mouth. Dried blood stains his
          hair and forehead.

                         
          We see that he is lying in an old fashioned, wooden coffin.
          Nothing more than a few rotted-out planks of wood nailed
          together. Realizing the same, Paul is struck by an
          overwhelming, instant panic.
          With great difficulty, and while still holding the lit Zippo,
          Paul removes the muzzle from his mouth.

                          PAUL
           What...? What is this?
          His words become almost unintelligible as he flails about,
          though fear is understood in his every utterance.
          He screams aloud, but his voice is captured by the coffin
          walls.
This is the opening scene to the film Buried.

Costume Ideas

Storyboard For Film Opening

this is the storyboard for mine and Ieuans

 thriller opening. drawn by me and notes written by me

Idea For Film (Revisited)

To simplify the films story even more I thought through how the victim could learn about where they had to go for the opening to continue. Now the film opens with the victim finding an envelop containing pictures and a note saying, "follow the path to find these objects."

After this the victim will be seen walking over the bridge that was shown in the pictures (low angle shot), they will then be followed by the killer. They follow the path and soon walk past the bar sticking out of the ground (High angle shot). Finally there is a (panning) shot showing the open area in the third picture. The opening ends with a low angle shot of the killer walking away from the body of the victim.

Narrative Planning Ideas

Idea 1: Zodiac Murders


The hook/incident/event: Murders with cryptic clues are left with victims bodies.
Place within the narrative: Woodland area/dark ally and desk areas
Characters: Killer, victim and detective
Mood/tone: Dark, eerie, threatening tone to the piece




Idea 2 : Stalking a victim


The hook/incident/event: Stalker following one person around town
Place within the narrative: Woodland area or a dark ally
Characters: Stalker, Victim and people on the street
Mood/tone: Tense atmosphere


Idea 3 : Blackmail


The hook/incident/event: Innocent commits manslaughter, someone learns about it and blackmails the main character throughout the opening
Place within the narrative: Woodlands and two houses.
Characters: Blackmail, victim and the innocent person
Mood/tone: Tense




We have decided to use the first idea, with the Zodiac killer, but because it is a difficult idea we are making it simpler by mixing it with the stalker idea.

Roles Within The Group

Firstly there were four people in the group. After a few lessons this dropped to three members in the group. now ryan has dropped out as well so now there is only me and Ieuan.

My roles in the group include Storyboard artist and taking photos of the main location for filming.

Ieuan's roles are shot list, opening title planning, and camera man.

We are both going to be responsible for the script, editing and the ideas for the film itself.

Location shots

All photos taken by me.



Low angle of bridge that the victim will be walking over. Killers POV, pans to the right. Shows that the killer is hiding and does not want to be seen.

This would contain a close up of the back of the victims head and would be a handheld shot as both characters walk. Tracking shot from killers POV.











This is where a panning shot of the victim walking past would take place. Stops in the middle and starts again when stalker enters the shot. Pans from right to left. Also one of the pictures in the envelop.

 

Possible area we may use near the end of the opening. This would be a high angle panning shot that would show this bag, the victims body and then change to a low angle of the victim walking away, this is because the killer is climbing up some stone steps.









One of the photos in the envelop and a low angle shot of the characters feet as they walk past. This would help build tension. Slow zoom in on the bar afterwards.










The killer would then hide in the bushes when the victim turns around. killers stops hiding when the victims turns the other way. Handheld shot from killers POV, tracking shot.

The first picture in the envelop and a possible long shot to show the victim walking on the bridge at the start of the opening.