Prelim Film Project

Our Prelim film is called 'Unknown'

The genre of this film is Thriller /comedy. As previously posted we produced a story board before starting to film our Prelim Film. The given sequence was "A character opens a door, walks into a room sits down opposite another character and they share a few lines of dialogue" we then had to remake it how we wanted to. We used camera, a tripod and wheely and started filming using the college corridor and a given room. Our  props where phones, head phones and some drugs. After a process of filming we then edited it  on final cut pro and added our sound effects on soundtrack pro. 

Here are some picture showing the process of our filming and the equipment we needed to be able to film:

Below is the final edited film clip of our prelim film

Below you can see us using final cut pro to edit our film clip

Here we are using sound track to add extra effects to our clip. Some effects added where a ringtone of a mobile, door squeeking and answering phone beep

Below is us entering a mobile phone ringtone for the character

During the clip one of the charactes place in their headphones and started singing a song called black and yellow. Below we are getting the song from youtube and then going to download it using the grab pro program so we can place it in our clip

Foley Sound Project and re-editing a film opening

After ordering the clips and placing in the credits we then went along a added our own sound to it. We went out and recoded several sounds that we need to fit in with our project these included car driving, footsteps, dripping and many others. Here is a video of footsteps to we recorded ourselves to add onto the original video.

 Here we are around the area trying to find the different sounds for our final project

Here we are editing the sounds into the film opening for the film

 Below is our final edited version including credits and sound

The below picture is showing were we need to add sound so we will know which sounds to record when we are out.

Here are a list of the many different sounds we have recorded.

                     Below is were we want to add sound to which would be foot steps of the boy

As you can see we are cutting the original sound and adding in the foot steps timing it with the boys movement

Here we are using soundtrack pro to add in crash effects.

Adding sound of him breathing heavily as he is injured

Here is an video of us recording the foot steps of the boy

Structure of Fim Openings

In our lesson today, we looked at the structure of thriller openings. I have learnt about four different types of openings which are ...

Discreet opening: 


This is an opening where nothing is given away about the film to the audience therefore it is being discreet. Shown below is the opening for the film 'Enemy of  the State'.This is a good example because this opening has nothing to do with the film itself, it is based on random videoclips put together. The editing is extremely detailed and it is stylised as well. It supports almost all of the opening credits and the film title. 

Narrative opening: 


This is the type of opening where the titles run throughout; and giving the storyline at the start. Many narrative openings start off showing land scape or a setting. In the shining video below you can see an example of an narrative opening. the beginning clip is a long journey which shows the setting and the titles come up throughout .

Tiles over a blank screen then an narrative opening:


T type of film opening is where the titles of the film is shown over a black screen and most of the time it is accompanied with some sort of music or sound. Shown below is an example of this type of opening which is the film 'Donnie Darko'. In this film opening, it is seen that the titles come up over a blank screen and then lead into an narrative opening which has a boy sitting and then cycling off to somewhere. It also shows the setting of where he is.

Stylized editing opening: 


This is where the opening is edited in a special stylized way. It is accompanied by music which is at a fast pace, which gives an impacted upbeat opening. Shown below is an example of this type of opening which is the film 'The taking of Pelham 123'. It has an upbeat song and is edited in an special way which gives a great effect.

Preliminary Match cut exercise- Planning

In class we have planned our own storyboard for the given scenario, 'Character opens a door, walks into a room, sits down opposite another character and they share a few lines of dialogue'

The idea that we came up with is a girl is being prank called and she thinks its her friend because he is the only one with her new number. She gets a call while she is walking down the corridor and then she opens the door seeing her friend laughing. She confronts him and they argue. At the end she gets another call finding out that it isn't her friend that is prank calling her that is when there is an mystery of who it is. 

                                                           Here we are trying to come up with different ideas for our        Prelim Film, and drawing a story board for our final idea

Below is our story board

Below is the animated version of our storyboard:

These are all the images of the storyboard that are used to turn it into an animatic

Here is a screen shot of the process of putting each single scene of the storyboard into 'Final Cut Pro' to allow us to turn it into an 'animatic' which allows the images to move after each other in the right order

This is a screen shot showing the process of converting the animatic into a video to be able to be seen in our blog

Title Sequences

In our lesson today, we have learnt about title sequences and the way they are displayed in different film openings.

As shown below, we have attached the order in the title sequence of 'The Stepfather' which is an example of a thriller movie.

Most title sequences are in order of hierarchy. This shows the order of who is the most important descending to who is the least important in the movie. This also shows earns the most money as well. There are also different types of fonts used in title sequences; transitions will also be found used in a title sequence which can be connected and/or linked to the content of the film.

An example of this is the title sequence in the film 'The Stepfather'. This foreshadows that the genre of the film will be a thriller. 

Also shown below is the title sequence of the film opening of 'The Stepfather'.

 

The production company logo

 The same production company name

The co-production company name

 The title of the film which links to the film as it is in capitals, neat and organised like the actual step father.

The names of the cast 

The  name of the costume designer

 The music supervisor's name

The film editor's name

In the film opening of 'The Stepfather' the audience is introduced to the main character and the scene situation

Marathon Man title sequence analysis:

As shown below, we have analysed the film and made a timeline of the title sequence for it. We have also written about the way title sequences of different film openings relate to different aspects; such as where the film title is shown.

Structures Of Thriller Openings

-A narrative opening -with titles running throughout it, audience is introduced to some characters, and it gives the audience an idea of what the film will be about

An example of this type of structure is 'Memento', it is a psychological thriller, the end of the story is foreshadowed during the opening credits. The story of the film is shortly narrated throughout the film opening. 

-A discrete title sequence -with the opening titles separately edited from the narrative. An example of this type of film opening is 'Seven' where the view of the main character is shown and the shots are either close ups or extreme close ups; this maybe to intrigue the audience. The character appears crazy as they are cutting their skin suggesting abnormality. 

-Titles over a blank screen -with the titles over a blank screen, often followed by a narrative opening. It is usually good to just have the dark screen with the opening credits and some sound to make it mysterious and make the audience wonder what is going to happen. An example of this type of film opening is 'Donnie Darko' a dark background appears with the opening credits and all of a sudden someone's head appears to introduce the audience and engage them to wonder what is happening.

There is also a fourth type of style of a film opening which is known as 'stylized editing' which is when the opening of the film is edited like a music video. The credits appearing go with the beat of the sound. An example of this type of film opening is 'The Talking of Pelham'

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Film Audiences

Film audiences are certain people that certain films are targeted towards. An example of this would be a film such as 'Kidulthood'.

 

This film, for example, is aimed at the younger audience such a youth and teenagers because it is based on an ordinary teenage life, things that most of us go through as young people.

A film like 'Grown Ups' for example, is aimed at a much wider audience which is everybody. This is because it is a comedy about a bunch of families; so everybody would be able to relate to this.

For thriller films in particular, the target audience are women. This is because women are said to be more into thriller films than men are. Probably because men are more into films such as comedy, action and horror. 

The Thriller Sub-Genre That Inspires Me

The Thriller film 'Black Swan' inspires me a lot because it is very interesting. Watching the film, you may not be able to tell whether the film is a thriller, horror or sci-fi. So much goes on in the film so it can easily confuse you.

In this thriller film, there is more than just one genre. This film is a thriller as well as a drama and suspense movie. This would influence my film opening because I could decide to use parts of the opening of this film for my own.

Genres and Sub-Genres

A genre is where types of media such as film and music are categorised of different artistic compositions.

A sub genre is where two genres are combined together within one film. Film producers will do this to attract an wider audience. For example if a film genre was just packed with action, it would be targeted towards men more; whereas if it was combined with another genre such as romance, the target audience would be targeted at both genders instead.  

An example of a sub-genre film would be 'Hitch'. This is a good example of a sub-genre because it contains two genres combined together which are Romance and Comedy.

An example of a genre film would be 'Cheaper by the Dozen 2'. This is an example because the genre for this film on only comedy.

Intersexuality

Intertextuality is when visual referencing is made between different films. Basically, this is when a film uses different scenes in another film, inside it. This includes things like sounds, visual scenes, and mise on scene which would be recognised by the audience; this makes the audience more familiar to the film so they would notice the difference and act upon that.

An example of Intertextuality being used is in the film Scary Movie part 1 which was adapted from  the original film Scream. Scary Movie immitates many scenes from this film. Scary Movie uses things from Scream such as props like the scream mask,mise on scene and scenes from scream aswell. These examples are shown above.