Thriller opening scene- reshoot date

We are going back to our location to reshoot some scenes as the originals were not what we had aspired to create, therefore the date we are going back to reshoot is the 3rd of January and we are meeting in Old market Square at 10:30

Equipment:

-camera

-tripod

-GoPro

-GoPro accessories

People present:

-Myself

-David 

-Matt

Thriller opening scene - production company title

We wanted to create a production company title that moved and looked similar to the ones you see before any movie like 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Dreamworks. Therefore we are going onto Adobe After Effects to try and create one by following a detailed tutorial off of YouTube, although we are trying to achieve this sort of creation to show our production company name we know that ours will not be as good as the proper companies employ designers to do this sort of thing but we think we can do an adequate job.

The theme that seems to occur throughout the production companies openings is that the name needs to be in bold to stand out to the audience when it comes up on screen, this is something we are going to does want the audience to remember the name when the openings sequence stops. They all also have a catchy theme tune which people know and remember and they can identify the production company just by the tune, we can try to create this effect with our but we might not be able to find a tune that fits our name and style therefore will try to put in either sound effects or a plain tune that sets the tone of the opening sequence.

Thriller opening scene - update on the review

We have switched around the sleeves scene around so it matches the actions that the protagonist has just done. We have also added on a few more titles such as ' A Thomas Nicholson film' and 'Amanda Henvey' but we still need to add a few more actors onto the casting list, the reason we haven't put any on is because they are going to go on some inserts so once we have filmed them then we can start adding the rest on.
However we haven't fixed the insert problem as we are going to go and film some more on Friday as we don't have time after school due to lighting problems and we don't have time during school as we can't get time off.

Thriller opening scene - sounds update

We needed a boom sound for the ending when the film title 'The Hunt.' comes up as it can create lots of feelings for the audience as the sound can make the scene more tense as it really makes the title stand out, it can also make the audience intrigued as they can infer that the protagonist has shot someone or has been shot as in the scene before he reaches around his body, this motion can be interpreted as grabbing for a weapon.

Thriller opening scene - first draft review

When we uploaded our first draft to YouTube and watched it many times to look for areas that we could improve on, we found that in our clip we placed the clips where the protagonist rolls up his sleeves the wrong way around so it doesn't match the actions that he has just completed. Therefore we are putting this problem as our main priority when it comes to editing the sequence further as we know this is an urgent mater that needs to be changed before we forget.

Another area we need to improve on which we found in the editing process is that we need more inserts of the location as the inserts we have apart from the window insert are either shaky or out of focus due to our poor filming, this means we are going back to the location to film some more inserts for our piece and making sure that we film it a number of times to make sure there is one that is correct.

We also need to add in more titles, the reason why there isn't any is due to us wanting to make sure the rest of the sequence was sorted and put in place and that was our last job, we are going to add in more titles next time we edit.

Thriller opening scene - The Hunt first draft

Thriller opening scene - text GIF idea

In our opening sequence we have the protagonist on his phone texting his wife, however when shooting we couldn't get the camera to see what he was typing therefore I went onto the internet to try and find out how others had overcome this struggle, I came across a lot of shows such as Hollyoaks and Sherlock who use these GIFs to show the messages on the phone on the background. This kind of GIF is hard to find so I might not be able to find it to use it in my opening sequence, the only ones I can find or the ones used to make big bold glittery texts for websites and they don't have the professional look that I need for this piece. For example someone had tried to emulate what happens on Sherlock on this video:

Thriller opening scene - title background idea

For the backgrounds that I want my titles to be on I looked at a few different movies and what kinds of backgrounds they had at first. I came across a few of David Fincher's films and I really liked the types of backgrounds that he used at the start of many of his films as they really set the tone for his films. I want to use his title backgrounds as inspiration for my own opening sequence, one of the ones I liked is on the YouTube video down below where there is a city landscape in the dark. (Only watch up to 16 seconds of this clip as the rest isn't what I am trying to analyse as this is the only video where there are a lot of his openings on the same clip).

Thriller opening scene - insert editing idea

We have filmed inserts of different aspects of the building that we thought were interesting and could create a creepy depiction of the location to intensify the opening scene. I think that the film Fight Club uses inserts very well as they have them throughout the film and they flick on and off the screen, however these inserts flash up a bit too quickly so sometimes you cannot see them so I think that we will use it like they do however they will last a lot longer on the screen. I want this change what Fight Club do with theirs as I feel that the tension will be better if they last longer as the audience can properly digest what the location is like.

Thriller opening scene - filming schedule

Saturday 5th December: people present= David, Matt (actor), Andrea (guide) and me, arrive at Old Market Square at 1:15 to travel to the location.
Equipment needed - Camera, camera bag, tripod, tripod bag, rucksack, gloves, balaclava, duct tape, storyboard, mobile phones and flashlight.

Thriller opening scene - Risk assessment (equipment)

The equipment was one of the things that we made sure we had on us at all times and it too priority when moving anywhere about the building.

One of the down sides to our location which was that in some areas there was a lot of water about, this could have got onto the camera and damaged it therefore rendering it useless and causing David and I to pay a lot of money to the school for a new one. To combat this the camera was either always in its waterproof case or around our necks when we weren't filming, this way it meant that it would never touch the water or anything else that might break it.

Another risk was dropping the camera on the floor which would have broken it, to combat this David and I made sure that we always had the camera around our neck by the strap that was attached to the camera. By doing this we could make sure that we never lose the camera and be sure that the camera would never fall out of our grasp and break.

Thriller opening scene - Risk Assesment (crew)

Risk Assessment:

Risks to actors and crew:
In our location there is a lot of damaged furniture and windows, this is a danger to the actor and the crew as things could easily topple over on top of you or you could cut yourself on the glass on the floor or surfaces. To minimise the risk of this happening we have asked that every person present for the filming is to be covered with clothing apart from the face to minimise skin being exposed to cuts, we also stressed that no one is to touch anything that has lass on it with their hands and if they have to move it then they brush is away with our storyboard that we brought with us.

There are also a few holes in the floor that were about two foot deep, this is a major hazard towards the crew as if they were to fall down one then it would hurt them badly probably not enough to injure them. This also would be a hazard to the equipment as if the camera was dropped down there then it would surely break and would break also if it fell down with another person as the person would land on it breaking the camera and causing further injury to the crew member. To combat this and minimise the risk of any damage to a crew member or a piece of equipment we got a person who we know very well to guide us through the hallways as she has been before, we also lit up the whole place to make sure that we could see exactly where we were stepping and what was around us.

We took one of our shots on top of the roof, however the edges of the roof had no railings to stop people from falling off of it, this would have injured us badly and in some spots killed us. However, to combat this we sectioned off a part of the roof where there was nowhere to land if we fell off, we also went nowhere near the edge of the roof to stop the risk of us falling.

Thriller opening scene - other clip research 2

The Ring of Trees:

This piece got the lowest grade available for me to look at as it received grade E (25 marks), this is a piece that I should analyse what not to do as I wish to get a high mark for my thriller opening sequence.

The first thing that I found I should not do is that the title sequences were on blank backgrounds, this is poor as the thrillers that I have analysed have all had theirs appear somewhere in the background while continuing their opening sequence on. The font for it was poor as it looked like a very childish font and didn't match the theme of the opening sequence at all, this amateurish look to the film carried on throughout the piece.

At the start they had people running past the camera screaming "oh my god" this was a poor opening to their work as again it was very amateurish and one some occasions you couldn't see everyone's faces when running past as the lighting was so poor. This scene would have probably been better placed at the end of the opening sequence if they had to include it as it contradicted the narrative as at this point they hadn't entered the wood yet therefore should not have been running out of there screaming at the start.

In conclusion what I should learn not to do for this piece of work is not to contradict and mix up the narrative and I must keep it fluent throughout, making the lighting of my piece a big priority so people can see what is happening, the font should not be childish like I have copied and pasted it off of the internet and the titles should be on a background of the thriller not on top of a blank screen.

Thriller opening scene - Actual location reece shots

These are a few shots from the location where we are going to shoot our opening scene as in the earlier post we used pictures from someone else's blog who went there two years prior to us. In the time between then and now location has changed quite a bit as people have obviously come in and vandalised it even more as there is more graffiti and a lot of the furniture has been destroyed. We looked around the building to familiarize ourselves and search for the perfect shots and rooms to film in, I took a few shots like picture one where in the room at the back of the picture where we filmed lot of our piece. We will also film on the roof like in the second picture where we could capture the Nottingham city centre and drag it down to reveal the protagonist. Picture four was one of our insert shots, however it will be took from a different angle as it was a better shot through the window, these inserts can show the audience different aspects of the building that you wouldn't have been able to see if we didn't include them.

Thriller opening scene - Sounds

On YouTube before you upload a picture to its site you can choose to have a piece of music in the background, all of these pieces of music are copyright free as you are not allowed to have copyrighted music on your YouTube videos, this means that we searched for types of music that we would want to put into our piece for our protagonist to use. We are considering Beethoven's Ode To Joy as this could be a fitting tune for our protagonist to play to make it more of a psycho-type villain, this then makes the protagonist seem creepier as it is a stereotypical aspect of a thriller villain as they then seem more psychologically unstable.

Thriller Opening Scene - narrative changes

Our narrative idea scored very well so we are sticking with this idea and we had one helpful piece of criticism as they said to get rid of the captive idea as it would make the protagonist more mysterious which fits well with the feeling that our audience wants to experience.

Thriller Opening scene - Titles

These are the types of titles that we might want to include in our opening we put them on a storyboard so we could show them like our storyboard shows the other scenes that will be in our opening scene. There is also a number at the top left to show which scene it was so you can match it up to the scenes on our storyboard to conclude where they are going to go and in which order.

Titles: (in order of appearance)
Rogue Legend Entertainment presents....
A Thomas Nicholson production
A film by David Thomas & Guy Nicholson
Starring.....
Matt Fisher
Amanda Henvey
Fecky O'Lewin
Lloyd Kobaiashi
THE HUNT.