Opening Scenaration - Miss Miller

The first shots the killer walking (low key lighting), where the audience do not know, but will find out later in the sequence.  Susan Moore, a seventeen year old, who is a secretary drives home from work.  A panning shot of a car passing the repton tower.  A POV shot is shown when she is driving the car, showing what she can see on the road, this helps the audience build a relationship with the victim.  She drives into the car park of where her apartment is.  She gets out of the car (mid shot) and realizes there's a man in a mask looking at her, and then realizes that he standing there with a knife (close up shot of victims face, she begins running.  When the knife is shown, a jump cut, is done to make the audience focus and let them know that there is a knife involved as this is iconography and it is a key part.  She runs into a forest, a straight cut is used to show a change of location.  As she is running, a jerky handheld POV shot, showing what she can see at her own eye level.  A shot is shown of the killer walking, as he follows the victim.  This is conventional to the thriller genre because the killer is confident that they are going to catch the victim.  The victim stops looks around, thinking that she has got away from him, but then  something is put over her head and and the screen goes black and you just hear screaming which fades into the background.

Overall, the low key lighting will make it more conventional because it creates an eerie atmosphere for the audience, this would make the sequence better.  A close up of the victims face will make the audience relate to the character as her emotion will be shown.  

Planning Opening Sequence Credits - Miss Georgiou

Credits are important because they can indicate to the audience the initial genre of the film that they will be watching.  It is able to establish a tone for the audience, so they can fall into the mood which the film may make them feel.  The best openings will leave the audience intrigued which will leave them settled in the seats making them want to know more about the narrative.  The credits show who were included in the making of the film including the director, producer, actors etc.

In the se7en opening sequence the colours are limited as the colours are only black and white, this conveys to the audience that there may be mystery included in the film and it also conveys good and evil to the audience as white has connotations of purity and black has connotations of fear and evil.  In parts, it looks like there are specks of blood, indicating to the audience that there will be death/murder involved.  Black and white is conventional to the thriller genre because it represents mystery and and uncovered scenes or problems which may happen within the film.  

The style of credits are in sync with the music, the credits have movements which are shaky, jerky and a jumpy effect to them.  They also seem to have a handwritten effect, which makes it more personal and eerie feel.  The credits also tend to appear in different areas of the screen, making the audience look more of what is showing.  The style of credits is conventional as it would be able to make the audience engaged to the film and keep them looking on the screen.

There are a series of thriller conventions which are included in the opening sequence, indicating to the audience that the film will be a thriller.  One convention is the suspenseful music as this keeps the audience in suspense, another element of the music is that it seems to be high pitched in certain parts.  The fact that it is high pitched in different parts is that it may add the sense of shock to the audience and keep them engaged in the opening sequence and make them keep watching.  

The images in the background would also create suspense as the pictures are of sharp objects such as knives and needles, making them wonder why those particular pictures would be shown.  The sharp objects are also conventional to the thriller genre, because they signify death and have meaning added to them.  The sharp objects are generally considered to be part of a thriller as it means that somebody is going to get killed.  Iconography such as sharp objects are conventional to the thriller genre as 

The credits help to establish the genre of the film, the order of appearence of who are involved in making of the film and the actors.  The credits seem to go in the order of importance.  The first name shown is the production company 'New Lines' and then goes to who it was directed by 'Film by Fincher' and then it shows the big actors names including Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Morgan Freeman.  It then shows the names of the music, costumes and director of photography and so on.  At the end it shows the directors name again, as he thinks that he would have been the most important in the making of the film.   

INDIVIDUAL ANALYSIS

 The colours in the opening credits in Hannibal are just black and white, which would portray to the audience that mystery may be involved in the film.  Black and white may also indicate the different sides of people, who will be included in the film because of the colours as each colour has a connotation to go with it.  Black would give off connotations of evilness and white would have connotations of the good side.  The colours are conventional to the thriller genre because black and white give an idea of mystery and eeriness as there may be things to uncover during the film. 

The style of credits seem to be very fast paced, which would make the audience may more attention to what they are watching.  The music seems to be something you wouldn't expect, as they would be able to hear a piano in the background with all these fast paced images showing.  Depending on what the background of the clip is, it depends if the credits are black or white, which would show contrast and make the names stand out.  The series of clips which are shown seems to be shown through of what seems to be a CCTV camera, which give the audience the idea of someone being watched without them knowing.  Fast paced credits are conventional the thriller genre because it gives a sense of jerky unexpected movements which may be portrayed throughout the film.

One of the conventions of this opening credits is the type of editing, as it's quite fast paced, as it keeps the audience engaged and would make them pay attention to what the credits say.  The fast paced nature of this opening sequence, makes it conventional to the thriller genre because it keeps them engaged.   Another convention would be the colours, most thrillers may have an opening sequence where it would have limited colours as it would create a different effect, comparing to if it would be in full colour, RGB.  The fact the colours are limited suggests mystery of the film, as the real colours will be shown as the problem is being solved.   Fast paced editing is conventional to the thriller genre because it keeps the audience on edge and keeps them engaged into watching the first scene of the film.

The order of appearance is very different compared to Se7en's opening sequence as the first names which are shown are the actors names and then follows onto the people who were involved in making the film by the 'casting by Louis Digiamo' being the first person to be shown after the actors, and then showing the names of the costume designer, music, production designer, director of photographer, executive producer, based on the novel by, produced by and then the very last name shown is the director 'Directed by Ridley Scott.'

GROUP ANALYSIS

In our group, we discussed what we would each be considering what kind of jobs we would have already done at this time, and also considering what we will be doing later on.  The credits will go in order of importance, taking into consideration what production role or actors would go first.  The credits will go by what other credit sequences look like 'directed by..' 'costumes by..' 'Director of photography by' etc.

We plan to have our credits white/grey, as it would contrast along on our clips.  The credits will appear in different parts make the audience pay attention to other things which is happening.  We plan to have the credits to have a handwritten style because it would add a different effect than what a different one might.  The credits will fade which will give them an eerie effect as they fade away.  The font we have selected is 'Bradley Hand' because it looks handwritten and more natural to the eye.

We have decided to keep the colour natural because it would make the audience relate to the scenario of what's happening.  The colours would be in full colour of RGB but our thriller opening sequence is already in limited colours considering it is in mostly black and the orange coming from the lights.

Production Roles - Miss Miller

People need to allocated specific roles when creating a film because they have to be apart of the process of making them film, and different people will have different attributes to them, making them more suitable for the job. 

JOB ROLES INCLUDE:

Producers: They have to create the scenes and conditions for the movie.  They initiate, co-ordinate supervise and control matters.  producers are involved throughout all phases of the film-making process to the development to the completion of the film.

Directors: The person who involved in the making of the film and tells the people involved what to do in the film and they are responsible for translating the script into actual images and sound.

Actors: Actors are people who play as the characters in the movie, to help bring the film to life.

Director of Photography:  The cameraman has to hold the camera taking into consideration the types of shots which they have to do. 

Music Producers: The music producers pick the music which will be included in the film and sometimes produce the music if something different is needed.

Screenplay Writer:  The screenplay writer, writes the script of the film, thinking about what each character is going to say and what they may doing while they are saying it.  It provides the characters to learn their lines.

MES Co-ordinators: The people who are in charge of the mise-en-scene considering the setting, iconography, colour, positioning and body language of characters.

Editors: Editors are the people who edit the footage which the camerman gets, cutting out and adding the music.  They are responsible for putting the final version of the film together.

We decided who will be doing what considering what the strengths are of each group member.  The director of photography is Ben as he is confident with handling the camera.  We decided to choose Ben to be our cameraman, and not someone else as we know he confident with handling the camera, compared to somebody who wouldn't know what they were doing.  Within this role, he has to manage the camera and make sure the shots are steady and are at the right angle.  This will make filming and editing easier as we will not have to worry about the stability and editing out too much of the camera work.This role had to be changed to myself, as I am confident with controlling and operating my camera, which will make it easier as I won't have to show them what to do when handling my camera. This has made production easier, as no time was wasted, as I didn't have to explain how to the camera properly.   I believe the director of photography did well as the shots created are of good quality and are how we expected them to be as we originally planned.

As a group we decided to have two actors, a victim - Ellie Holt and a killer - Louie Hart.  We decided to pick Ellie as our victim as she is blond female and in thrillers blond females are considered to be vulnerable for the audience and being a blond female makes it conventional to the thriller genre.  We picked Louie Hart as our killer as he is a tall male, therefore being conventional to the thriller genre as he would be considered to be the strongest comparing to the victim is considered to be weak.  

Due to the actors not turning up we had to turn to other people who would act for us but it came to the conclusion that two of our group members would have to take part in the opening sequence so we didn't get behind.  Wai-lum Pang took the part of the victim, being brunette, we though of a reason why she would be brunette as it is mostly more common for blondes.  However, we came to the decision that realistically a victim could have any hair colour, even though blondes may be portrayed as more vulnerable in thriller films.  I believe she did her part well she had good body language of the victim.

We decided Wai-lum was going to be the editor of our opening sequence as she edited our preliminary task, and has more of an idea of how to use final cut pro x, as this makes her know have more of an idea of what to do.   As a group, we will also help with the editing making sure that everything is how we want it.  As part of the role, she will be using final cut pro to edit our opening thriller sequence.  This will make editing easier, as it probably won't take as long as someone who doesn't really know anything about using the editing software.  I believe she did well doing this job as she paid close attention to certain parts of clips which we may have not needed and making sure the sound was in sync with everything else.

Ben will also be a producer, as he has organised most of the times we will be filming and when.  During the role he has arranged times, when everyone will be free and what time we will meet up at our location.  He will also have to take control of certain issues which like, actors which may have not turned up and think of a compromise.  He also had to assure that everyone is doing their job properly.  This makes the group focused.  I think Ben did well on being producer because he made sure that the group met up and the right place and time.  He also made sure that we got the necessary shots needed for our opening sequence.

The screenplay writers is the whole group consisting of Beau Abery, Benjamin Yarwood, Wai-lum Pang and I, as we thought of the idea together, so we plan on what happens in each frame and agree with what will be best for our opening thriller sequence.  This made the making of the planning of this easier, as it was group effort.

MES co-ordinator is Beau Abery, we decided this as he decided on the location, taking into consideration what would look best considering the setting and the background.  Also trying to  to get us a car, as we can't drive and getting some who can drive in position of our victim.  This role was done well, as the location was set.  However, communication lacked and had trouble finding the location, meaning we ended up going home and did not have each others numbers at the time.

Sound producer will be Wai-lum Pang, as she knows things about music and believe she will be able to pick the right music for our thriller.  Everyone else in the group, will also be included in picking the specific sounds as we will agree or disagree if the sound if right for our thriller opening sequence.  We did this well as we worked well as a group, knowing what sounds were good for our thriller and what was considered to be bad.  This made production easier as we all agreed and picked the right music.

Overall, we have allocated people different roles according to what they would be best at.  We considered these roles for the group members, taking into consideration strengths of everyone and making it their own role.  We think allocating these roles will make the production and the sequence better because we have considered what everyone can do best and giving them the right job.  

We did not film what we wanted as problems arose with the characters not being unavailable and having to change the characters. So time was an issue, so we would have to plan when the actors would be available at the same time.  We could have used our time more wisely, as when we got around to filming on the day, we couldn't find the location. This resulted us having to give in the camera and tripod back with no footage.  We had to find a compromise camera and tripod. I was willing to use my Canon 600d and tripod as it is a good quality camera and we didn't necessarily worry about having to have the filming done within a week.

Filming Schedule - Miss Georgiou

A filming schedule is important to have, because its good to be organised for a group to know when they will be filming and what kinds of shots we will be taking.  A filming schedule includes:

The type of shot:

The type of shot is numbered 1,2,3 etc. so the members know what type of shot is being shot and what order certain frames will be filmed in.

Date and Time:

The date and time is made, so all the group members and actors know when and what specific shot is being taken at the time.  

Content/Action:

This is a short descriptions of what happens within the shot.  It provides a reminder to the actors and director of what to do in the shot.

Shot type & Duration:

This is helps the director of photography know what kind of shot/cinematography to be filmed, which could include a high angle, long shot or panning shot etc.  The duration reminds the group how long it should roughly take.

Iconography:

This reminds the group members, what iconography should be included in a specific shot.  E.g. A knife or mask

Equipment:

This reminds the group members, to have the necessary equipment needed for filming.  Therefore, meaning they will not forget it.  The equipment may include: Camera, batteries, memory card, tripod etc.

We had to make some changes regarding some members did not turn up meaning we had to compromise and film what we could.  We also have to film on different days, so that it won't take as long and keep moving from location to location.  Our group decided to film on different days because some group members had to be back by a certain time, due to other plans.