Amber Saville 1158

Claremont Fan Court School 64680OCR Media Studies J526

B324 Production Portfolio in Media Studies

Video Brief 7: opening sequence from a new thriller with storyboard

• I worked in a group of three with Jenny Adams and Charlie Atkinson.

• I took specific responsibility for doing some of the research such as on Scoop It and Pinterest, I also did most of the editing on the project, I did call sheets and some small filming parts.

• We made a thriller film opening entitled Blood Ivory

• The genre of our film is a crime thriller film/ mystery. • We worked on computer programs such as iMovie and After

Effects.

Research into similar films openingsI looked at many different film openings. We firstly looked at Les

Bleus de Ramville (2012). The opening clearly demonstrates how the film is about some sort of hockey team and sport. There are multiple cutaway shots for example of a hockey mask. This gave us inspiration to do different cutaway shots in our sequence.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) is an action and thriller film. This is clear from the opening sequence as there are multiple dark colors and lots of images of fire. The use of color is the best point of this opening sequence as it suggests that this film is not a happy one. The music that goes with it is also almost quite frightening as it contains loud noises and scream like noises.

We looked at Love Actually (2003) because it was filmed in an airport just like ours and the use of the voice over was very effective. As we see many different people in the airport we hear Hugh Grants famous voice as a voice over. The voice over goes well with what he is saying. We looked at this as we had been thinking about doing a voiceover on ours and we knew that the Love Actually one was very effective with the filming.

Delicatessen (1991) is a thriller about a butcher. The opening sequence is well made as at the beginning we almost fall into a rubbish bin. We then pan across some sort of table and see many different things that could be to do with the film. There are pictures, a tape measure, there are labels and all of these shots give different ways to put the titles onto the sequence. For example the “costume designer” and their named is placed on a label of some clothes so that the persons job and the thing that it is on are linked. This makes the sequence a lot more entertaining to watch as the titles are being mentioned in a lot better way. The use of a sepia tone is also effective as it suggests it may be set in an older time. It also adds warmth to the opening sequence.

Our Target Audience• Audience profile: our target audience is likely to be both

genders aged 20+. This is because our opening sequence it not about a typical issue that people of a younger generation would watch. It has all the same consequences of the typical thriller opening however the twist is the main thing going on: ivory dealing. This is why it would appeal to an older audience.

• They are likely to have seen films such as Taken 2 (2012), Skyfall(2012), Looper(2012) as these are all films which include quite a few action scenes as well as thriller.

• They are likely to go to the cinema at least once a month and watch films of the action or thriller genre. They’d download films from online and rent films from stores. The films they’d watch would be fill of enigma and suspense.

• Audience figures show how popular the thriller /horror /action genre is. Box office returns for films similar to mine show the following figures: Taken 2 (source box office mojo) $139,854,287, Zero Dark Thirty (source box office mojo) $95,440,195 and Blue Velvet (source box office mojo) $8,551,228.

The forms and conventions used in our film

• Opening We only chose 3 titles in our opening sequence. This is because we felt that our film

had a lot of different information given from the filming therefore we didn’t want to overcrowd it with all of the titles.

• Mise en sceneThere was a variety of mise en scene. The first mise en scene of our opening

sequence was in a dressing room. It pans across her desk as we notice that she has different ivory and is writing a letter.

The second one was Heathrow was as that is the main woman's job. We decided that if we went to Heathrow it would make the whole opening a lot more realistic as we actually went to Heathrow.

The next scene was set in an alley way. The reason we did this was to make it seem a lot more suspicious and creates suspense.

The next mise en scene was the kitchen. At first the mood is calm as she is doing everyday things however next she suddenly realises she could be in trouble.

The final mise en scene was back in her bedroom but this time it was not her in it, it was the man previously seen in the ally way.

• We had to buy a whole costume for our opening.We bought a new luminous jacket as we needed it to seem as realistic as possibly

as she looks like she is security. We then bought a security sticker to go on the back which made it look even more realistic. The rest of the costume we already had for example a simple shirt and black trousers.

For the man we just got a suit and shirt as we wanted him to look casual however slightly serious at the same time.

Forms and conventions (continued)• We did not have many sound effects in our opening. This is because it would

have to be extremely loud over the music therefore there would be no point of the sound effects. We did add a “swoosh” sort of sound however to the beginning when our production company name comes on.

• SoundOur soundtrack is mostly just music however there is a voiceover. This voiceover was

done to suggest that there was a news report and this has shocked her and made her anxious.

• Music In ours we chose a piano sort of music. It fits really well with our opening as at

the beginning it is calm as she seems innocent. Later on it gets louder as she goes into the alley way suggesting something bad is going to happen.

• Atmosphere• The atmosphere is tense since the music changes rapidly throughout the

music especially when a police van is shown it is clear than something bad is going to happen.

• SUSPENSESuspense is created as there are scenes such as in the ally way when she

looks incredibly suspicious. The whole way through we do not know what is going to happen to this woman.

• ENIGMAEnigma is created from the beginning as we have no idea what the letter is

about. Throughout the opening people would be aware of the letter and eager to know what it is about

Audience feedback

How successful our project is as a film opening

• Blood Ivory works quite well as a film opening. The titles are clearly displayed, it does not give away the whole film however it is clear to understand and the sound track works well with the filming.

• The acting was good enough to show what the film is about and the costumes especially makes it a lot more realistic.

• There are a variety of camera angles to add texture and add more suspense to our opening.

• The editing is effective as the black and white is used for when going back in time whereas the rest of the editing makes the filming warmer and adds texture to the opening.

How successfully the whole project answered the brief

• Our opening did answer the whole brief. Although the topic of ivory is not a well known matter we still managed to create suspense and make it a thriller.

• The way we filmed added suspense as we did different camera views throughout the opening. The music used also added enigma as the pitch changed at certain points.

• Our audience describes the realism of our play as we use effective lighting, filming, costumes and actors in our opening.

Appendix