Opening Sequence - The Register

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Task 20 - The Evaluation - Question 7 (Wai,Imogen,Sophie&Elise)

Question 7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your full production?

Firstly, looking back at our preliminary task we learnt how different camera angles allow us to show the audience what is going on from different characters perspectives which allows us to hint to the audience what may happen without giving the plot away. For instance, in our establishing shot we see how our main character looks small and vulnerable which allows the audience to predict that she will be the victim.

We also learnt that music and lighting play a huge part in setting the scene and mood of the opening sequence. For example, by having low key lighting and tense music it builds tension and leaves the audience wanting to watch more. This is good as it attracts the audience and allows them to feel involved in the scene.

Lastly, we have learnt how important it is to meet the needs and expectations of your target audience as they are the people who will be watching it therefore, it is important that they are thought about throughout the creation of the opening sequence/film.

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Task 20 - The Evaluation - Question 6 (Wai,Imogen,Sophie&Elise)

Question 6) What have you learnt about technologies and the process of constructing this product?

During the process of making our opening sequence, we used many different programs to help present and create our final piece. 

Throughout the research period, we used 3 different ways of presenting our findings and the development of our idea. We used Prezi, notes and our IPhone's to record our findings as a source of presenting our feedback. Prezi was a very easy why to inform as it visually communicated what we wanted to get across in addition to this it also brought our work to life allowing us to develop more computer skills. On the other hand the program Notes was a simple yet easy way of producing our information and research. Note became especially useful when creating the moodboard because it was easy to move the picture around and place them in the ways I wanted.

In addition to this we used the program Motion 5 to create our logo. We thought that this was a good way to create our logo from scratch because it was a very simple layout and wasn't very complicated in how to use the program.

In the course of the production of our opening sequence we used a Panasonic HDC - SD90 video recording camera to film our opening sequence. 

The Apple Mac computer was our main tool throughout the whole process of constructing our opening sequence.

Lastly, we used Final Cut Pro X was our go to editing tool during the production of our opening sequence. This program was simple and easy to get to grips with, therefore after using Final Cut Pro X to edit our preliminary task we found it easy to edit the rest of our videos of feedback and our final opening sequence.

    

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Task 20 - The evaluation - Question 5 (Wai,Imogen,Sophie&Elise)

Question 5) How did you attract/address your audience?

By having a young girl as our main character we think it attracts our audience as they feel that they can relate to the girl and how scared she must be feeling.  We also think that by setting our opening sequence in a school it appeals to our audience as it makes them feel like it could happen to them or that they have similarities with the girl therefore, they feel attached to the character and want to know what happens to her. Another way I think that we made our opening sequence appealing to our target audience was by making it a horror that isn't to scary. By ensuring that it isn't to scary it allows us to attract our audience and draw them in due to our target audience being teenagers.

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Task 20 - The Evaluation - Question 4 (Wai,Imogen,Sophie&Elise)

 Question 4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

                                                 

The audience for our media product is teenagers and young adults. We feel that this is the right target audience because it is more interesting and understandable for those who are in the age range to experience the type of scenario that is occurring in our opening sequence. We feel that the teenagers and young adults are able to relate more to the scenario and are able to question themselves if they were in the same position which gets them to think throughout watching the opening sequence resulting in them wanting to carry on watching the rest of the film.

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Task 20 - The Evaluation - Question 3 (Sophie&Imogen)

Question 3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? (think about the companies you learnt about for institutions and audiences)

We believe that Film4 and Working Titles are the best institutions for our film to be distributed by because they are small British institution which distribute low budget British films just like ours. They also produce a wide variety of films which also allows our film to fit in with what films they distribute. As our film is low budget therefore, we don't use any special effects we think the best media institutions are those which are known for making similar low budget films.

Film4 Logo:




Working Titles Logo:

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Task 20 - The Evaluation - Question 2 (Sophie&Imogen)

Question 2) How does your media product represent different social groups? (Think about TV Drama stereotypes in this answer)

Our media product represents different social groups as we have the vulnerable young girl, emotionless male and the sympathetic older female.

Young girls are often considered naive and innocent, which is why we portray our victim in this away. By conforming to this stereotype it allows the audience to predict that something bad is going to happen to the young girl. This builds tension as the audience is on edge wondering what is going to happen to the girl.

Men are often considered as hard and emotionless. I think by creating our psychopath as an emotionless male we have met this stereotype which allow the audience to instantly see the character as threatening.

Older women are often considered maternal and that their role is to look after others which also fits our investigator's character. In our opening sequence we can see the sadness and sympathy when he investigator gets the phone call.

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Task 20 - The Evaluation - Question 1 (Sophie&Imogen)

Question 1) In what ways does your media product (opening sequence) use, develop  or challenge forms and conventions from real media?

Firstly we found that our title met the forms of real media. For example, our title is The Register and horror films have similar titles such as 'The Purge'. By having a similar and typical title it shows that we are meeting the standard horror movie criteria. We thought that snappy titles are usually better for horror movies as they grip the audience therefore, we changed our title from The Psychopath Behind the Smile' to ' The Register'.

Although in some areas we used forms and conventions from real media, we also challenged it in some areas. For example, we believe that the psychopath strayed away from the stereotypical looking psychopath. Usually the psychopath is cast as a old man whereas, we used a young man instead. We also challenge forms of real media as we set our opening sequence is a school. Although this has been done before usually horror movies are located in an abandoned building or a deserted forest. By having it in a school which is considered a safe place it challenges the idea of horror movies being set in locations that are considered 'creepy'.

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Task 19 - Target audience feedback (Imogen&Sophie)

"Pivotal moment of the opening sequence"

"It made me want to watch more"

"For the more intense parts there should be darker lighting"

"I enjoyed the music as it created tension throughout the clip"

"I think you could use a more mysterious character to build tension"

We gathered a sample of our target audience age group and showed them our opening sequence. From this we found what our target audience views and ideas were on our opening sequence and what they thought we did well and what we could improve on.Overall, all of the group enjoyed the opening sequence and found it engaging and tense. The improvements included "I think for the more intense parts there should be darker lighting" and this allows us to see what we could of done in order to make our opening sequence better. Many of the group enjoyed the ending (the hand against the window) as they found it extremely tense and gripping and made them want to continue to see the rest of the film.
I think it is important that we find out what the target audience think of our opening sequence as this allows us to see where we went wrong and what we did well. This then allows us to see what we could of done to meet all of the needs and expectations of our target audience.

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Task 18 - Use of opening sequence convention

In our opening sequence we defiantly knew that we wanted it to portray and real-life assumption and  be relatable and realistic. We done this by thinking of serious and realistic scenarios

 By looking back at the task 'What is a opening sequence?' when analysing the opening sequence for the film 'Scream' we noticed that in the scene, mise-en-scene was used when presented with the ringing of the telephone. The sound of the ringing gives the audience the thought of someone mysterious calling and this builds up tension in the scene. In our opening sequence we used this to build up tension however it was presented in a shot of a blank screen rather then showing the phone ringing therefore we had the use of non-diagetic sounds.

At first we decided to have a lot of scrip in our opening sequence however after evaluating the opening sequences for the films 'Up' and 'Se7en' we realised that we didn't necessarily need a lot of script in order to get our story across to the audience. We noticed that we were able to evaluate more and understand more of the storyline from watching the opening sequence with less script work. In addition to this we thought that this would get the audience thinking more about what is to come next and keep them on the edge of their seats and to carry on watching. Consequently, the only script we had was after the investigator said "Hello.", after saying this nothing else was said therefore showing and telling the audience that something was wrong but not entirely sure what.

As well as this, we thought of focusing our opening sequence on 3 main characters, Daisy, Taylor and the investigator. However, we changed it to only having the main focus on Daisy and Taylor because we thought that this would be more effective and we didn't want to give away too much of the answers of the storyline to the audience, resulting in the audience wanting to carry on watching.



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Task 17 - Editing Process

Editing Process

To edit our opening sequence, we used a program called "Final Cut Pro"

Firstly, I decided what clips to use and how much of the clip we needed.

To do this, I reviewed each clip and decided which scenes went best. Once decided, I used the blade tool to cut the clips and deleted the parts that were not needed. 

I decided that the clips sounded good with background noise as well as music, however, some of the clips were too loud.

 Therefore, I dragged the volume down on certain parts of the clips.

Once I had cut all of the clips down, I began editing in detail. This started by adding transitions between the "real time" scenes and the flashbacks, to show the difference in time.

We wanted the scenes to look as if it were the evening time, therefore, I decided to add a dark and gloomy filter to every clip.

I attempted to use the "earthquake" filter on the flashback scenes to make them look more shaky/scary, however it looked too over dramatic and we decided to delete the filter.

To build tension, I slowed down the scene in which the psychopath's face appears in the window.  I also decided to speed up the scene in which the girl is grabbed as it makes the moment seem more sharp.

 To create the feeling that the girl has been hit and "blacked out" I included a blank screen and the sound effect of ear-ringing. The music then changes to a more tense track.

For the majority of the track, i used the same 'horror' loop that helped to build tension within the clips. I decided to fade the music in and out so that the track didn't start too dramatically.

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Task 16- Choice of Music

Choice of music

When deciding what music to use as a backing track, I had to consider the content of our opening sequence and how to build tension within the scenes without going over the top. I spent a long time analysing different backing tracks from known horror movies and finally decided on 'Dark ambient Space Music' 

This track plays throughout the majority of our opening sequence. I chose it because it gradually gets louder with more instruments as the track plays on; this complimented our opening sequence as the first scene is rather subtle however it graduates and becomes more creepy throughout the film.

I decided to change the track to more 'violent' sounding music after the girl in the film blacks out. This is because I wanted the music to give the impression that something bad is about to happen in the film.

As well as the music, I thought it would be effective to use various sound effects such as 'ear ringing' when the girl blacks out and the sound of a telephone.

I also used a 'boom' sound effect in the last scene as a type of jump scare for the viewers.

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Task 15 - Production company logo

                         

WISE PRODUCTION LOGO

From the research we have gathered we decided to use the program Motion 5 to produce our logo, following a tutorial on YouTube called "Apple Motion 5 For Absolute Beginners - The Interface".



The first thing we did was decide what colour the background should be. we decided to have a plain white background which reflects the light day time in our opening sequence however in the center there is a black box, we chose the colour black because it reflects the mysterious and darkness that runs through our opening sequence.

After, our next task was to add our company name "WISE Productions". This was done using a individual text boxes for each letter and choosing from a variety of fonts suggested by the program (Motion 5).

In order to get the letters to appear at different times, one after another using the bottom of the time line we were able to move the letters to the time we wanted them to appear throughout the 10 second space we had. In addition to this we were able to use different types of 'behaviors' of each letter. This enabled the logo to look more appealing and eye catching.




To finish creating our company logo we added a sound track that we downloaded from 'YouTube converter' called "Typewriter and enter". This worked well because as the sound of a letter being pressed down on a type writer, our individual letters of "WISE" would appear in the box.

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Task 14 - Filming schedule

The columns that are used in the film schedule made:

1. Scene: should be the scene in your film. A scene changes when the location and/or time passes
2. Description: brief scene description 
3. Characters: character name and name of the actor 
4. Location: where are you filming?
5. Setups: the number of different camera angles planned to film this form
6. Time: how long we think it will take to film - including 5 minutes set up time 
7. Props & Kit: props needed for this scene
8. Costume: state the costume being worn

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Task 13 - Storyboard (Sophie&Imogen)

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Task 12 - Script (Sophie&Imogen)

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Task 11 - Props (Sophie&Elise)

Props help to set the scene by giving the audience a insight into the background of the character and a hints of what may come later on in the film.It is important that the props used relate to the film and create an accurate representation of our characters. The props we are going to use are:

Phone:

A phone is a modern part of todays lifestyle which reflects the younger generation. By using a phone as a prop it allows us to create the character as  a typical teenager whilst using it as a way the characters can communicate in the opening sequence.





Duct tape:

We are using duct tape as a prop in our opening sequence to show that the girl is being kept captive against her will. Taping duct tape over the victims mouth is stereotypical for a kidnapping scene and therefore fits in with our opening sequence.








 Photos:

We are using polaroid style photos in our opening sequence with the past, present and future victims on.This shows what the murderer has down in the past and what may happen later on in the film.









Tools:

Using a crow bar as a prop creates the main character (murderer) as a stereotypical villain and shows that the victim is in extreme danger.



Death Certificate:

We found a website that has customisable death certificates which we will use as a prop in the psychopath's "shed"
We plan on using one or two of these scattered on his table to show that he has previously murdered people and kept weird files of them.














Birth Certificate:

We are also going to print off four birth certificates that correspond to the four victims left that the psychopath has on his list to kill. These certificates will also be scattered on his desk along with the photographs that he has collected of them.









Certificate of Insanity:

We found this on the same website as the death certificates and we thought that it would be quite useful to have "lying around" in his shed. This is a document that shows he has been diagnosed with insanity.








Table and chair:

We are going to be using a table and chair that are in the shed. The chair will be where our victim will be tied up to and the table will be where all of the psychopath's collective documents are.

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Task 11 - Pictures of the victims (Props)

We thought it would be a good idea if we used our own friends' social media pictures as the pictures of our previously murdered victims. We decided to do this as we thought it would be a fun way to get our friends involved in our media opening sequence, it also adds a more personally feel to our opening sequence as we are involved in more than just the background work.

We have printed these pictures out and are going to stick them on the inside of the shed that our psychotic man is going to be using as his 'lair' when keeping our victim, Elise, held hostage.

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