Titles and font research

The font used to open a film is very important as it is generally the first thing you see and it also has to match the genre of the film. The font for Thriller is normally in capital letters and like all movies has to stand to show the name of the film. Also the font of the Title of the film in my eyes should be different to the font used for the credits, showing the names of the actors and actresses. As a group we were trying to think of the name for our opening scene and thought we woulod stick to something fairly simple, but we knew there wasn't a film with the same so we are calling it April. The font of the title can determine how popular the film becomes as it would generally be the same Font used to open the film that is used in the posters. If the title were to look childish and unprofessional then the audience may assume that the film may not be very good or could be quite boring. Also in the start you would need to show the names of the compnaies and the distributors of the film. So a well known company would not be particularly impressed that because of the font and how their names are presented to look amateurish.   

Insideous is a well known Horror/Thriller film. The title here is very bold with a dark background and a deep red title that has an almost blood splatter affect which immediatly shows the audience what type of movie it is. It also shows a well know a well known film director which would also increase the popularity of the film because a lot of people prejudge a film by who is the director and producer. His name is also in bold and is made to stand out so is white instead of red otherwise the two titles would be likely to crash so you they would need to be different colours to make sure they both are noticable against the background.

Fonts i researched:











When i was researching i thought that these fonts could really work for the opening as they were very bold and were all different fonts but were still fairly similar the middle two i found were although quite scary and very bold they wouldn't work as well as the one at the top or the bottom because i found that these two were commonly used in Thriller films where as the other two were more on the Horror side. My personal favourite is the last one as its bold but its not no too big although simple i think it would still work really well with our opening.

Doing this research has proven useful as it has shown me how the Titles of a film really do make a difference and also how many different fonts are available to use as there are multiple for alll genres and occasions.

Location Research

As a group before filming we needed to decided where we were going to film our opening scene and what background we wanted for different areas of our film. We came to decision that we would use Hannah's house for multiple reasons, her house was closer to the school and was very close the location we decided that April was gonna disappear at. Also her house it quite spacious so it would be easier to move around and position the camera where we wanted to take the our shots. The road outside of Hannah's house it conveniently quite so we weren't going to have too many interruptions meaning we could really use the outside area to our advantage.

The main places in the house we are going to use are the bedroom, living room and kitchen. We also needed to use the front of Hannah's house especially for the beginning where April is shown leaving.
The bedroom and staircase worked well for our 1st half of our opening s they were perfect representation of how a teenage girl would generally live and the lighting in those areas give a warm cheery atmosphere in the house.

The living room and kitchen will be used to film the investigation in the 2nd half of our opening. We are using these areas as they are the main areas a family would congregate, especially in this kind of situation.

Not far from Hannah's home there is a secluded wooded area with a road in front of it that is mainly quiet.This is where we filmed April's disappearance as it is the perfect place for the van to drive past without too much interruption. The woods also immediately indicate that something bad is going to happen as the forest is thick and of an evening would become dark and scary.

Our news report was located in our media room at school because the green screen made it easier for us to film over and put in an image behind our reporter. Also in our media room we already had the props we needed as we only needed a table and chair to be placed in front of the wall to create our report.

Props and costume list

April's costume consists of, black jeans, a black vest top, some black converse, a green parker jacket and a burgandy back pack.
My group and i decided that this would be her outfit because we wanted her to remain casual as she is only supposed to be going to her friends house so wouldnt need to be overly dressed or madeup. We choose quite  dark outfit because we wanted this to portray that something isn't right as someone as bubbly as Aprils's character would stereotypically be seen in light cheerful/colours. We decided on using the backpack because we wanted it to look fit for purpose as generally when you stay round a friends house you would carry a big bag with you.

Poppy's costume wasn't as thought out as we just wanted her to look casual but comfortable as when you find that a a close family member is missing you wouldnt be too fussed to make too much effort as you would too destraught and worriesd.

Susan Richmonds costume was a smart black blazer, a white blouse, dark trousers, red lipstick and a note pad and pen. As Susan is the investigator she needs to look professional and meet the standards of what you would thing an investigator would wear. We chose the colour red for the lipstick as we said that it would represent a type of danger. We also introduced the note pad and pen because we wanted to make her look as professional as possible as possible, also shoing that she is afficient as he writes April's friends and families replies to her questions.

We wanted to use a red van because its stands out and symbolises danger, alos he red van is very noticable however it would be hard to find and people generally wouldn't expect such a brightly coloured vehicle to be used. It would also allow our audience to make their own assumptions about what happens to April.

We used the living room because every house has one and would therefore make it easier to take the shots needed and the inteveiw. We also wanted the living room to symbolise a place filled with Apri's loved ones, to show how many people care for her and the damage her Disappearance has caused.

For the rest of the people in the scene we kept the costumes simple so they were just in every day clothes and hadn't made too much effort otherwise it would look very staged and we wanted it to look more prfessional and show a representation of a real trauma that has affected the family.

I found that this list was very helpful as we needed a guideline so that when we wre filming we all knew what we were wearing, which also meant we weren't taking too long to decide our outfits on filming day.

Target Audience

Questions I used in my survey:

 1) How old are you?



2)Do you like Thriller films?









3)What's your favourite Thriller film?

• Gone Girl 
• Prisoner
• Saw 
• Inception
• Dark Knight
• Black Swan 
• Jaws
• Sixth Sense
• Orphanage
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Some for these were quite popular so more than one person chose some of them such as Gone Girl.

4)What do you like about Thriller films?

• Suspense
• Mystery 
• The Chase
• Shock
• Other

For this question most people put that Suspense and mystery were the main themes that drew them to thriller films as it gives the film adrenaline and intrigues the audience

  5)What is your Gender?

6)Do you prefer the Title to come before or after the opening of the film?

7)Are you more likely to watch a film if you like the actors?

Most people said that they would be more inclined to watch a film with famous actors that they know because generally they're movies would be good however others said that based there decision on the plot of the film although they would still sway there decision on tho the main characters are in the film. 

9)What do you think would be a good name for the Main characters (April) sister?

10) do you think the music/sound effects improves the quality of a thriller film?

Filming 2nd half of opening

After school we had met up at Hannah's house so that we could film our second half of our opening scene as a group i think we found that this took longer than the first of our opening as we had a lot of different shots and we also had to have more characters. This meant that at times some people would feel awkward or nervous also a couple of the shots we had to take twice as we hadn't gotten them completely right and wanted a selections of shots that we ended up deleting but at least when we were editing it was easier because we found which ones definitely worked and which ones didn't.

At the beginning we needed to shoot the TV scene to show the news while we zoomed out to show Hannah turning off the TV. At this point we were all fairly nervous as we had keep completely serious because otherwise it would have looked unprofessional to laugh especially with the theme of the scene. We also found this shot quite difficult because we had to get the position of the camera straight and the tripod we were using was slightly off to the side.

For this shot in our opening i am the investigator so Hannah and Paige filmed the shot reverse shot between Jasmine and myself as we had set up the scene so it was similar to a interrogation. This shot was also fairly difficult because we had to like before stay serious and we had to make sure that each shot reverse shot had the camera in the same position.

I took this shot as it was a point of view shot where i was ask Poppy if she was okay which also meant meant that Lacey had to look confused and disoriented. I had to take this shot multiple times because we weren't sure whether to take slightly away from my face or whether to take it like the camera were my eyes. Also for this shot it was quite difficult to keep my hands steady and walk at the same time but we were able to fix the slight shaking motion of the camera whilst editing.

For our last shot we filmed Poppy seated outside on the floor looking distressed and upset to give the emotion in the shot some intensity. This shot worked really well when we had looked at it when we finished filming this part. As afterwards you would just have the view point of Poppy looking up at the sky before the screen would go black.

Analysis of Women in Black.

                                        

              The Women in Black is more of a horror film although it could be also considered a horror as it carries the theme of suspense throughout the film which i thought really related to the opening scenes we have to make ourselves.

              The opening starts off with the Production and distributing companies which are CBS films and Cross Creek pictures. Initially you have the iconic instrumental music that almost has a childish ring to it making it relate well to the storyline to the film. You then have a close-up shot of the children china tea set, which leads on to extreme close-ups of the children's hands as the three little girls serve Tea to their dolls. This scene has a big impact in the film as something so innocent as three little girls playing with their dolls looks odd. As the dolls are slightly tattered from general use but they are the type of china dolls that you would typically see in horror films as they quite creepy. 

              The music that was light and quite childish tarts to get louder but doesn't change pace that mush but is more the fact that it sounds like there are more involved that help incorporate the cold spooky atmosphere. They have used natural lighting however its quite a cloudy day and the weather also add to the music as with both components incorporated the scene looks very out of place and adds the suspense of a Thriller/Horror film. The three little girls are wearing traditional dresses that you would see children in the early 1900's showing that the film  is set in a different era, they also have their hair in the same way which could suggest that they are siblings as the same person would have done their hair.
             You then have a three person shot of the girls playing, the room they are is most likely their bedroom or play room, it is filled with light colours as they are also surrounded by toys which could represent the childrens innocence. However, next to the little girl with brown hair and in the white dress their is a completely black pram that looks out of place and almost like it shouldn't be there.
             There's a series of mid-shots of the girls tending to their dolls like brushing their hair and conversing with each other a completely innocent action. But, the camera goes from a mid shot to a three person shot showing you all three girls looking to the other side of the room simultaneously. This notifies the audience that someone else is in the room but the rooms atmosphere darkens as the children's faces go from happy to emotionless. They then turn their heads towards the window, the camera pans to the window and zooms ins hinting thats going to happen next which builds the suspense even further.
           The camera moves back to the girls showing them moving from their crouching position as they start to stand. At this point the music is evenly paced but had a lower tone so its not as happy which dims the atmosphere and the lighting in the room looks darker which helps make the scene even more scary. You have a series of extreme-closeups that start with the girl in pink dropping her chins cup and the camera follows it watching it break before moving on to showing the girls making their way towards the window while stepping on and breaking their toys.
             Lastly you have a long shot following the girls opening the windows before they jump out, the camera then zooms out so you can see that the shot is coming from someones perspective. There is a scream in the background which is obviously from the little girls mother, the camera continues to zoom out until you see a glimpse of the women in black to the side of the camera from here the music has slowed dramatically and also lower dimming the atmosphere completely and the lighting in the room is similar to the music is it has become darker and more depressing.
            

Music Research for our opening scene.

In lesson today we started to consider what type of music we wanted to use for our opening scene.

We used Youtube to look for instrumental pieces that would fit well with our genre and would build suspense. We decided that the first song we would use is Conspiracy by David Fesilyn. we decided to look through his other compositions to see if we could find anything of his that would match for the ending but it ad to se a different tone and pace other wise it would have been too similar.

This is where we came across the next composition we decided to use called Panic man, in the description for his work it states that as long as we are not profiting from his work then we are free to use. However, because we wanted to make sure that his work was open for us to use we contacted him just incase and we found that as long as we didnt make anything from it them it was fine for us to use it.

As a group we decided to ude these two soundtracks because they link well together and would cause suspense in our opening. Conspiracy is a fairly quiet and slow paced piece that they has a light tone, which would help create a good atmosphere at the beginning. While Panic man is quite abrupt and uses a deeper tone in it which will help represent the data at the end of the opening scene which will also help indicate that it would carry on from there if we were to have made an entire film.

Conspiracy
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcYx1w0o7zfesJr8ZrzcPtxqqZa3hIyTt

Panic man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sSVQrnvyIk

1st half of opening scene

My group and i met up around 3pm after school hours so that we could film the first half of our opening scene. It went rather well although because of our lack of experience in front of a camera at times it was awkward and we had to refill some of our shots as they were slightly off or we thought we could improve them as we went along so that while editing we could pick and choose which shots were better and fit well in our opening. Also we filmed this at Hannah's house as we thought it would work as her house it quite spread out and spacious and is also close to where we wanted to film Aprils disappearance. 

For the first few shots that included Paige being filmed in a bedroom they were mainly filmed by Hannah and Jasmine while i was in another room on the phone to Paige,we found it looked more realistic and was less awkward because we were actually having the conversation we had planned. However, when we had to film the shots from the top of the stairs showing paige walking down and putting her shoes on from behind, while editing it showed we would have to re-film this because the coats were in the way on the side of the stair case. Making it unclear what she was doing as you couldn't see her putting on her shoes even though the indication was there. 

I filmed the mid shot of paige walking out of the front door and closing it behind her, i found that this worked well as i was standing close to the car on the drive but slightly in front so it couldn't be seen. Also i thought that being a step lower than paige also helped take the shot as i had to tilt the camera ever so slightly and as i am a little bit taller it worked well as i was able to level the camera.

From the front door Paige walked down the path beside Hannah's house, i had taken this shot i wanted to see if it would fit well with the rest of our scene and found that although it goes from clear to blurry it worked really well. It gave off a vibe to make the audience know that somthing bad is going to happen next in the scene.

Each time we took a series shots we would all look at them and makes sure we were happy for the moment before we moved on further. I think this helped us through out as it meant that we did have all the shits we needed for our first half but one or two as we wanted to improve the quality of the shot or we wanted to change is slightly.

I also filmed the shot of Paige walking down the path near the wooded area before the scene of the van going past. I think the transition from the long to shit to the close up to another long shit made the transition smoother and was quite affective, but difficult because we had to make sure the shots were in the exact same position so that it worked otherwisemit would have looked odd.

Edit News Report

On Monday 16th January we started to edit the footage of our news report whcih was filmed on the Thursday prior. We had initially wanted to finish editing the shot on the Monday, However we had issues with how to edit out the background without also editing out the news reporter in the shot. At first it would only show the outline of our reporte. We had tried multiple techniques to try and get rid of the background. We then decided to look on youtube, to find a video to show us what we were doing wrong. Unfortunately this meant that we could not finish our editing in one day so we were set back slightly. Miss court discussed with us how do the green screen, we found that we needed to swap the image and the footage around so we overlayed the footage over the image. This thankfully mean that our background was now of a stereotypical news background, and also kept the reporter infront of the image. Now we are finished with editing we will be filming the second half of our opening scene tomorrow after school.

Institutional research

Filming news report

After school my group and i filmed our news report, this did not take long to film however it did take awhile to set up as we needed to make sure that the table was positioned so there was only the green screen in the background. Using the tripod helped a lot while filming this piece as it kept it steady so the picture shook less and it stayed centred. 

When we film our 2nd half of our opening scene we will need to use a HDMI lead from a computer so that we can connect it to the TV. Also we need to edit the filming so that we can put in a news channel background which was the main purpose of using the green screen. 

The main reasons we filmed this at school because it was easier as we had all the props we needed and it was also because Miss court wouldn't be able to film the piece with us anywhere else. 

Group discussion about our opening scene

Media.m4a

Production schedule

For January 12th we will be recording the news report after school as a group as it is the most convenient time to film this as all of us including mis court are available. We will be filming this in our computer room because wee have the resources there and also a green screen which is a vital prop for us. This is because we will need it to make it easier to put the background image of a typical news program which while make the report look more realistic to our audience.

On January 14th we will be filming the first parts of our opening scene including the establishing shot, and April walking out of the house. We will be using Hannah home as we found that the location is ideal as it is also not too far from where we want April to disappear. In this only April will be present as the rest of the characters do not come in until further on. Her costume will be quite casual and simple so just jeans, vans, a t-shit and a coat as in this part of our scene she is only traveling to her friends house so wearing anything too fancy would be unnecessary.

On January 19th we will be filming our last scene here there the rest of the characters are introduced and the news report is played on the TV. In this scene all of the characters will be wearing casual clothing except for Susan Richmond (Investigator) which is my character as i will need to wear appropriate and professional clothing as it is a serious situation. I will be wearing some simple boots, trousers and a blazer with a white blouse. I will also be wearing white and dark makeup with my hair tied back as my group and i discussed that i would need to have my hair up as its typically more professional.

News report script

Storyboards

As group we all contributed ideas to our story boards whether it was deciding on the shot of whether to use diegetic or non-diegetic sounds.

When deciding how we wanted to start our opening scene we originally wanted to put the title in the beginning before the filming however we changed this to the end of our opening scene as we found that it actually made the scene flow better and you could see where the film would link to the next part after the title. The first shot i had suggested as i thought that it would be good to use an establishing shot to begin with as it would open the scene quite nicely as you would get an initial perspective on where the film is set.

After this we had moved on from where we decided how we wanted the first few shots to go we then added in what kind of music we wanted to use and we thought that to build the suspense we should use an instrumental piece as we could use it to build the tension and slowly get louder or quieter as the scene goes along. 

I decided shot 10 as i thought that we could fade out the ending of the shot to help give the influence that something was going to happen next as it goes from clear to blurry. After this for the next two we  decided to use a long shot to show April walking down the pathway before showing a close up of her face as she turns around.

Also for shot 13 and 14 as we were going to film the van going past april one with her visible the other where she has disappeared so we needed the two shots as we would have too cut both clips to flow properly so the van would pass smoothly.

Here in the next few shots we had a shot reverse shot of the investigator questioning family and friends as there would be a time lapse between when she left and when they managed to alert someone or think something had gone wrong. Also 

For shot 18/19 we discussed as a group that having close ups of Rosie (April's sister) showing her emotions and emphasising her movements to show how tense she is, this would build the suspense as you wonder whats she's going to do next and that it would be a good series of shots as they capture the build up to her leaving the room as she couldn't cope.

In shot 28 i thought that it would be show the tension in the room more if Rosie put her hands over her ears which would also show that she's becoming quite claustrophobic and that everything is becoming all too real and too much. Also her heart beat would become louder to build the anticipation of what she's going to run out of the room.

When Rosie runs out of the room we wanted her to look distressed and upset so we decided to have her put her hands over the sides of her face and to slide down the wall. This is because we thought that it would give the shot a tense feel to it, as when she does slide down the wall she'll let out a long breath almost of relief. It will give the shot a more dramatic feel to it before the camera is turned away in a point of view shot turning up to the sky.

As our final scenes we made it so that after the camera had shown the sky we wanted the screen to go black long enough for the music to fad out of the background but then to have April's scream as the Title fades in giving an eerie effect and so that from there you could continue the film and it suggests there's more after the Title unlike in a Trailer when thats the ending of the trailer.

We made the scenes for the news report after the rest of the opening scene so we could it in the lounge scene. For this we kept to a quite traditional layout of the news report as it would be more realistic. So the scenes are fairly basic going from the opening/ breaking news to the reporter talk about April's disappearance and giving information on who April is.

Roles for our opening scene

Characters:
April Greene (Main Character): Paige. We chose Paige as our main character as we thought that she would be able to play the role on her own without feeling too awkward.
Poppy Greene (Sister): Lacey. We chose Lacey for the simple fact that she is Paige's sister so we didn't have to find anyone else top play a relative as her sister agreed to play Poppy for us.
Susan Richmond (Investigator): Eleanor. I was chosen to be the investigator because my group and i said out of all of us i looked the oldest and would be able top pull of an older character. Also for this role i would have too be very serious because of the plot line of the story story make it more realistic.
Samantha Jones (News Reporter): Miss Court.
Jessica (Aprils friend): Jasmine. we chose Jasmine to be April's friend as when we were filming our preliminary task she could compose herself quickly where as Hannah found this more difficult.
Extras: Hannah, Laura-may and Shannon. For out plot we will have Aprils friends and family in the living room while they are being investigator so we needed extra people to play parts of the family or friends.

In our group there is:
Eleanor
Paige
Hannah
Jasmine
As a group we will all take part in the directing editing and filming spreading the work evenly so everyone does an equal amount of work.

Feedback from our presentation to the class.

When presenting to class we made sure that we all took turns in speaking and presenting our ideas. In our Prezi we included some of our ideas for title and what our plot of our opening scene would be, people in the class questioned the title Red Van and we explained that it was because we were using a Red Van as the Kidnappers vehicle, we also used the colour 'Red' because it symbolises: blood and danger. which links well with our Thriller genre.
Overall our feedback was good and our classmates liked our idea for our opening scene however they did question how we were going to be able to make the Van go past with her disappearing at the same time which we explained that we would use 2 shots to help make this possible. But, they did really like the idea of the Van April disappearing.
I think as a group we benefitted a lot from this feedback as it gave us some more ideas to what we could improve on and change and helped us get rid of some of the titles that people didn't like.

Initial ideas

Initial Ideas and Brain storming:

In the holidays Hannah and Jasmine were able to meet up but unfortunately I was not able to attend as I already had prior commitments. However, in this time Hannah and jasmine had discussed and brainstormed on ideas that would be good to use as our thriller opening scene. Although we could not all meet up as a group we kept in contact on daily basis so we could plan and discuss our Thriller scene. As a group there were a couple of ideas that we liked we decided to go with an opening scene of a disappearing girl, who we decided to call April Green.

For the plot of our opening scene we decided that it would be based on a girl who is planning to visit her friends house and starts showing her on the phone packing her bags. From leaving the house April is walking to her friends house but when she gets to certain point need a wooded area she hears a van behind her. Once the Van has driven passed Aril had disappeared. The scene will then jump cut to week or so later where the investigator is at Aprils home asking her family and friends questions on where they last saw and heard from April. In the Background there will be a news report about April, because of the stress and the whirl wind of emotions Aprils sister, Poppy, quickly leaves and sits outside of the house. This is before the screen goes black and you hear a scream, at this point our title will appear in the background before the scene ends.

As a group we are still unsure of what we would like to be as our Title as we have had a number of ideas such as:
The disappearance
White Scream
Red Van
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