Target Audience

Target Audience

When deciding on our target audience, we tried to create as detailed a profile of them as possible. Therefore, we considered not just what films they would enjoy but also their age, lifestyle and other interests.


As we had already done research into openings similar to the one we want to make, we knew that the films our target audience would most likely enjoy were psychological thrillers and critically acclaimed films such as 'Room', 'Silence of the Lambs', and 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'.

We also thought that they would watch similar, well known T.V. programmes with complex storylines such as 'Westworld', 'Luther' and 'Game of Thrones'.

We thought that it would be important to think about what music they would listen to, as music can often be used as a signifier of a genre. We decided that this would be popular yet meaningful music such as 'Green Day', 'Ed Sheeran' and 'Adele'.
From this we thought that our target audience would be 15-30 year olds of any gender and likely to be working or middle class.

The Vision

The Vision

Sound Palette:

Included in the video:

• muffled diegetic sound
• ringing
• man shouting
• gasping
• water splash

                                                                                                               Colour Palette:                                                                                                                                                                                                     We decided on a dark and murky colour palette with the the off-colours matching the off tone of our film.  The dark grey/ black is for the black water which the main character submerges into as the title appears.  The browns are for the woody colour of the bridge and for the actress' hair.  The greyish white colour is for the kitchen scene with the peach colour being for the actress' skin.  we then have an off white colour which represents the colouring of the tunnel in which the main character hides.  The two green colours represent grass and the river with the brighter green showing the grass and the murkier green the river.  Finally the two blue colours will be prevalent in the hospital scenes where the main character will wear a light blue hospital gown in side a hospital room which will have the featured dark blue.

Nine Frames:

When it comes to the nine frames, the focus of a majority of them is the main character with several examples of close-ups of her face, demonstrating the intertwining of the normal clips amongst more unsettling ones.  The credits that are incorporated into the opening are not going to be the focus but negative space will be utilised to incorporate them into the opening sequence.  Credits will be as unobtrusive as possible, using a minimal font that isn't too big.

Audience Expectations

'What would you expect from a drama Thriller film?'

Robin Fletcher- 17

              " I would expect a drama/thriller film to have a very muted colour pallet                 

and be quite dark in colour and in themes."

Sophia Hill- 26

      "I would expect a drama/thriller film to be quite slow but also intensely emotional, 
talking about quite difficult themes"

Anastasia Atkins- 22

"I think drama/thrillers should usually be about families,

family dynamic dramas"

Harriet Hale- 19

"I would expect it to be a film about emotional issues that are not usually dealt 

with, such has domestic abuse or suicide, which still has the ability to keep you on the 

edge of your seat"

Oliver Clark- 15

"Drama/thrillers are normally films with interesting, smart story lines but 
which are also very emotional about important issues"

Original Pitches and Final Idea

Our Original Pitches

Before we came up with our actual film opening idea we got together as a group and came up with two separate film opening ideas.  My group decided up front that we would create a thriller style opening and decided on one opening in which the protagonist was abducted and another POV piece in which the protagonist stalks someone around.  Once we had our two ideas we pitched them to the class, who gave us feedback, which helped influence the features which we kept and ditched for our final opening idea.

Idea 1:

Rough Storyboard of Idea 1

My groups first idea was to make a montage following a young girl through her day. We were going to edit it out of chronological order, including black screens to host our titles and repeating one particular long shot of the protagonist walking down a street.  The opening would begin on a very dark screen with diegetic engine sounds and scared breathing, this breathing would continue both diegetically and non-dietetically, throughout the montage acting as the pieces music, gradually growing faster and building tension, like in this scene from '2001 a Space Odyssey', 1968,  https://youtu.be/-3m-Zu3qgM4.  Parallel to this build in the tension of the sound the clips of the montage would be cut shorter and shorter until it becomes a high speed montage, before stopping to reveal the protagonist being abducted from the road she had previously been shown walking down.
   This opening idea would have a very light and happy tone with a warm, yellow toned, sepia effect colour pallet establishing a safe atmosphere which would be juxtaposed by the openings conclusion.  The montage section would document clips of the life of a normal suburban adolescent girl e.g. talking to her mother and laughing with her friends in school.
    Eventually we decided against the premise of an abduction deciding it could easily become cliche and we wanted to subvert stereotypes.  We also thought that the high speed montage of her and other characters may become difficult to film as it would involve a lot of different actors leaving our group highly vulnerable to bad acting.

Idea 2:

Rough Story board of idea 2 (part 1)

Our second film opening idea had the protagonist being followed/stalked by someone or something, with the sequence being shot in POV from the perspective of the stalker.   The stalkerish nature of the piece would be established from the outset of the opening with the protagonist being filmed, doing normal activities like reading or sitting on the sofa, from outside of their house, much like in the opening scene of 'Halloween', 1978,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELF1DCf1ChA.  The protagonist will move through their house to the front door and the camera will follow them around the outside. The camera will then, as the stalker, follow the protagonist down the road from behind a bush, before cutting to a train station.  The station scene would be filmed from the opposite platform documenting a character walking along the platform and

Rough Story board of idea 2 (part 2)

 bumping in to another of the films main characters.  At this point non-diegetic music would begin to play.  Then a train will drive past and as it goes the main character will have disappeared.  The camera will then cut to a close-up of a taxi door closing outside of the station with the taxi taking off and driving away into a long shot in which you can see someone looking out of the back window squinting as though they have noticed something.  The camera will then move into the street in the way of the car so it looks as though the car is going to run it over and just before it does the camera will whip pan backwards cutting to the shot of the protagonist walking down the street watching them turn around to look in the camera/stalker's direction after hearing the rustling of leaves.  The camera will then whip pan back to the car this time behind it watching it screech to a halt.  The credits will be integrated through out this sequence e.g. when the train goes past the film title could be revealed.

  We decided against this idea as it was a very complicated concept and narrative which may have been difficult to relay in 2 minutes. The sequence also required a lot of filming in public which is not easy to do and leaves your piece open to continuity errors and other such issues caused by a lack of control over the filming conditions.

Our Final Idea:

For our final idea we decided take from idea 1 and use a montage to set a pacing for the piece.  The opening will literally revolve around our protagonist with the camera circling around her in a mid shot becoming a motif for our piece.  As the camera circles around her the lighting and coloring will be bright and her surroundings will be calm and safe places like a park or her bedroom.  However, these happy moments will then be interjected by darker shots of her being hurt or hiding etc. revealing the darker themes of the film.  As the opening goes on these scarier scenes will become more and more frequent and it will become apparent that the girl is being abused by a man presumed to be her father and that this abuse has affected her mental state owing to the stark contrasts in the films opening montage. The idea of the girls fading mental health will be furthered by the sound of the piece, with the diegetic sound for the opening being muffled showing the audience her mental isolation isolation, and the camera work, with the circling motif giving the audience a sense of her entrapment within her own life.  The scene will finish as the camera spins round to her in a mental hospital, stopping on her face and zooming out into a long shot where you can see a doctor trying to talk to her, repeating her name.

Trip to the BFI

Trip to the BFI

On the 11th November 2016 we were fortunate enough to go and visit the, BFI south bank, in London. On our trip we attended the BFI's 'Making Film Openings' AS Media Study day.  Where we studied the macro and micro conventions of film openings before having a Q&A with Dexter Fletcher (director of Wild Bill, Sunshine on Leith and Eddie the Eagle).

Macro-Conventions in Film Openings

In order to look at the macro conventions of film openings we watched the opening scenes of three films; Napoleon Dynamite (2004), The Wedding Singer (1998) and Casino Royale (2006).  Looking at these openings as a group it became clear that film openings tend to prioritize elements like themes and atmosphere over narrative.  We made a table ranking the films in percentages for the categories; genre convention, narrative, character, themes and atmosphere; across the three openings I rated the importance of Genre at an average of 23.3%, narrative at 3.3%, character at 18.3%, themes at 30% and atmosphere at 26.6%.

The Napoleon Dynamic opening had a heavy emphasis on the genre and themes of the film, revealing very little about the films narrative.  The opening sequence of Napoleon Dynamite featured a lot of colour which, accompanied by upbeat music, set a happy tone for the film.  The sequences mise-en-scene was also indicative of the themes and character of the film, documenting high school ID cards, a series of plates of easily made family food and drawings of cartoon heroines, suggesting the films location, in suburban america, and it's protagonist, an nerdy teenage boy who is deemed to be a 'loser'.

The opening title sequence of The Wedding Singer immediately established that it was a romcom. The sequence opens at a wedding where cheesy diegetic music can be heard playing in the background.  You are also introduced to a lot of different characters who provide comedy for the scene with their drunken behavior.  This opening sequence does nothing to establish the narrative of the film other than revealing its genre and wedding singer protagonist but it does create a clear upbeat tone for the film.

Casino Royale's opening title sequence again established the films themes, through use of semiotics with guns, cards and blood being seen throughout the sequence.  This establishes a sense of danger within the film and alludes to the films themes of death and gambling.  The mise-en-scene also makes it obvious to the audience that this is an action film with the use of colours such as red and black adding to tension to the sequence.  The opening sequence of Casino Royale works to establish a sense of character, it shows a man in a tuxedo shooting and fighting other people.  Subverting the audiences normal views on murderers and having it appear like a respectable profession for the protagonist.

Micro-Conventions in Film Openings

To look into the micro-conventions for film openings we looked at the opening title sequences of four more films; Seven (1995), Raging Bull (1980), Oceans Eleven (1960) and My Best Friends Wedding (1997).   Continuity was a key feature of all of these with each observing a strict colour scheme and most using predominantly the same font.  In Raging bull continuity is so important that the entire sequence is of the same shot and My Best Friend's Wedding and oceans Eleven maintain the same colour background throughout.  Whilst some opening sequences like that of Oceans Eleven solely host the titles others, like seven, create negative space within their shots and put the titles there.  Negative space allows for more of the films narrative and character to be revealed however, with micro-conventions, like macro, these are noth the sequences most important features..

Dexter Fletcher

During the afternoon at the BFI there was a Q&A with Dexter Fletcher, the director of Wild Bill, Sunshine on Leith and Eddie the Eagle.  During the Q&A we watched the opening sequences of all three of his films and then he talked to us a bit about each one.  Fletcher told us how when he makes films he doesn't prioritise titles over narrative as we had seen earlier on in the day, but rather seeks to clearly establish the characters and story to the audience.  His first film Wild Bill was made like a western set in south east London and this was  clear from the start, preparing the audience for the conflict of the film.  His second film, Sunshine on Leith, was a musical set in Scotland about army veterans returning from war. Fletcher opened this film with the characters singing in an army tank clearly notifying the audience to the films musical nature and establishing a backstory for when the characters return home.  Fletcher's final film, Eddie the Eagle, opens with a sequence of a young boy with polio growing up determined to become an Olympic champion, this opening sequence was particularly concerned with establishing Eddie's character showcasing to the audience his unwavering determination.   Fletcher said that with each of these sequences just as he did the rest of the film, going back later on to find negative space within his shots in which to place his opening credits.

Film Openings - Mood Board

Film Openings-Mood Board

Before making our film openings our group had already decided to make a film of the thriller genre, because this is such a diverse genre I decided to research my three favourite elements of the genre and find two films to represent each.  The elements of thriller which I decided to research were action and thriller, physiological thriller and thriller and drama.  The films I decided to use to represent these categories were, Mad Max Fury Road, Skyfall, Inception, Silence of the Lambs, Taxi Driver and Room.  My thoughts on these opening sequences are in the presentation below.

Film Openings Research

Film Openings Research

In one of our recent lessons we watched a series of film openings looking for key similarities and differences in their structure and composition.  We watched the opening sequences of 'Trainspotting', 'Halloween' and 'Amelie' giving us a good sense of the differences in style between genres.  This work is to aid us in creating our own opening film, opening sequences as part of our course work.  We created visual maps documenting the mise-en-scene, camera work, editing and the progression of sound and tension throughout the scene.

Trainspotting

Genre: Drama/Crime

Director: Danny Boyle

Visual Map - Transporting opening

Notes: Transporting opens with a very brief establishing shot, setting out its urban location, this is very quickly interrupted by the protagonist running into shot and the scenes fast pace ensues.  The scene cross cuts between several shots each with their own different pacings building tension within the sequence. There is a voice over throughout the sequence interrupted only for loud diegetic noises this creates a tie between all the different shots aiding the tightened tension of the scene.  Trainspotting's opening scene concludes with the protagonist falling simultaneously between two of the aforementioned shots. This allows for an ease of tension before the drama of the film begins.

Halloween

Genre: Slasher/Thriller

Director: John Carpenter 

Visual Map - Halloween opening

Notes: The opening of 'Halloween' is filmed predominantly in point of view. Halloween opens with an establishing shot of the house before the protagonist, from whose point of view the scene is shot, moves around the house to get inside.  The majority of this sequence is filmed at a slow walking pace building tension for the audience.  The sequence is also filmed in very low lighting, building an heir of suspense, with light being used to create visual pulls illuminating elements such as the knife which is indicatory of the slasher genre. The tension is increased again when the protagonist puts on a balaclava limiting the audiences view to just two eye holes. The tension continues to increase as the protagonist violently stabs a naked teenage girl before being released as the protagonist exits the house and the point of view sequence ends revealing the young murderer.

Through out the scene the sound is used to reflect and build tension.  The scene opens with a very slow segment with predominantly diegetic noise interrupted only by a loud, non-diegetic chiming noise as the couple turn off an upstairs light this is followed by a high, screechy whistling noise to maintain the suspense created in this moment.  After a few seconds this high whistle is accompanied by some gradually lowering piano music casting a sense of foreboding across the scene.  The piano music dies down again leaving only the screeching whistle and diegetic noises for sound, an old clock begins to chime in the background again building the tension of the scene and another chime is heard as the sister comes into the protagonists vision.  As the protagonist begins to beat the sister loud non-diegetic horn noises are heard accompanied by the diegetic sound of stabbing. The piano music , accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing is heard as the protagonist leaves the house, creating another influx in tension which climaxes as the young murderer is revealed.

Amelie

Genre: Drama/Romance

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Visual Map - Amelie opening

Notes: Amelie opens with an establishing shot of a quaint french village accompanied by the non-diegetic sound of traditional french music and a french male voice-over. This still scene is interrupted by a car driving past before skipping to a scene of a hill top restaurant in the french countryside and another scene of a smartly dressed man in what looks like a Parisian office. This then goes to a conception, pregnancy and birth sequence before moving on the the films opening titles.  The opening titles are accompanied by piano music and heightened diegetic noise from some of the documented actions. The opening titles show a little girl performing traditional childhood activities like spinning a coin and blowing out a roll of ribbon giving a rustic, nostalgic and romantic sense to the scene. This romantic setting is furthered by the scene's colouring with it being highly saturated with a yellow haze present throughout.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task: Storyboard 

The Storyboard:

We begun our preliminary task by creating a story board. We drew our storyboards in as much detail as possible, splitting two pieces of A3 paper into six sections and making note of the action, sound, camera shot, editing and duration of each shot.

The durations of shots specified on our storyboard were not precise as we were unsure the timings necessary to fulfil the actions required but they were instead relative to one another ensuring that we could determine the pace of the piece.

Filming:

The process of filming our preliminary task was fairly smooth taking just over and hour for our group to film what we needed.  We filmed predominantly in chronological order with the only pieces filmed separately being the tracking shots through the classroom, filmed separately because the classroom was in use, and the ninth and twelfth shot, which we filmed at the same time with the camera on a tripod in the same place to emphasise the comedic nature of the characters' interaction.

The shot reverse shot section was again filmed out of order as we shot each person in one take moving the camera progressively closer to their face to maintain the angle from which we were filming.  This was then edited together to be a shot reverse shot, observing the 180 degree rule.  another issue encountered by our group during filming was filming the closeup tracking shots of the character's feet and face.  We did not have a camera dolly to help us move the camera with ease and after some consideration we concluded that the easiest was to get a steady result was simply to hold the camera manually.  Although the camera work in these shots is not perfect we were quite happy with the outcome as the unsteadiness did not interfere with the overall result too much.

Editing:

Editing was generally quite easy for our group as we had paid close attention to continuity errors whilst filming and it was therefore just a case of placing the shots in the correct order and ensuring that they matched up correctly with one another.  The hardest part of editing was the match on action shot as the character goes through the door form the corridor to the class room this was because we had to ensure that she was in exactly the same position from the previous shot to the next.  Another issue encountered was the swiftness with which the actors came out of character, this made some scenes appear quite stunted as we were forced to prematurely cut takes so as not t ruin the mood of the scene.  The sound was again fairly easy to edit as there was no dialogue in our piece however the visual editing of the scene did lead to some continuity issues with the sound which were corrected by looking through some of the unused footage, finding the sound needed. once we had finished the ambient sound we moved on to the non-diegetic music in the confrontation scene which we picked specially to build tension. To accompany this dramatic music we decided to add some animation to intensify the drama and emphasise the dramatic surprise ending.