Film Openings

We looked at the following thriller openings to get ideas about how they are done to create an effect that puts an emotion or story out to the audience about the film, we also looked to see how the credits are shown at the beginning of a film and how they can be made to look effective and relate to the film:

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S__L_OQe6NE

These stills were taken from the opening of Bullitt. I quite liked this thriller, in the way that the music was quite effective as it played through the opening creating a mysterious setting but at the same time hinting to the viewer that it was a crime that was taking place as it almost sounds quite sneaky, almost representing the people that were sneaking around the building, although as it got the end of the opening, other noises, such as gun shots and breaking glass were played over the background sound, I don't think this worked as well as having no diegetic sound as it was before, I think at this point the background music should have been stopped, to create a more dramatic effect when the gun was shot and the glass broken. I like the way that the opening was played as the credits were coming up, the way that a story was being told to introduce the film to the viewer. I also like the way that the credits were bold and white so that they stand out from the images behind them and I also like the way that they came onto the screen from all different directions with different effects, how some moved across while others stayed, and how some more important names such as the main actor and the films name were made more prominent by being much larger and staying on the screen longer than others. I would like to use the idea of the titles moving on and off the shot in different ways for my thriller opening.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVkUPjclSow

These are stills from the opening of Vantage Point. I like how this opening has been made, with the images being in sections, not filling the whole screen. I also like the way that there is a small red dot, reading over the writing as it shows, giving the audience the idea that this film is about an assassination. The gold and black colours that have been used work well to create tension and a mysterious theme, the music in the background also works well to do this. Images shown in the sections are shots scanning an area which works well to hint to the audience that the film is about an assassination as though the person is scanning for the victim.



 Original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k55NuWQCh78

Remake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erWqDT2sfXY

These are stills from the remake of the movie: Mission impossible. The background music playing throughout this opening is very effective in the way that it gets the audience ready for the rest of the film, it creates drama and tension and gives the audience the idea (hints to them) that this film will be very fast paced and dramatic. I like the way that the music has been used to hint to the type of film that this will be, i will try to use this technique for my thriller opening.  In the original at the beginning of this opening a match is struck and a bomb is lit, the flame followers the string as though moving closer towards the bomb, while this is happening different images flash onto and off of the shot, in the remade version, this still happens although the images are quicker to give it a more fast paced action packed feel, and instead of having the flame following the string along the bottom through the whole of the opening it just has quick images of it flash amongst the others, I like the way that this has been done although i don't think it will work for a thriller opening. At the end of the opening the bombs goes off, i like the way that it has ended so suddenly, this technique will be used in my thriller opening- when the man opens his eyes it will cut to a black screen and the title will appear.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqzNySOLESQ&feature=fvst

This is the opening for the film Seven. In this opening the titles and names of people are in a weird, curved font that looks handwritten rather than blocked this works well as it relates to the theme of the film, it add tension and creates mystery. The images shown in this opening are of someone looking over documents, highlighting and circling sections of them, this creates a lot of tension and mystery as the viewer doesn't know what he is doing or why he is doing this, the person face is also never shown which also creates mystery and tension for the viewer, as they want to find out who this man is. The mis-en-scene is dark and gloomy, which makes the shots quite mysterious and creepy.



Location

These are some shots that we have taken of our location, (Sempringham Abbey). We took these images when we visited our location, to get an idea of the area, where we could shoot from, what angles would work and also to see whether this area would work for our thriller opening.

Sound Effects

Some of the sound effects that we will be using for our thriller opening are:

• Heartbeats- for when the man is in the church and begins to hear the footsteps
• Heavy Breathing- for when the man is running
• Heavy Footsteps
• Slamming Doors
• Emphasis of the tear falling onto the photo
• Mysterious background music

Health, Safety and Behaviour

In order to make sure that everyone is safe during the filming of our thriller opening we will make sure that:

• Everyone has each others numbers and their phones on them so that if someone gets lost or hurt they can easily call for help.
• Everyone is calm and is acting responsibly so that no one gets hurt.
• Everyone is dressed in relation to the weather, wearing sensible footwear and clothing so that they don't slip, fall or become ill.
• No one acts stupidly, running in front of cars/ climbing buildings ect.. so that they are safe.
• Everyone knows how to work the equiptment, so that nothing gets broken and no one damages or hurts themselves with the equiptment.

We will also make sure seeing as we are in an area open to the public that everyone involved in the thriller opening is not disrupting anyone in the area, or the local people. We will also make sure that when around the church and the church yard filming that everyone is acting responsibly and respectfully.

StoryBoard

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Transition- Jump Cut



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Transition- Fade to Black



3

Transition- Jump Cut

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Transition- Jump Cut

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Transition- Fade to Black

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Transition- Zoom to Black

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Transition- Tracking Shot

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Transition- Tracking Shot, Following the man through the church until he falls to his knees

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Transition- Tracking shot, following the man's hand reaching into his pocket

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Transition- Tracking shot, following the man taking the photo out of his pocket and holding it

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Transition- Fade to Black



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Transition- Zoom in



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Transition- Tracking shot, following the tear rolling down the cheek and hitting the photo, also a dissolve/ripple/fade into the flashback

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Transition- Fade to Black- to show the memory disappearing

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Transition- Zoom in

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Transition- Jump cut to Black

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1)     This shot is an establishing shot of the church, to show the location we are filming in (Sempringham Abbey) to the audience and set the scene and time.

2)     This shot will show the main character running past the camera, it will be a side shot, and will be an extreme close up of the characters feet.

3)     This shot will show the main character running away from the camera towards the church, it will be a mid shot so some of the church and the gravestones can also be seen.

4)     This shot will be a jump cut from the man running to the statues and graves around the church, this shot will be repeated a number of times through the opening with different objects.

5)     This shot will be from the main characters point of view, the camera will be hand held to try and make the audience feel as though they are the character. The shot will be the character running through the graveyard towards the church.

6)     This shot will be a mid/long shot showing the character running up and opening the church doors.

7)     This shot will be a long shot, through the trees watching the man running into the church from a distance, to give the idea that someone is watching him enter the church and so will add a sense of mystery to the scene.

8)     This shot will be an extreme close up of the man opening the doors and bursting into the church.

9)     This shot will also be a hand held shot of the man running through the church, from his point of view, to show what he sees as he is moving towards the altar. During this shot we will have jump cuts to the stain glass windows and other features around the church to add drama and tension.

10) This shot will show the man crashing/falling to his knees and beginning to pray, this shot will be a high angle shot. In this shot we will also have an extreme close up of the man holding a cross on a chain in his hands or rosary beads as he prays.

11)  We will then have a close up, tracking shot of the man reaching into his pocket and pulling out a photograph.

12)  The next shot will be a close up of the man holding the photo, the actually image will be blurred to create mystery and tension. The characters hand will be shaking to put across emotion in the shot.

13)  This shot will be an extreme close up of the man closing his eyes as if in pain at the memory.

14)  We will then have an extreme close up, tracking shot of a tear rolling down the man’s cheek and hitting the photo.

15)  As the tear hits the photo it will become clear to the audience, then a flashback will start of a girl smiling and laughing.

16)  The shot will then show the man back in the church sitting with his eyes close remembering, this will be an extreme close up of the mans face. In the background of this shot footsteps will begin to be heard.

17)  As the character hears the footsteps we will get an extreme close up of his eyes opening, to show his reaction.

18)  The shot will then cut to black and the title will appear fading slowly from the black.

Shot List

Shot List

• The first shot will be an establishing shot of the Church and the area surrounding it to give the audience as sense of place in black and white.
• Next the shot will cut to a man running through the graveyard/over the field.
• The shot will then pan out to the mid shot of the man running, from the behind or from the front.
• As the man is running we will have jump cuts to shots of the gravestones/statues at the church.
• We will then have a hand held, point of view shot of the man running to show what he can see as hes running and put the audience into his place.
• After this we will  have an extreme close up of the man shoving the door open.
• Then will we show shot from the trees showing the man run into the church as though someone is watching him.
• We will then have a shot( extreme close up) of the door closing behind the man which will then pan out to show the whole door.
• There will be a mid shot of the man running through the Church up to the altar.
• Then in slow motion we will show the man crashing to his knees.
• We will then have a high angle shot of the man to show his vulnerability.
• We will then have a tracking shot- following the mans hand as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a photograph.
• The next shot will be an extreme close up of the mans hand shaking as he holds the photo, in this shot the photo will be blurred slightly so it can't be seen by the audience.
• There will then be a close up of the mans face.
• Then a tracking shot, following a tear roll down his cheek and hitting the photo.
• There will be an extreme close up of the tear hitting the photo- which at this point will then become clear so the audience can see what the photograph is.
• The shot will then fade/dissolve to black and a flashback of the photo will be shown.
• The flash back will be a shot of a woman laughing, running through a field- a happy memory.
• The shot will then fade/dissolve out of the memory/flashback and into the present.
• There will then be an extreme close up of the mans eyes closed as he remembers the memory- at this time footsteps will be heard, getting closer and closer.
• Extreme close up of the eyes opening as he hears the footsteps.
• As the eyes open the shot cuts to black and the title will fade from black onto the screen.

Location

The location that our thriller will be set in, will be at Sempringham Abbey, seen in the pictures below, we have chosen this location as we think it will be perfect for a thriller setting due to its isolation. It is a long way from the road, so we won't have the sound of cars in the background, and it is quite far out into the countryside so there won't be any people or houses in the shots. Also we can make it appear quite mysterious with the colours and shots that we use and get.

As well as being a good location due to the isolation of the church it also is a good location because of the extra features that the church offers, like the statues carved into it, this will be usefull for the shots of the man running, as short jump cuts back and forth from the statues to him running as if he is being watched. The stainglass windows in the chruch and the crosses, will also usefull as we can use them to have jump cuts back and forth to create tension by giving the audience a dramatic look into the location and giving it a darker and more menacing sense.

History

The story begins around 1082, like a fairy tale, when Sir Jocelin, a wealthy Norman knight, besotted with a beautiful village maiden from the Saxon village of Sempringham, married her. While pregnant with her first child she dreamed that, before he was born, the moon came down and settled in her lap, a sign of her child’s coming greatness. But the fairy tale almost ended in 1083 when their son, Gilbert, was born crippled. A future in the church seemed the likeliest place for such a child, and Gilbert’s parents sent him to France to be educated as a clerk in holy orders. According to the records of the time, Gilbert developed a goodness of heart and character and soon distinguished himself as a scholar.

Gilbert returned from France to Sempringham in 1115 and taught the children on his father’s estate, then spent nine years as clerk to the Bishop of Lincoln. He was ordained as a priest in 1129 and returned to serve in Sempringham’s church. Two years later, when his father died, he used his inheritance to start The Order of Sempringham, recruiting seven nuns. Over the next few years most of the inhabitants of the Saxon village joined the Order leaving an almost deserted village behind them. Thus its decline began.

Eighty years later Sempringham’s other famous resident, Gwenllian, the last Welsh princess, was imprisoned here by Edward I, king of England, who was determined to break the back of Welsh national resistance and remove any rallying point for them. After killing Gwenllian’s father, Llewelyn ap Gruffydd, Prince of Wales, in a battle, he spirited baby Gwenllian away to Sempringham where she was kept prisoner at the Abbey. Buried on the Abbey grounds in 1137, her grave, too, is lost in history’s shifting sands.

Our Thriller Opening Idea

From all the research and different ideas we have looked out and the feedback we have received we have decided that our thriller opening will be based mainly on idea one, but will have aspects of idea two in it, like the use of a photograph and a flashback to show the characters recollection of the story behind the photograph and we will use the idea of getting a shot of a tear rolling down the mans cheek, and hitting the photograph. But like idea one, it will be set in a church and the area around it, and will have the man running, shots of the gravestones and statues and most of the other features of the first main idea. But we will also add in some shots of the objects in the church such as the stain glass windows and the crucifix, as flashes between the shots to add a different and more tension building effect.

Thriller Opening Idea 3

The scene will be set down a dark alley way, a male figure is lent on the wall on foot on the wall he looks very dark and mysterious he is just about to leave when another man joins him, the first male begins to get quite nervous and does not make eye contact with the other male. The conversation is minimal. The shots we would like to use in the meeting of these two characters are mid shots and also close ups. The male figure that arrived last  wants some information from the other male, however the first male does not say anything and turns away, we then get a over the shoulder shot from the second mans point of view he then pulls out a gun and says to the man ‘turn around and tell me what I need to know or i'll shot’ we will get a reaction shot from the man that has turned away and then a close up of his face, the man says nothing but he has a smirk on his face. The screen then will go black and the title will appear.

Thriller Opening Idea 2

 To set the scene we have had the idea of an establishing shot of a derelict house, then in the shadows we will see a man sat slumped up against a wall, the man is mysterious and the audience do not know what he has done wrong if anything. A gun is on the floor beside him, has he used it the audience does not know, the man looks all battered and beaten, in his shaky hand he is holding a photo (family photo or a memory) the man begins to cry a tear rolls down his cheek and we get a close up of his eyes. As he cries we flash back what the picture is about, it is a happy memory then we flash back to him he rips the photo up and lights a match we get an extreme close up of the flame and then we see the man get up pick up the gun and walk away, we get a long shot of the man walking away from the house. And then the camera explores the house as the title appears on screen. We will use one main character because from our questionnaire results the audience prefer one main character, we will also use quite and tense music because from our questionnaire this is peoples preferred choice of music at the start of a thriller. This thriller will be in black and white because of the results shown from our questionnaire results. We would like the setting to be mysterious.

Thriller Opening Idea 1

Our first thriller opening idea is set in a church and churchyard. It will be in black and white and will have some quite, eerie music playing in the background, to create tension as we found through our questionnaire results that this is what people prefer at the beginning of a thriller. This idea will also use just one main character as this from our research we found is what most viewers before, and it will also help the viewer to connect more with the main character before the film begins and gets into depth. This idea is a Religious Thriller, and will be quite mysterious in the way that it gives nothing away to the viewer, that will give away what has happened or what’s going to happen, we have chosen to do it this was as when we sent out our questionnaire we found that most people prefer the beginning of a thriller to be mysterious rather than it giving away everything about the story. The scene will start off with an establishing shot of the church and churchyard, and will show time passing by showing the clouds moving across the sky, this will create some tension and the suspense builds for the scene to begin. The shot will then cut to a mid/long shot of a man running through the graveyard into the church, as he runs the shot will jump to the gravestones or statues in the graveyard to give the idea that he is being watched, even judged. The man will then burst into the church and crash down onto his hands and knees, holding some prayer beads and almost begging for forgiveness. This will create mystery and tension as the audience will still not know why he is doing any of this. As he is doing this, footsteps will begin to be heard quietly in the background then slowly getting louder, they will then stop, and the man will abruptly open his yes and look at the camera to create a very dramatic effect. As his eyes open the shot will turn to black and the title of the film will show up. The scene will then end.

This idea relates to the conventions of the thriller genre as tension and mystery is created, the music used will be very conventional of a thriller genre. It will also have dark scenery and a main event at the beginning that will introduce the main characters, and will keep the audience on the edge of their seats due to the fact that the main story line is not revealed.

Thriller Opening Powerpoint

We like the idea of having shots that show a lot of emotion, and having shots that create a lot of tension and so plan to use a lot of extreme close ups and close ups. We also from our research can see that more people prefer older thrillers and so like the idea of editing the shots so that they are in black and white. We are also planning on having establishing shots of landscapes, that shows time passing by having the clouds moving over the top of them and we also like the way that certain objects can be made clearer in the shots by blurring the background and think that this would be a good technique to use to draw attention to key features, such as a person or a gun. We also like the way that an emotion can be created by having an extreme close up of someone’s eye to show anger, or panic.

We decided that the location of our thriller opening needed to be mysterious and eerie and so we have looked at places such as churches, old abandoned houses/sheds, alleyways and graveyards, we decided to have this sort of setting due to the research and feedback that we received after giving out our questionnaire, we found that this is the effect that most people like created by a thriller opening.

We are planning on setting our thriller in the 1960’s due to some of our research results and so have planned our costume ideas around this time period, a lot of suits, dresses, and hats, umbrellas and scarves.  We chose this time period as well because we like the idea of having the main male characters in suits as it makes a scene more interesting and mysterious if it is out of a business context, and also will contrast the idea of someone running away, or being in trouble as you generally represent people in suits as businesses men, classy and upstanding. We also this that these types of clothes relate well to older thriller movies and will work better with the older, black and white effects.

The props we will use will be related to the thriller genre, such as guns, the bible, photographs, but will also relate to the time era we would like to set out thriller in, props such as umbrellas, scarves, hats and pocket watches.

Questionnaire Results

We gave out 30 questionnaires to a group of different people to get some feedback on thrillers and what people look for in then, we found that most 15-17 year olds as well as people ages 18+ watch and enjoy thrillers and so 15 is the age classification that we will use for our thriller as it will be watched and enjoyed by a large number of people. We also found from our questionnaires that crime, psychological and religious thrillers are some of the most popular and so the thriller ideas that we have thought of are based around these three thriller sub genres. We also found from our results that more people preferred having just one main character and that they preferred old fashioned thrillers compared to newer thrillers and so our ideas have taken into account these two results, by not having too many characters and editing the scene so that it is black and white to give it an older look, and also by using less high tech equipment to make sure that it doesn’t look out of place in the time period that it is set in.

We can also see from our results that at the beginning of a thriller more people prefer mystery than a crime or action and so each of our ideas have been made so that the viewer does not know much about the story behind what is happening in the scene, to make it mysterious and to create tension. We also found out that in the opening of a thriller people prefer quiet tense music compared to bold and dramatic music, and so this will be the style of music that we use in our opening to make it creepy and tense.