Initial ideas for a new fiction film: Opening Sequence

1st Pitch:
My first idea as a title for an opening sequence is "Gone" this fiction film is a thriller with a twist. It's about a couple who have an argument and the girl runs off down a lane. I imagine it to start with a blank black screen with running footsteps and then you hear the girls scream and then it will switch to a scene with someone stamping on the phone. I then would like the scene to switch to the boy in a room in his house turning his head as the phone smashed like he had heard it and using the jaws effect. Then the scene would switch to him picking up the smashed phone and shouting the girls name. The camera will slowly go around the boy and increase in speed like a realisation of panick. Then he will call the police and start panicking and the script will be along the lines of "where is she? she's been taken you have to help me!" It will then cut to a scene where you see a shovel and loads of dirt which gives an idea that the girl has been murdered. Then it will cut to a scene where the girl goes to reach out at the boy and he wakes up sweating like it it was a dream. This is when the scene ends with the camera from pointing down tilting upwards to a man in a hoodie with a knife and the crushed phone in his hand down the lane where it will be all foggy the title "Gone" will appear. I plan to use an over voice of the boys voice as it will add tension aswell as with slow and scary music like a piano and violins which begins to increase in loudness getting closer to the end of the sequence. I would like to do this sequence out of school premises preferably.

This is how I imagine the ending to look with the title fading in "Gone". I will try to capture the lane in a foggy atmosphere as i think it would give an eerie look and with quite tensed music. The camera will tilt up from looking downwards to coming up as the music becomes more tensed.







2nd Pitch:
My other title sequence would be "the living graveyard" or I am thinking of calling it "Solidarity" I haven't decided which one i prefer. It begins with a couple walking through a church/graveyard to get to the park on the other side to meet with their friends however on their route they get stopped with a hand on the boys shoulder on the shoulder by the owner however he is not his usual self and as the camera moves from his feet to his face we can see that he is a zombie and tries to bite the boy however they both get away. What they don't realise is that more are surrounding them..and coming in closer.. do they fight to survive? or give in to their fears? this will be the cliffhanger at the ending of the opening sequence. I will have a script but only a little script as the actors will act like it is a normal night and eerie music. I would also like to use diegetic sounds such as breaking of branches as at one point i plan to near the beginning for the girl to hear the breaking of the branch and start to rush him out of the cemetery because she is scared. The title I plan to bring at the ending of the sequence on a blank black screen and you will hear the girls scream and the sounds of the zombie. This leaves a cliffhanger as then the audience will want to see the rest of the film.


The scene I plan to do the shooting of the pitch (if i decide to choose this one) will be in this area:



This is the exact place where i will be filming just an old painting of what it used to look like. This church/cemetery is nearby and open at all times so I could do the filming when necessary such as when I need to do filming at night it will be available. Also, the people I am thinking of using to play the zombies and the couple, live very close to the church as well so it would not be a problem for them to make their way to the church.



3rd pitch:

this is similar to how 
i would like it to finish
with the title fading in however 
it would be loads of petals
 floating down. 

My third pitch the title of the first sequence would be called "admired" a thriller about a girl who has a secret admirer however doesn't know who this admirer is which he is more of an admirer but more of a stalker and the scene will begin with her talking on the phone to her boyfriend about her parents being away for the weekend and how she can't wait to see him soon which means he is on his way over and we see a long shot of her going into the house and then a match on action of her opening the door to being in the house where we see from her point of view of the room. This then switches to a scene where you see a mans finger press play on a stereo which begins playing "every breathe you take" by the police but a remake of the version which i will record and put on a c.d. it will then go to back to the girl a medium/long shot of her and then a point of view shot of her following the rose petals and her shouting out thinking its her boyfriend. We then go back to the scene where he begins walking out of the house putting his hoodie up and shutting the door behind him. it then cuts back to the girl and her shouting out where have you gone she then finds a letter whilst following the roses saying go upstairs. she then goes upstairs and finds candles and more petals over her bed. she then goes to the window and outside the hooded man stands outside holding a sign saying "i love u" and she shouts out for her boyfriend and looks behind her then looks back out and he holds another sign up saying "he wont be coming" and she begins panicking he changes the board saying "me and u forever" she shuts the curtains and grabs her phone hides in the corner and tries to ring her boyfriend but it keeps going to voicemail she peeks out the window and the man has disappeared. she runs downstairs, locks the front door and goes to run to the back but there stands the stalker in the way where an enigma shot will be used but we never see his face which then it will cut to the title admirer with a floating petal. 


My inspirations for my films:


When creating my first intial idea the inspiration I had was from a lane that i live quite near by called "cotton lane" at night it is very eerie and throughout the lane there are odd cottages on their own and from hearing stories about girls walking down alleyways on their own and being serverly injured or mudered gave me the idea to create a film using this lane using a lot of build up of tension throughout where it will cut off not knowing whether she had been killed or not. This was an odd inspiration but the ideas I used mainly my imagination to bring it all together.

My second initial idea i used the inspiration of the zombie film "shaun of the dead" however it not being comical but the idea of everyone being dead except from this couple gave me an eerie thought. Also the image that i have put alongside my description of intial idea 2 is the actual place where i would film. also another inspiration was the music video "thriller" by michael jackson. Where all the zombies come out of the grave and follow the couple however the difference mine would be is that they wouldn't be coming out of the grave because it would be quite hard typically impossible to do so they would already be out of the grave and it would be left on a cliffhanger with the girls scream whether they made it alive out of the graveyard or not.


This is the music video "thriller" which gave me main inspiration for this idea.






My third initial idea inspiration was from a film called "prom night" which is based on a teacher who falls inlove with a student and starts stalking her and ends up becoming a muderer by killing her whole family. it inspired me to make a film about a stalker or a serial killer however i went with the idea of a stalker because it seemed to fit in with the title i had liked. Also a programme i watched called ghost whisperer had an episode about a stalker who somehow got into her house and made it into a romantic scene however not leaving her alone. These were all very good films and programmes that had given me ideas for my third idea.


This is the trailer of the film "Prom Night" which shows what the film is basically based around however if I am to go forward with this idea then i would keep the idea just in my house and not have anyone murdered as I will only use two actors (one as the girl and the other as the stalker.) as I would like it to end on a cliff hanger so noone knows what happens and wants to watch it furthermore.

Story board for Footloose Remake

Story board for Preliminary task

The story board consists of images of the shots we were planning to use in our preliminary task. We followed the shots quite well with very little changes as it would have made it very confusing. We added a few more shots with the two girls walking to the door and then them opening the door with a tilt. This just emphasized the film as it was another shot to use. 

Title sequence remake of footloose- Evaluation

Evaluation:


For this task we had to do a remake of an opening sequence Remaking the opening of "Footloose" was an experience which I thoroughly enjoyed and learned a lot from it. It was very time consuming however the finishing piece was really well made and was worth the time. My partner I worked with Debbie and I had a lot of things we had to take care of to make sure we got the filming as good as possible. We had to focus on Costumes, props, getting changed, finding the right people to work in the film and making sure they came to filming on time, make sure the filming was at right angles and it was all carried out professionally like it is our real piece. I had also learned how to cooperate with teamworkers which were debbie and one other Lauren as she appeared in one shot. This is each subject we focused on in more detail and what I learned from it all:


Filming
Costumes/Props:


Costumes was one of our most important aspects because the film uses over 24 pairs of shoes so we had to communicate with each other and bring as many shoes that would fit in with the filming progress. If forgetting one pair that we needed to use for filming would have jeopardize the whole filming as it would have taken a lot more time so we made sure we brought them all in for filming dates. We also had to get different clothing as some clothing required to go with a different sets of shoes. e.g. the mens shoes had to go with either a pair of jeans or black trousers. The film would not have made sense if we put the men shoes with a skirt so we also had to think of the different types of clothing.We didn't use any props for the filming so this wasn't something we had to worry about. I think we worked well together in bringing in the amount of shoes and clothing we could however if I could do this project again I would have rather done it one another's home as then I would not have worried about forgetting something. I enjoyed using the different costumes and shoes and thought it was an enjoyable project.


Getting changed:


From the amount of clothing and shoes we had, we had a lot of clothing to get changed into which was not a problem. this is because we done our filming in the photography room of the building in our school where no-one can see through the window so we had no worry of keep going to the toilets going to get changed and coming back because that would have taken more time and would have wasted valuable filming that could have been done. It only took between 2-3 minutes to change into the costumes and shoes so this did not take up much time to film.


Finding the right people to work in the film and making sure they came to filming on time: 


This was not a difficult position we were put in because there was two of us so we cooperated together and took in turns as we both had shoes that fitted us properly so we just took it in turns to perform with the shoes we brought in. However for one shoot we used Lauren a media studies student to because she had the right socks on for the day but she was availiable so it was fine and it did not take more than 3 shoots for her to get the right movements right. This was very simple and straightforward as we only relied on each other for nearly every shoot we were also always on time as we did the film during media lessons so we were partners in making this remake and were together so we had no worry of each other not being there. We both turned up to each lesson of filming and editing so we had no problem of making sure everything worked out.


Filmings on the right angles:


We filmed in the same angle and direction throughout the filming  where the camera sat under a few books to give it a bit of height and for the certain angle we wanted. We were trying to achieve a similar look as the remake however we did have to do the filming in different places so the background and the closeness the camera is, is slightly different. however we tried our best to keep it the same. Making this angle was not difficult as we did not have to change into other filming angles we only had to record in this one angle. Footloose is quite a simple remake when it comes to the angles however it is the timing of the music and the editing that made it most difficult.

Importance of acting skills:


Acting skills was very important during this production as we could not muck around because it would have made the production look flat and not professional. We did not have to worry about facial expressions because it only focused on the feet. We had to make sure that we understood the dance technique was almost the same as the actual make. Timing was very crucial and this could only be done if the dancing routines were perfect so this meant no messing around. I think we personally pulled it off well as we did not muck around and kept ourself under control. We also made sure we thoroughly knew the dance routines for them to only be taken in a 1/2 shots.


Value of patience:


Patience during this remake was needed because if a shot needed taking more than twice or one of us could not understand how to do a certain dance routine we had to take time out to help one another. I think Debbie and I had a lot of patience during the filming and helped each other out all the way through the filming which I think was the most important part of filming. This is because without cooperation and communication and having arguments could have caused many issues and the filming could have been produced very unprofessional.

Editing:


When editing I had learned a lot of new skills. From transferring all clips to the project,to cutting and unlinking unwanted sounds. It was very difficult to put together however very rewarding as I think we had made a very good remake of the opening sequence.

Film opening of footloose with comparison

Footloose-Final Opening

Lesson of 11/10/10

In this lesson Debbie and I focused on editing and putting together my opening scene of "footloose". We had finished filming the scenes however we had to import them onto the software of Premiere Pro. By doing this, we had to link the camera to the computer and capture the different scenes by pressing the recording button so it recorded the specific scene and we had to press stop for when each scene ended at the time we wanted it to. They then automatically went on the side of the premiere pro and we could drag them onto the part where we could edit and cut parts down for the only clips we needed. This was very simple as we knew where to cut the clips and whether it was in time with the music. We then had to add titles to the right clip and made sure that the effect used to fade out the titles on the clips were at the right time for the next clip to begin. The effect we used was additive dissolve. I enjoyed putting this clip together and think I have learned a lot with the different tools on Premiere Pro and how to use a camera and tripod properly. This has given me a good head start on my actual video piece that we start after the holidays.