FINAL OPENING SEQUENCE

QUESTION 7

This series of images have been taken from the Preliminary Task which we completed at the beginning of the year, we had to include a shot reverse shot, match on action and the 180 degree rule. While doing this Preliminary Task I found that the camera work in some parts were shaky and unstable, this is because I hadn't used the equitement in a while, and had become unfamiliar with it, therefore this resulted in it being unstable which leads onto the editing. When editing the footage, we noticed the unstable shots, and also shots where people had fallen out of character, we then thought that to get rid of these things, we should just cut them out and make the shots shorter. We also used editing to include the shot reverse shot, cutting these shots made the shot reverse shot stand out more and look more effective. The 180 degree rule comes in when we are both sitting at the table, this helped me to further develop as I wasn't familiar with this term before this task. Overall, after producing this task I then took these skills and developed them further so that I could include them when producing my own opening sequence.

After developing my skills in these areas, I then went on to produce my opening sequence with the other members in my group. We all tried to find different ways in which these skills could be included to make our opening sequence a stronger piece and to present the skills we are capable of. My editing definatly improved since then, as the editing of my opening sequence was more complex, using different things like photoshop to develop my skills further in my opening sequence as successful as possible. Things like shot reverse shot, match on action and the 180 degree rule all came easily to me after doing the task, therefore making it easier and more simple for me when constructing my opening sequence. I stated that I had to use PhotoShop, this is because of the titles which we wanted to include, we thought using this would convey the different skills each member of our group are capable of because each member took it in turns to make sure we could all develop our skills in that particular side of things. Overall, all of these different programs and skills have been used during the development of our opening sequence making it something we have presented our different skills with.

Audience Responce - Vox Pop

Directors Commentary about Opening Sequence

Here is my Directors Commentary of me explaining how my opening sequence targets my audience of 16-20 year olds, with all the different conventions in which we have included.

Questionnaire Results

Questionnaire Results

QUESTION 5

QUESTION 5- HOW DID YOU ATTRACT THE AUDIENCE?

QUESTION 6.

QUESTION 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

In the process of planning then creating our opening sequence, we had several different ways of conveying our planning, although we had to make certain our posts were supervisual to the viewer, therefore we could not just post a page full of text, we had to include some sort of visual material. I thought that would be challenging, but as I got to know all the different softwares available to me I began to find it interesting as I didn't know about various different things previously. Various different ways I carried out my planning for my blog was using different services which were available to me from the internet. Firstly, there was scibd, this is a site which allows you to insert a word document into your blog, and this was beneficial for more informative posts which required less visual and more statistic material. Whereas other site such as, go animate which allows you to create your own characters and basically you instruct them what to say, this type of website was made for me to include more visual and its more amusing for the viewer of my blog. The type of information I would mainly include in this kind of service could only be short and snappy, as I couldn’t include too much text into it. Lastly, there was the option of using screen-o-matic, this is basically, where it records what you are doing on the screen, therefore it gives the viewer the chance to view what you are talking about, it’s not as dull to look at and it’s defiantly more visual.

While filming and doing the editing for my opening sequence, I developed further skills in using the cameras and macs as I studied Media previously. While filming I discovered that I could use and hold the cameras more firmly and didn't need much help with handling the camera, whereas before I wouldn't of felt comfortable with filming someone helping me. Whereas with the editing side of things, I developed more skills with using the macs. I advanced with using programs such as PhotoShop, iMovie and Final Cut. These programs I had to use several times in the making of my opening sequence to bring all the pieces together. We used PhotoShop and Final Cut to make our titles look like they were being typed into the actual scene, we chose this sort of effect so that it would lin to our theme of technology and people would realise in the first couple of shots what the storyline would be based upon. I was not aware of this program before now, and I believe that I have certainly developed my skills in this field, I wasn’t intending on using this program but we was advised to use this as it would bring the effect that we wanted to our opening sequence, making it reflect more than just having basic titles. Before inserting our opening sequence into Final Cut we had to edit and cut in iMovie, to make sure everything looked perfect and that everything on the editing side reflected what our film was based about.

I think learning and developing these different processes helped me to construct the final product as it wouldn't include several things which make it as successful. For example, if I didn't use PhotoShop then I wouldn't have the titles which we specifically wanted to give it more of a technology feel, this required for us to use PhotoShop. Also other things like without the different sites on the internet I wouldn't be able to present my work in a super visual way, therefore wouldn't show my understanding of the different techniques available. 

Target Audience

QUESTION 3

First draft of evaluation

Question One:

After studying into different opening sequences I have become more informed into what needs to be included in an opening sequence. The several conventions that you are most expected to see are: establishing shots, a soundtrack, titles and logos, close-ups and slow paced editing. These conventions are commonly used to engage the audience into the important details involved in the opening sequence. For example, establishing shots allows the audience to observe  the surroundings of the characters and overall where the film will be mainly set. The establishing shot is also the key shot for the audience to gather information/clues about the film or what the plot is. In one of the opening sequences that I observed Wallander, at the very beginning of the opening sequence we see the whole of the setting and it's entire surroundings. This tells the audience where everything is and how there are only three people at the hillside which is fairly peculiar. The establishing shot in this opening sequence gives as massive clues and instantly makes the audience ask themselves questions. When planning our opening sequence we thought about ways we could make sure of engaging our audience as this is key. We thought of ideas such as, close-ups to not give away too much information, this will also keep the audience wondering about the answers that they wasn't given.



Pleasingly, our idea I feel worked because of the responce I recieved from my peers. But they also gave me areas which I will work on. The establishing shot that we included in our opening sequence  worked well because it shows a messy typical boy teenager's room, which is the idea we wanted to put across as our character is a very mysterious and weird teenager that doesn't come out of his room a lot, and we thought by showing the bedroom this message would easily be put across.

Our chosen genre: a Sci-fi Thriller clearly has it's own key conventions such as: technology as in every sci-fi film you see you will always see in some shap or form something to do with technology, fast paced music this was demonstrated in the research we done as we always found that there was always an upbeat sound in the background, close-ups were used to hide particular information, a code we saw was involved in most storylines which is something that we based our storyline about as it is a typical convention of a sci-fo thriller. For instance, in The Matrix, we saw a lot of the shots used in their opening sequence was showing most of some sort of code. The code being in the colour green which we saw a lot, so therefore we thought it would be a wise idea to include a lot of green, making it as much as a sci-fi thriller as possible. This has been used when showing several parts of the code we have which shows that part of the film is about hacking. Furthermore, in my opening sequence we tried to include as many close-ups as possible of objects and characters, this was to show details that you wouldn't take any notice of if the shot was further away giving the audience more information to think about and take in. All this being things that the opening sequence of The Matrix made me think about.

In my opening sequence at the beginning we wanted to build up a sort of suspence and tense mood for the audience, as the music starts off quite low key and slow. This would be engaging the audience creating a mood of confusion wondering what is going to happen. But as we get further into the opening sequence and the music starts to get a lot faster and up beat the mood starts to get a lot more relaxed as the audience become familiar with what the theme of the opening sequence is. We thought including these type of moods would be essential as after watching The Matrix, it created a mood which fitted the genre and how the audience should be feeling with what theme of film they are watching.

Question Two:

In my opening sequence, our main character is a teenage boy with a quite unique personality. We have clothes him in dark/black to show his personality of being very secret and dark, he likes to sit in his room on his computer most of the time making him a bit of a nerd and computer freak. As our character is wearing all black, it makes him look quite boring and plain like he doesn't care about what he looks like which tells the audience a lot about our character and portraying the right messages across. The character that we wanted to create was the typical nerd that stays at home all the time and knows everything about technology which in modern day is called a bit nerdy and saying he is not as popular as other people, especially with the way that he hides his personality making it difficult to understand and get familiar with him.

This is our script which as you can see is quite short, but it's basically showing us what the computer is saying to Ollie, we don't know who's saying this though because it is being sent from anonymous.

Animatic

The Matrix Analysis (Research of Opening Sequence)

This is my research of an Opening Sequence. We researched The matrix because it is a sci-fi thriller which is the theme of our Opening Sequence. By researching The Matrix we found out loads of things that they had included in their filming which we would like to think about using. 

Shooting Schedule

This is our shooting schedule, this is what we are going to use as our plan to finding days and times which everyone can make so we are all involved with the making of our sequence. We have made this shooting schedule because if we didn't then our group wouldn't be organized and we wouldn't know what we were doing. We need to know what we are doing so that we would be able to complete all our coursework in time.

Storyboards

These are our storyboards which we used to plan our ideas for the order of our sequence, we tried to include conventions that we thought worked well as a sci-fi thriller by including: low key lighting, dark settings, the colour green and different parts of technology. We also included information such as the editing cuts, how long the shot is going to be, and another box made for showing what dialogue or extra details may be involved.

Font

The fonts above are the type of writing we would like to take part in our opening sequence, as they look connected with computers and technology. The colour of the font we want to be is green as with all the research we done, we found out the colour that is most common is green and seems to be the signiture colour for sci-fi thriller. The fonts above also seem very sci-fi looking and is something that you could imagine when you think of the word hacking or technology.

This is an example of the type of colour we would like to use, this type of font is from the film that we researched upon called The Matrix. This a sci-fi thiller which is why we wanted to incorporate this type of font into our opening sequence to  make it a convention of sci-fi Thiller.

Character Profiles

17

Male

Personality: Intelligent, secretive 

Looks: Dark, black curley hair 

Occupation: Unemployed/at College

17

Male

Personality: Intelligent

Looks: Dark, brown straight hair  

Occupation: Unemployed/at College

Costume Ideas

This costume idea is of simple dark coloured jumper and jeans, mainly to conceal their identity, however it also emphasises their importance in society, the dark and dull colours indicate they may be reasonably insignificant. Furthermore, I think that the colour black for the costumes are used for the way it connects with the background and the location. The location is made to be gloomy and dark, this has been done by the low key lighting. The costumes and the lighting all connect to make it link and show the personality of the characters, the characters being secretive and deceiving. 

Music

 I would like this type of music because it makes you feel relaxed at first which is what I want the audience to feel at the beginning of the opening sequence when nothing important is really happening, they feel relaxed until they find out what problems are going to happen later on within the film. Also makes the characters first impressions look good because of the relaxing music, which is giving the audience a false impression as later on in the opening sequence we find out that they are far from innocent.

Plot Synopsis

Plot:

Two hackers stumble upon a secret file that they were not supposed to while they were communicating and hacking into a goverment database. With this new information found they have to go and try to hack in deeper and deeper into this database each level they go through of this database they come closer and closer to being detected having to keep moving in fear of being caught and tracked by the CIA they have to try to get in whilst making it to each other in the real world to stop this evil event from the government happening and to stop them from suppressing the public's privacy.

Props

This is an image of a desktop computer we would like to use for most of our shots, which will be the prop that's most commonly used, due to the fact that it's a sci-fi thriller and mainly based on hacking and technology. We want to also make the noises that the computer makes more of an ambient noise so that it makes it more nerve racking to the audience as they know something unexpected is about to happen.

This is an image of a keyboard from a computer, we want to use this prop for several shots as it links to the hacking idea. We also want to use it speed up the shot, to make it look like time is passing quickly and that they have very little to complete their mission, creating a sense of panic.

The use of the mouse hides the identity of the characters, as when we see the shots of the mouse we also view shots of just the characters hands, which makes it very unclear on what this person is like and who he/she is. We want several shots like this, showing parts of the characters, everything but their face so the audience are left wondering.

The use of headphones will be used when there is dialogue, while Liam and Ollie are on Skype talking to eachother about what they are planning, we still haven't seen their identities though, so we are hearing their voices before we have seen their faces.

I want some shots of the watch involved, of one of the characters looking down at it like they are nervous, i also want a close up of the watch, and then edit it with a faster pace so that it seems like time is rapidly getting faster.

Sound

This YouTube clip shows the sound that we want to include in our opening sequence as our piece based on technology and hacking so we need something to do with typing/keyboards.