Still needed...

We still need to do a lot more to our opening to make it good:

*soundtracks- we need another one

*effects- sound effects/camera filters

*fianlise the camera shots- finish clean cuts, add all the ones needed

*titles- we should use the "X's" we shot during shooting, and mould the titles around them to make them very effective

Where are we now?

So far on 23/10/08 we have reached the deadline for our rough cut of the "Thriller Opening". However it is far from finished; it is yet to include "titles", and clean cuts between edits.

But more importantly we have not included all of our shots taken from the shoot, so the ending of the rough cut is a bit too open ended right now, but will be included for the "final cut"...

Title List

These are the titles to be displayed over our thriller opening. They consist of the names of our group members, the title of our film, the name of our production company and some random names to pad out our title list.

*White River Productions

*Richard Balfour

*Jordan Moran

* Louis Byrd

* Directed by Nick Hipwell

* Edited by Paul Molloy

* Music by Jordan Moran

* Titles by Richard Balfour

Shooting Log

All in all we feel the shoot has gone successfully. We have captured some excellent shots, all the ones we planned on from the "Shot List". We did it in our planned amount of time and worked well together and we were able to use the woods as a great back drop to the whole sequence using more than we bargained for...

Shot list

Here are a list of shots that have been taken from the storyboard that we think will be excellent for our opener:

*panning shots- our runner will run across the camera and it will follow in a flowing motion

*point of view shots- from the eyes of the chaser or escapie...

*medium angle shots- shots showing the surrounding areas around haed/torso height...

*low angle shots- along the floor shots, so feet whilst running

*reaction shots- reactions to sounds or movements in the undergrowth

*chase shots- a view of the running character eith from a stationary position or following.

We think that these shots throughout the opening will create a good effect for the audience, and make it more interesting.

Props and costumes

As our opening sequence is trying to get the effect that it is just a normal day/ people, we don't think that costumes are nessacery for this.

Also we can use the natural surroundings for props or extra effects, like the shack we are shooting at the beginning is already there, and things like bridges and steps are all part of the woods already.

Location info.

We are going to use the wooded area just near my village of Gransden. We think that they are a perfect location for our idea, however we could've used the college wooded area, but we thought that it was too small, and we did not know of any others...
The only negative to these woods, is that Gransden is quite far away for half the group, and transport was hard to negotiate for some.

Call Sheets

We plan to shoot our opening sequence on October 12th. We will use the media lesson time to get to the woods, so arriving about 2:00, and shoot for as long as we need to, estimated about 2 hours...

Examples of Influence

there were many influences in our thriller opening. These include "The Blair witch project" even though it is a horror film. Other films are things like "Se7en", "Panic Room" and "Children of men"
we based ours in a wood like in Blair witch but did it in a less scary way taking care not to step into a horror by keeping some mystery and scenic shots.

Story Board

This is our story board for our thriller intro. Its consists of all our main shots that will be seen in the actually project. It is quite good, the drawings we feel give and adequate level of detail for other people to see our ideas clearly.

Storyboard- Version 2

After version 1 of the storyboard, it was only 6 or so slides in very rough sketches, I created a new one. So far it is about 15 slides long, however it's still sketchy but very legible. It is much more in depth compared to the other one and the slides are much more closer together, representing different camera angles, and more like the actual opening we will film.
Altogether I think it's very good, much better than the first, however still needs improving...

Music

The music was certainly a hard task to do. After a couple of lessons, a few people had tried and failed... So I created, using GarageBand, a soundtrack that believe compliments the ideas that we have for our opening. I played with many different sounds, effects and timing, but eventually the tune came "Flurry" a set piece that I have edited slightly to give a lot more effect and suspense...

Feedback

We pitched to the class our ideas for our thriller and they made some decent points about it like how it might be stepping into a horror slightly. They also wanted to know the reasons for the characters being in the wood in the first place. they also asked about the music which we hadn't made yet and some people thought it was too unclear.

From these points we are thinking of ways to keep the thriller conventions without stepping into horror too much although we will probably make it a thriller/Horror. We have also been thinking of motives for the characters being in he woods and we think we want to kept it unclear on whats happening so as to make the audience want to watch on and see what happens.

Real thriller Opening

i thought this opening seemed quite good with the panning of buildings and the titles that move with the shot. the shots taken didn't make it a thriller as it could be a romantic comedy but you can tell its a thriller because of the dark undertone of the soundtrack. it also shows the main characters towards the end and they are rushed and stressed setting the scene for a conventional thriller.

Thriller: Idea 1

Our idea is based on many different thrillers such as "The Blair Witch Project".
Location: Woods

Main story (brief):
*Straight into shot of Jordan running in despair from something...
*He takes shelter in what he thinks is the safe shack...
*Close up of Jordan's face/whole body huddled in the corner (quite dark)
*Straight cut to outside of the shack, after hearing crackles of sticks/twigs crunched underfoot...
* Screams from inside, and then static...
*CUT TO PRESENT TIME!
*Nick+Paul, close up somewhere, camera shot follows of a whole body shot in the woods...
*They see the shack, and with curiosity walk towards it. See blood in the shack, and hear more crunching underfoot...like last time.
*Extreme close ups, SCARED!

END!

Preliminary Task

This is our groups preliminary task, to demonstrate our continuity editing skills. I feel this video has gone very well, the shot are well executed and the sound is passable, our only flaw I see is the shot where Nick leaves the bathroom and Jordan enters, we moved the camera and couldn't get it back into the same position. If our main thriller project goes as well as this little task, I will be very pleased.

Goldfinger Opening

This is the opening from one of my favourite James Bond film, Goldfinger. The 3rd of the now 22 films. At first glance there isnt much of a variety of shots, mostly close ups of the body parts of the golden woman. But in the body parts are reflections of lots of different shots of all parts of the film and the actors who star in it. Now this effect now looks very dated but this was 1964. My favourite thing about the opening though is the song, its well good.

Negative (Student Thriller - 2007)

in terms of an opening to a thriller the camera angles were used very well, i particularly noticed the swift camera angle change when the girl dropped the earing. the music i thought was well picked and portrayed a thriller type mood. i did however think the music was very repetitive.

student Analysis Work

Hey, its Jordan and Richard. we are analyzing "Reckoning" a thriller opening by a group last year. We thought there was good use of colour and the scene with the overlapping filming was very good. it used many camera angles and we like the use of filming a t.v with some filming on it to represent the character watching the other character. As a criticism, we felt the music did not fit in very well with the serious tone of the video, as it was quite upbeat. Overall we think it was a satisfactory piece of work giving it a 47/60 for the video marks.

Derilium Tremens

I have been analysing the Student thriller "Derilium Tremens". I have noticed that they have used a good variety of camera angles, including a very good panning shot to open with. There is a good, what I believe to be a POV shot from the car boot. The setting works very well with the music, and the filters work especially well as they were very effective. I also thought that the title credits were very well embedded into the opening.

However, I was not totally gripped by it although at least I didn't know what had gone on as in some they tell you too much, which can be bad.