Storyboards

Audience Questionaire

Name: Paul Chambers
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Favorite Type of Thriller: Psychological
Favorite Thriller Movie: Taken
What Do You Most Expect in a Thriller: For it to make me ask questions?

How Often Do You Watch Thriller Movies: 1/2 a week

Name: Ryan Jones
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Favorite Type of Thriller: Action
Favorite Thriller Movie: Se7en
What Do You Most Expect in a Thriller: Jumpy moments & eerie music

How Often Do You Watch Thriller Movies: 1 a week

Name: Jenny Burstow
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Favorite Type of Thriller: Basic
Favorite Thriller Movie: Paranormal Activity
What Do You Most Expect in a Thriller: It's got to make me think

How Often Do You Watch Thriller Movies: Once maybe twice a month

Name: Dan Harding
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Favorite Type of Thriller: Psychological
Favorite Thriller Movie: The Blair Witch Project
What Do You Most Expect in a Thriller: To scare me & make me ask questions?

How Often Do You Watch Thriller Movies: Couple a times a week

Name: Paula Carlisle
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Favorite Type of Thriller: Spy
Favorite Thriller Movie: The Bourne Identity
What Do You Most Expect in a Thriller: Action, high-tempo scenes

How Often Do You Watch Thriller Movies: 1/2 a week

Name: Lynn Chambers
Age: 42
Gender: Female
Favorite Type of Thriller: Supernatural
Favorite Thriller Movie: Taken
What Do You Most Expect in a Thriller: For it to make me think of bits it don't show me

How Often Do You Watch Thriller Movies: Once a month

Casting

There's only three members of us within our small group so we decided that there will only be three characters in our opening sequence to our Thriller movie. We planned the story-line and then wrote our the character descriptions, from there we decided who would play who. From the start I said that i didn't want a big role in the actual acting and i'd rather shoot the movie so i agreed to be the character who you don't see a lot of and is found dead (Scott). Now it was left down to Paul and Jacob to decide who played the other two characters and considering there both very similar characters and nothing separates them from each other in the opening sequence apart from their sense of humor. Paul took Norman, the slightly more serious guy who is the leader of the three pals. This left Jacob with Brandon; they guy who was the same as Norman just had a little bit more of a laugh and thought with his families wealth he'd be able to stroll through life.

So with people now given their characters and their roles etc. We individually started to plan costumes, props and whatever else our character would need.

Film Synopsis

After watching 3/4 different opening sequences of Thriller movies, then learning about the rest of the movie it showed us how good or how bad the opening sequence is of that specific movie/program.

Our film synopsis is as follows: There's a group of three boys. Two of them (Brandon & Norman) are the upper two main characters. Where as the other character (Scott) is always behind both of them two in anything that they do as a group. Brandon and Norman are a little bit better off than Scott - they both have a better house, have girlfriends, a fair bit of money and are lazy at home because they have both mum & dad. This effect's Scott because he doesn't have a girlfriend and these 2 are his only friends. He only lives with his mum so is constantly helping out and doesn't have much of a social life. Also he's not very wealthy. Scott thought escaping the bullies of his old school would solve all his problems although his new friends are always bragging about their fantastic lives, eventually Scott starts getting jealous & angry of his other two friends. The months go by and their still going on about how good their lives are and it's all bottling up inside Scott's head. He's started to lie to his friends about things when they start saying where they've been or where they going, he pretends to already of been there; he continually gets caught out. Although places turn to items in the group, with Norman's new i-Phone and Brandon's latest games console. There's no way Scott can lie about these because everyone sees his phone and the boys go round his house some days after school! So his version of something good isn't good enough for them and they laugh it off which makes Scott even more angry!! It's too much for the young lad, and whilst rummaging through his attic he finds a gun. Planning to turn on his friends and take the expensive possessions, Scott heads out to meet them as normal for school although on they way turning the gun on himself was never the plan. It happened, and it's up to Brandon and Norman to find out who did that. As they go through Scott's life and his background they start to patch things together and the end of the movie proves to be a shocking twist in things.

Character Descriptions

Scott (Tyler): Scott is the odd one out in the group, he is the sort of the tag-along kid. He's always behind on the latest news, never up to date with the latest pair of trainers and unlike many boys doesn't take an interest in football. He's a tall, white boy who wears scruffy clothes and doesn't have a lot of money. This shows up with the technology the three of them show off in the opening sequence.

Norman (Paul): Norman is the leader of the three boys. Although he's character and Brandon don't seem different, Norman sort of has the upper hand on things. He has the last say, the good ideas and is always the one to pipe up first! He's a flash kid, the newest shoes with the designer hoody and the best mobile, iPod, PSP etc money can buy. On top of this, he doesn't give Scott as much aggro as Brandon does.

Brandon (Jacob): Brandon is sort of the 'Malcolm in the Middle' type of character. He's better than Scott but not better than Norman. He's just as flash as Norman, with the same clothes and latest gadgets although there's something about him that holds him back from being on the same level as Norman within the group. He likes to get his kicks out of making fun out of Scott's disadvantages in life, although sometimes it back-fires.

None of the three characters have jobs, apart from Scott who sometimes helps out his dad if he needs help down the yard. There all high-school students in there last year of school preparing for their GCSE's. So as you can tell from the year group their all 16 years old, and from the names that they are all male characters.

Props & Costumes

Scott (Tyler)

- Creased Top

- Tracksuit Bottoms

- Dirty Trainers

- Rubbish Phone

Norman (Paul)

- Polo Shirt/Cardigan

- Jeans

- Trainers

- Jewelry

- Good Phone

Brandon (Jacob)

- Black Coat

- Jeans

- Clean, Polished Shoes

- Mobile Phone

- Money

- PSP

Other Props & Costumes

- Xbox 360 & TV

- Laptop

- Game-Boy Advance

- 1 Messy Bedroom

- 2 Clean, Technology Filled Bedrooms

Shot List

Shot 1: Pitch Black (Titles)

Shot 2: Flash-back (Mid-Shot)

Shot 3: Another Flash-back With Title

Shot 4: Pitch Black (Titles)

Shot 5: Close Up of Dead Person

This is a rough idea of how our shot list goes on, overall we have 25 shots. Within the other 20 shots we have camera angles such as:

• Panning
• Zoom
• Tracking
• Extreme Close Up
• Long Shot

These shots are used in scenes such as the final shot of the phone flashing with Paul's number (Extreme close up) and the three boys walking down the road (Tracking).

Initial Ideas

On Tuesday we were put into our practical coursework groups for our task of filming an opening sequence to a thriller movie. Miss Cunliffe was absent, so during our one lesson with Ms Lynch she put us into our three's and set us off on our task.

Within my group was Paul, Jacob & myself. We sat down straight away and started talking ideas about what genre to have? what would be the first shot? who played who? what the story-line was? After all these were decided we started to storyboard our idea and talk about shots that would be in black and white and what order they would go in, where the title sequence would come in, what font the credits would be in and all other small stuff but very important. We've now wrote a list of 25 camera shots and step-by-step guide to what happens, so were moving onto story-boarding fully with colour and description.

I was really impressed by the opening sequence of the thriller movie Brick that we had watched together in class. So when discussing with Jacob and Paul about our own opening sequence i wanted to take certain aspects of the title sequence/opening shots such as a lot of close ups for a body combined with eerie music. I wanted a common background which everyone can access like Brick so it's even more eerie that it happened there because of it's everyday use.

We finished planning and everyone liked my ideas of adapting a Brick like opening sequence with titles combined with a large number of close up shots which sticks to one of the the conventions of a thriller movie (making the audience ask questions).

Opening Sequence Conventions

These include:

• Insight into film
• Written or Pictorial info
• Clips or Viewing of character(s)
• Usually title of programme or film
• Clues about story-line/plot

All of the above help make a succesful title sequence for a film or movie !!

Wallender! (Fire Wall, BBC)

We usually watch opening sequences to Thiller movies in the run-up to the our assessment however today we watched an opening sequence to a BBC programme called Wallender. Although it still fits the opening conventions for a Thriller.

- It still had eerie/tension building music.
- It still made us ask questions about things happening.
- Costumes (Red) = Danger; Common in Thrillers.
- Used Hyperbolic sound to scare audience
- Used intriguing camera shots like P.O.V & Close Up to hide infomation.

All of the above are common in Thriller movies and their opening sequences; however their still imminant in a TV programme which is showing that this Thriller genre has coventions that can be wide-spread across the media board!

Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity is similar to Kiss Me Deadly and is an old style Thriller movie. Again unlike Memento and Wallander it's black and white and has a basic bed of music that creates tension. Throughout the whole opening sequence it's credits, which is unusual because it doesn't give any clues to the story-line and/or the characters involved. Although like a normal Thriller opening sequence it does use close-up camera shot when the shadow of someone is walking towards the camera filming; turning into an extreme close-up. The only clip we get of the movie is an establishing shot of a street and a rail-way station. The only other Thriller opening sequence movie convention this fits is that it's filmed during the night time.

Kiss Me Deadly

Kiss Me Deadly is a old Thriller film unlike Memento. It's filmed in all black and white, with camera shot's such as tracking and close up (girls feet running) which is usual for a Thriller opening sequence. Other conventions that fit the opening sequence for a Thriller that appear in Kiss Me Deadly is hyperbolic sound (increased sound on foot-prints), the sequence is filmed at night & tension building music in the first 30 seconds.

On the other hand, it doesn't compare to the new type thrillers like Memento! It has no flash-backs and doesn't really give us an insight into the story-line or even a clue to the plot.

Sixth Sense: Opening Sequence

One of the way that you can tell that Sixth Sense opening sequence belongs to the Thriller genre is that the whole sequence is filmed in darkness. This darkness plays a big part in the whole of the opening sequence because even when the light is on, it's dim so we still cant see the whole of the room, something could be lurking within the dark. Also the door down in the cellar is slightly ajar this could lead to us being uneased at what is in the room behind it.

Another key factor to us knowing that it is a Thriller opening sequence is the eerie/tension building music played in the opening credits of the movie. This is common within a Thriller because the music usually builds up to something happening that will shock and/or scare the audience. This like the whole darkness feature makes us eel very agitated and uneasy towards the movie.


One final thing that helps the Sixth Sense's opening sequence to be successful is the camera shots used. Mainly because we don't see the cellar in full view at any time, it is mainly close up of certain items or the female character. This is done to make us ask questions and feel nervous as to what is in the places that we can't see. Also it does creates a lot of suspense to what could happen next in the film.

Memento, (15)

Memento is a film rated 15 from the thriller genre that use’s the majority of conventions that’s associated with thriller open sequences. The four things that represent this most of sound, editing, mise-en-scene and cinematography. One more important element that a thriller film must do is make its audience ask questions by hiding key info.

Cinematography:

• Close up of weapons used, also of the crime scene involved in the opening sequence.
• The main shots used in opening sequence are close ups, this ensures it sticks to the thriller conventions and hides information.
• Although the main shots used are close-ups, also tracking and mid-shot are used to intrigue the audience to watch more do they don’t get bored but still don’t reveal a lot of info.

Sound:

• Eerie music builds tension in the titles.
• Throughout the opening sequence, bed of music entices audience. Although the music gives off a sad sense with its low tone.

Editing:

• Opening sequence is shown in reverse order. This is typical within thriller movies because they have complexed story lines to confuse their audience.
• Black out at the end makes us ask questions (Typical of thriller)

Mise-en-scene:

• Titled picture shows uncertainty, could relate to a unstable character and/or confusing storyline
• Red blood down wall, symbolizes danger for rest of movie.

What questions does the opening sequence make us ask?

• Who is the guy getting shot?
• Why Is he getting shot?
• Where is he getting shot?

Brick

Brick is a very successful opoening sequence that fits the thriller genre very well. This is becasue it uses some of the generic conventions that are associated with thrillers. Things like: Crime (Dead Women), Ask Questions (Why's she dead? How did she die?) & Eerie Music (Opening credits).

The most common shot used within the opening sequence of Brick is a close-up, this is becasue it leaves alot for the audience to think about & ask questions. Also, the directors hide the hide of the boy and girl which also makes us ask questions because she's dead and he's the only person with her int he opening sequence but he doesn't look concerned or upset.

What We Learned: New Task

In today's lesson we were given our new task by Miss Cunliffe. This was to film a opening sequence to a movie, then genre was our choice. Although in preovious years it has been a Thriller; so this lead miss Cunliffe to explain to us over the next 2 weeks wwere going to be watching opening clips of thiller movies. however if we choose to change the genre, that's our choice and we also must do alot of research into the genre ourself. So we started to discuss the generic conventions of a thiller movie and i was very confused myself because i thought thiller movies linked in with horror! for exmaple, Halloween, Saw 6 etc. I was very wrong. Thiller movies are actually movies like Taken & Phone Booth which have a slight bit of action, can involve murder but leaves the audence thinking and asking themselves alot of questions about the movie. I also learned in this lesson as well as the above that there are loads more conventions to Thiller movies such as Crime, Dark, Night-time, Police, Tension music, Sophistictaed & clever characters and many more.

Preliminary Task

WWW & EBI

WWW: The actual footage that we shot was of a very good standard, also it flowed very well after we had edited it. The conversation was kept to a minimum which i thought was good so hopefully the viewers of our final project would concentrate on the continuity editing more! Also i think the overall task went well for my group, we decided on ideas quickly and got the filming done ASAP which showed good team-work within the group; considering we weren't comfortable in the group it worked well. Finally another point that worked well within our group is the communication & understanding of ideas. For example, when we had set the story-line and task no-one argued against it or tried to change it and when ideas were added everyone agreed on them and worked together so they went well into the story.

EBI: If we had a bigger group and maybe a bit more of a developed task so that we could of been more creative with it and shown off more of our talents in say filming, acting or editing and also so the final product could of been a longer length. Another thing i feel that could of helped our group to have a better overall final product is if there full group was here all the time! It was annoying that there wasn't one day where the whole group was in so we could edit together and a variety of ideas or film again if needed. The final product is swayed towards James & mine ideas because the girls were absent during the task/editing.

The Editing Sequence..

With Jemma absent, James and me were left to edit the 5 minutes of action we had. After having difficulty loading it onto the Mac's we quickly starting deleting shots and sequences that we didnt need anymore. This only left us with 63 seconds of good footage. I found the Mac's difficult to use because we never really used them in GCSE Media so this was one of my first times using them, i honestly struggled.

So after alot of cutting, and even more concentration we started to get a rough plan of how long it was going to be, what order the shots were in and how to keep the editing smooth! Where James was more used to iMovie than me, he did most of the editing and i was watching and learning but by the end of it i had made a fair contribution to the final project. iMovie was a brand new program to me and i was completely clueless to it when James first opened it, although after a few lessons i now feel that i have an idea of how to use it.

I feel that we stuck to the rules very well and that our final project did flow. However Ms Lynch suggested some changes and then we did them fine (: That's when we thought we had finished and our video was ready to be uploaded to our blogs. Until in the next lesson Miss Cunliffe told us there was more to edit! After all the discussions, all the planning, shooting and editing we made a brave decision and went out and filmed from the start again..

The Filming!

We started filming in an Art room in the new Jubilee building becuase there was no-one in the classroom and we had a double Media lesson, however after shooting for one lesson the classroom was then going to be used so we had to start re-locating and shooting again!!

So after finding a free science room with a similar lay-out, we started to film our project again however we used the same corridor shots because again the doors to the science and art rooms were both similar. So although the location had changed nothing else really did, the props (my iPod Touch and a piece of paper pretending to be homework stayed the same) as-well as the type of shots. It was annoying having to change room because you can clearly tell that we have in our final product which is annoying because we don't have time to re-shoot.

Including all the aspects on continuity editing was complicated at times but in the end we got there! Shot reverse shot was simply used during the conversation and match on action during opening the door. However, eye line match was the hardest to use and after James gave me an explanation on it we successfully did shoot a shot using it that included Abbey talking. The 180 degree rule was every easy to stick to and we used that thorough-out our whole short clip.

So after shooting all the footage we thought we needed at a variety of different shots and angles (sticking to the rules of continuity editing at all times) we headed back to the editing suite to put it all together and make our final product complete!

The Planning Sequence

We were put into groups by Ms Lynch and then told to discuss each of our possible ideas and see which one best suited our group. Jemma and my ideas were quickly dismissed so we used James's idea for our short film. The original idea about an argument and then a knife being involved was scrapped immediately. After we had decided what idea we was going to use we started to talk about who should film, whats the storyline and other vital aspects.

After we had finally planned after several attempts at getting the story-line to flow and making it realistic, after agreeing where and when to shoot out project we left the classroom to start filming it. I was chosen to be the main camera-man. I found it quite hard to stick to the 180 degree rule in continuity editing however James knew a lot about it so having him in our group made it easier to adapt to and get it right because he knew what he was doing. This made our filming sequence short and successful because we did most it in one lesson because of not having to do many re-takes due to successful camera angles/shots that stuck to the 180 degree rule.

The Task Set

We had to shoot a short film using the common techinques on continuity editing. In this short film, we had to include someone opening a door then sitting down and having a conversation. This task was a preliminary task for AS Media Studies.

Continuity Editing: What Is It?

Continuity Editing is one of the main styles of editing used throughout Cinema & Television. The main point of continuity editing is so that you can’t tell discontinuity between shots of different angles. Four main points of continuity editing is Shot Reverse Shot, Match on Action, 180 Degrees Rule & Eyeline Match.

1. 180 Degree Rule: This is a basic rule of continuity editing; two characters in a scene should always have the same position (left/right). If this is broken by the camera crossing an imaginary axis, then it’s called a reverse angle.
2. Shot Reverse Shot: This is a common thing used in film. It’s where one character is show looking at another character, then that character is seen looking back or talking to the first character. With them in opposite directions, the audience assume there looking at each other.
3. Eyeline Match: Known as a popular editing technique Eyeline Match is based on the audience seeing the same as the on-screen character. Usually the character would be looking off-screen then there’s a cut to what he/she is looking at.
4. Match on Action: Match on Action is a useful technique that allows you to shoot the same piece of material but then put it together using different camera shots. For example, someone may be walking down a corridor and in one shot the cameras behind them and in the next its next to them. Although it’s switched shots, he’s still in the same place and doing the same movement.