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.