Musical Score Ideas

I thought that this sound of a crows cry could be interesting to put into our film because it gives a very lonely and isolated effect to the video and makes the audience ask plenty of questions about the characters locations and why they may be there. The one sound makes the clip feel very eerie also.



This sound clip could completely contrast the beginning of the film. It would make the audience feel almost confused because of the way it could vary the genre. The sound is quite happy and makes the audience feel as if they are around plenty of people but this would hugely contrast the events in the film and the situations the characters may be in.



The clip makes the audience feel uncomfortable and alone because of the lone wind sound. This is because it is very eerie to have no other sounds around when the sound is taken from outdoors. It is a very intense piece because of the simplistic sound that could be put with music or can simply stand alone.

Initial Ideas For Opening Sequence

- The graph shows we, who are creating the film, that our style of genre is not one of the most popular ones which could possibly mean a smaller target audience than, for example, an action or comedy film.

- The age range of people answering the questionnaire were mainly 10-17 year olds with 4/10 people being in that age range. This could show our film would be best to be rated either a 12 or 15 audience as they all seemed to enjoy thrillers even if they weren't their favourite genres.

synopsis of our Thriller

Beginning

A teenage girl of the age of about 16 was going to a party. She was dressed up in high heels, a dark short dress and a hand bag. Her paranoid dad (Robert) had warned her not to take the short cut to the party through the park, he said dangerous people hang around there. The girl ignores her dad and decides to meet her friend in the park, through Facebook chat, before heading to the party. As she heads to the park she notices shadows and other weird things. As she stands waiting for her friend, she gets out her phone and starts to text. Meanwhile a mysterious man in a suit starts to walk towards the girl. As the girl texts her friend 'where are you?' she replies 'what do you mean?' before she looks up and is suddenly kidnapped. 

Initial Ideas

Initial Ideas for our Thriller Opening Sequence on Prezi

I chose this photo because of the way the light is hitting the glass on the door and the way the branches and leaves from the tree outside are making shapes on the orange looking glass. This gives a very creepy and eerie sense to this house.

Although the photo is not clear, in my garden there is a walkway on the right side that leads up to a pond. At night there are certain parts of it lit up and the hundreds of spiderwebs reflect on the light giving a very eerie and ghostlike effect, its almost as if you are alone and there is nobody to help you if something happens.

This is a photo of rehearsals at Whitgift Boys High School. If this was in darker hours and the stage was empty, the grand hall is big, echos everywhere and pretty scary. This could be a good location for a ghost themed chase scene.

Blank Questionaire

(Tick the empty circles)
1. What gender are you?
o Male o Female

2. How old are you?
o 15 - 25 o 26 - 35 o 36 - 45 o 46 - 55 o 56+

3. What is your favourite film genre?
o Thriller o Horror o Romance o Comedy o Sci-fi o Family

4. Who is your favourite actor/actress?
______________________________

5. What would you want to find out in the beginning of a film?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________

6. What is your favourite thriller film?
___________________________________________

7. What would you want the main character to be like?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8. In the opening of a thriller film, what do you like to see/hear?

Cold, dark setting (dark and low-key lighting)
Close-ups (hide identity of character)
Fast editing
Symbolic imagery
Other: _____________________________________

North By Northwest

Coventions of a thriller opening sequence

Conventions of an Opening Sequence - Se7en

Music:
A loud noise at the beginning of the clip makes the audience feel tense. A slow ticking noise comes in making the audience feel as if time is going by for them and the character. The diegetic noise of the objects comes across to the audience. The volume of the music increases along with a strange noise that sounds like the scratching of a record. The non diegetic sounds seem to constantly come and go giving the audience a disconnection from the film.

Editing:
The beginning titles are on a black background making the film seem mysterious and the text is white. This could symbolise good and evil, innocent and guilty or simply a separation of races. The cuts begin to get faster and faster as the clip continues. The title of the film flashes and disappears quickly and the ‘7’ in the title makes the audience wonder whether the film is about a short space of time like 7 hours or minutes. Montage editing is used throughout. The fade shots also make the film feel ghostly and surreal.

Cinematography:
The lighting is dark and low key making the audience feel worried about what may come. The first shot we see is a big close up of the book. It then uses jumpcuts, giving the audience a sense of disconnection. Extreme close ups are used also.

Mise En Scene:
The book with hands shows, possibly like the title, a difference in races and looks very mysterious because of the single light on the book. All the props are threatening in the way that they are shot. As the clip increases, the props become more and more violent, for example it goes from a typewriter to what seems to be a bloody looking needle.

Conventions of an Opening Sequence

Bridget Jones

Bridget Jones:

Spiderwick Chronicles

Sixth Sense, Shayamalan, 1999, US.

SOUND
A majority of this clip is The sound gives off a very ghostly and creepy feel making the audience tense and freaked out getting us prepared for the thriller. The music is very classical and orchestral giving it a slightly older feel to go with the ghostly theme of the film. The music reaches a climax as the title comes onto the screen, the change in dynamics and pitch grab the audience into the story even more.

EDITING
The pace of all editing within this clip are slow and purposeful, again adding to the tense and chilling atmosphere already provided. The woman in the shot is tracked and a crane shots are also used. The usual zoom and cuts are used but again as slow and not noticeable.

CINEMATOGRAPHY
The first example is the big close up on the light bulb as it is turned on. Another example of creating tension through cinematography is when it feels like someone is watching her from behind the wine racks because of where the camera has been purposefully placed.

MISE EN SCENE
The first 2 minutes of the clip is just dedicated to the opening credits. The solid black background and silver text give a cold, harsh feeling to the film. This could possibly also relate to silver in general and the colour of a knife? The first part of the clip we see is a lightbulb slowly turning on and a pair of high heeled shoes walking down stairs which shows us this character is a woman. When we fully see her, she does not seem to fit into her gloomy and damp surroundings as she is dressed elegant and smartly. This tells us about her personality also and how she maybe an outsider as to where she is. This character seems to have a vulnerability about her as she gets the wine bottle, giving the audience an emotional connection with her. As she stands alone in the room, her shadow appears on the wall next to her, making us think theres someone in there watching her.

Wallander (Firewall, 7/12/08, BBC1)

Dark, slow chilling music gives threatening and tense feelings. A fade into dark water makes us feel like we're in a scary place.
Overhead panning and master shot filmed in a helicopter gives us a view of the surroundings which are desolate and deserted making us feel alone, iscolated and threatened. We see the car and people walking quickly away, this makes us instantly think that something bad has happened there.

We are cut to the back of 2 feminine heads. This keeps the audience as to guessing who these people are and what they have done. We track the two, as we assume, women down the road before cutting to inside the car.

We now see that this is a taxi because of the license in the front seat. However, this is and the windscreen are splattered in blood, making us assume he has been killed or injured.

One of the girls hair is black and red and she is wearing a leather jacket making her seem more authoritative and dangerous than the other girl. She seems to be the leader. We now see the girls faces which are both emotionless and plain but covered in blood making us realise they did have something to do with the murder.We are then given a sharp cut to one of the girls holding a bloody knife in her hand, we then see their faces for the first time. The girl in the leather is towards the front of the shot with the other girl behind again showing her strength and power over the other.

There is a cut to the taxi again and the bloody hand on the steering wheel. This gives us another indication he has in fact been brutally beaten or murdered.

It cuts to an extreme close up of the supposedly dead mans face which is completely battered and beaten. However, when his eye twitches, we realise all is not what is may seem and he is in fact alive.
It then shows us a keyring of the dead man and what we guess is his son. This could mean the girls had something to do with the son and plotted revenge this way.

The next shot is of a bloody knife in the main girls hand finally giving us the confirmation that both of them carried out the attack. She drops it suddenly, possibly getting rid of all evidence. As the titles come up, they are bright colours and wording, completely contrasting what we have just witnessed in the first few minutes of the TV programme. This maybe to confuse the audience or give off a different image for the entire programme that we have yet to see because of the short first section.

Brick Analysis

Brick
US, 2005, Johnson.

The opening sequence to the film ‘Brick’ leaves the audience asking many questions throughout. To begin with it is intriguing because of the soundtrack starting the film off with. It feels almost like a heartbeat alongside the main western music playing. The music reverberates leaving echoes and has a very thin texture with chimes give a ghostly, solemn feel to it. If you listen closely enough, there is also the sound of running water in the background, possibly giving clues to the audience as to where this is set. This is all played during the opening credits for the cast and crew. The first shot we as an audience see it the floor that then tracks upwards to a man, gender suggested by the masculine shoes and figure, crouching yet we cannot see his face, the audience ask questions like ‘who is he?’ ‘where is he?’. There is a cut to the mans face yet still not showing us fully what he looks like. A focus pull is used in this shot, finally revealing a majority of his face to us. The characters eyes are fixated on something, making us want to know what he is looking at. We then have a match on action and master shot, showing the sewer with the dead body of a girl lying face down in the water. The only light in the shot is at the top of the frame giving a dark and dingy feel to this clip. There is also juxtaposition used; the girl is in white with blonde hair showing innocence and giving the audience a feel that she does not belong there and so something must have happened to her, this makes us think about whether the man in the frame is evil because of the fact he is the only person around the dead body. ‘Did he kill her?’ ‘whats their relationship?’. The two characters positioning, however, suggests that they do not know eachother because of the distance between them, ‘do they know eachother?’ ‘why is he there?’. There is a fast cut of the mans face, making the audience ask many questions. It then cuts to her legs, showing her smart clothing suggesting she was a clever and neat person. There is a slow track into her legs that this is an eyeline match, suggesting that this is what the man in currently concentrating on. We then cut back to him and track towards him, giving the audience a closer, intense relationship with him. It shows shot reverse shot being used also. We cut back to her face but we are not able to see it properly because of the blonde hair covering it which also is bright in contrast to the rest of her surroundings again, showing innocence and the fact that she is so out of place. The haunting music continues to play as we track even further into the male character. We are then shown the girls arm and bright blue bracelets which take centre screen, again showing the contrast in colours. The shot cuts to the bracelets again but in brighter, cheerier surroundings. Her arm is now bright white in colour again and its completely different to previous shots. This shows the change in time, also because she seems to be moving we assume we are going back in time to see her alive. She is putting something in a locker which adds to the audiences questions – ‘what is it?’ ‘why is she putting that in there?’ ‘Where is she?’. However, because there is lockers in this shot, we think that it is a school. The title appears on a solid black background in bright white, this could go alongside with the contrast of the girls bright white clothes and the dirty sewage water. As the image fades, it could show how the girls life has faded and gone. It then goes back to the lockers showing ‘two days previous’. This shows us the track back in time. As the camera slowly pans to floor level, we see the same pair of legs as the mans at the sewers going towards the locker the girl was previously at showing that it was his locker and her note to him that falls out. A long shot and master shot shows he is alone as he reads the message. We are given an eyeline match as we see from the mans point of view what her note says allowing the audience to be involved in their story. We then have a slow cut showing the meeting address of the two characters.

http://youtu.be/lX8tMfXJugM

Momento Opening Sequence