The first two shots beside eachother will be shown to the audience as seperate shots both showing half of his body (face not shown). This is to show his 'normal' side and his 'dark' side coming or merging together as one person as shown in the shot below the first two shots.
This is one example similiar to what we intend to show in our opening sequence, here it shows two sides, light and dark. This can be adapted in our opening sequence showing the 'light' side and the 'dark' side of the serial killer.
Another example of a split screen looking almost exactly the same, again one side is brighter than the other - can be used showing two sides of serial killer and how they merge or come together as one person.
>> This is how the character (serial killer) will be introduced in our opening sequence at first he will be blurred and will only show his body and not his face. It makes the character seem disorientated to the audience and because it does not show his face and is at a slightly low angle, it makes the audience feel small as they are not at eye-level with the character.
>> Then the camera becomes focused and clear so audience can see what the character (serial killer) is wearing, however, his full identity is still not shown at this point.
My groups cinematographer, Amna, has told me that she has created a scrapbook which will be used for our opening sequence project. This means that the last prop that the group needs to aqquire for our project are some black pencils.
As a group, we have all discussed and confirmed that the filming of this project will be done on Saturday this week, the 2nd of March. This gives us the whole day to film our opening sequence, which is much more beneficial than filming one day after college as we are on a time restriction with a weekday.
Amna, the cinematographer of my group, has rung Travelodge in Stratford and she has confirmed that we are going to be allowed to film our openoing sequence there. She has also said that she will be going there tonight to enquire about booking a room so that we have the room available for our use when we need it.
This will need to be completed fairly soon as we need to film our opening sequence as soon as we can, but before I can do produce the production recce, as I am the producer so it is my responsibility, I will need to talk to the rest of my group so everyone is available on the days that they are needed.
As producer of my group, it is my responsibility to acquire the specific props needed for our opening sequence. So far I have acquired a briefcase, a small radio, some fake blood and some coloured pencils. The last thing I need for our opening sequence is a scrapbook. This shall be very easy to get my hands on.
This is the storyboard that has been created by my group for our opening sequence. This is very important in order to actually create our opening sequence.
This is the video my gorup have produced regarding our audience research. We asked different individuals different questions so the results weren't bias. This means that the results all weren't from one individual so the answers that we received were going to be different as we had many different opinions regarding the same topic.
In our sequence it will start off with an establishing shot of Straftford from an apartment/hotel view (if possible) to set the location. Then the main character, serial killer (antagonist) will enter from a door where he will be filmed just standing there for afew seconds in a suit looking fairly 'normal' with a briefcase. Then the camera will pan with the character to a chair and table where he is seated just staring outside the window looking at the view. Next, he will put his briefcase on the table to get out his scrapbook which he lays on the table along with colouring pencils which he orders by darkest to lightest to represent his 'OCD' to audience. He switches on the radio, at the side of his table, and classical music is heard, he starts drawing an image calmly
Throughout the sequence we will see transitions of his 'two' sides starting with his 'normal' side then flicking between his 'other' side, i.e him drawing calmly as if its his hobbie to classical music, then the sequence will flick to his dark side which will be edited to look grey in colour, this will show him drawing roughly in his scrapbook with blood dripping of his now black pencils. Then it will flick back to his 'normal' state where we will see him drawing calmly how he was before the transition. This will be repeated throughout the sequence but each time his 'dark' side becomes increasingly worse and his character becomes clearer to the audience. It will include him doing different actions each time i.e the audience will see pictures of a girl 'before' which was when she was happy and smiling in the photo then next to it they will see the same girl in a different state where she is blindfolded and crying. The anagonist will stick these pictures of the same girl (as a split screen) next to eachother as the audience see him in both his 'normal' state where he will be sticking the photo of the 'happy' girl on the wall and at the same time will be sticking the photo of the blindfolded and crying girl on the wall in his 'psychotic' state. Therefore audience will see his 'two' sides next to eachother.
As a group, myself, Paul and Amna have decided that we should call our opening sequence Berserk. Using a title such as this gives the audience a slight insight to the film. This will intrege the audience to watch on as it doesn't give the whole film away, but it does give a little taster of what it will be about.
This title fits well with our film genre, which is Psychological Thriller, as Berserk can be interpretted as angry, strange, not normal, a hidden side of someone/something i.e. a murderer/serial killer.
This is the opening sequence for the psychological thiller 'Se7en'. As my group and I will be creating the opening sequence of psychological thriller, this analysis could help me and my group implement our ideas with ideas we get from this clip oin order to get a good opening sequence.
This clip begins with a shot of an open book, in front of the camera, which is the main focus of the shot. Also in the shot, you can see the page turn and then a hand emerge from the right hand side of the screen. The hand is slightly blurred as the main focus of the shot is the book, which can also imply that the character wishes to keep their identity a mystery. This is a common concept of the psycho-thriller genre. There is also a soundtrack being player throughout this clip. The soundtrack is very startling, which could be a tool used to get the audience's attention. The first opening credit is intorduced 3 seconds into the clip, and this is something that needs some thought with my group. We also will need to tatke into consideration how many opening credits we should include our opening sequence, which judging from Se7en should be around 20-25. Another point of consideration is what font we should use for these credits.
The fact that the character seems to be creating judgement about this character from the very beginning of the film. As their identity and their creation remain a mystery, the audience will want to watch on, eagerly anticipating who this character is, and what this character is creating.
A close up of this characters fingers show the audience an insight to what they are doing, which in this case shows the character peeling off their own skin off of their fingertips using a small, yet very fine, razor blade. This shows that this character is not afraid of pain, nor do they seem bothered that of the after affects of this. In this case, it ends up with this characters fingertips being bandaged, which is shown later in this clip.
As the bandaged fingertips enter the frame, they are seen opening a box and aqquiring some sort of scrapbook. Then they are seen writing. The camera, however, is placed at an angle in which it is hard to establish what the character is writing. This is still adding to the mystery that comes with this character and their actions. This character appears to be adding to this scrap book as they are seen cutting some camera film and a photo down to size. There is further proof that this character is very suspicious as you, the audience, are shown a pile of newspapers which is the landing spot for a droplet of blood. This is shown very quickly, which could be used to imply that this character is trying to cover his tracks and leave nothing behind. The hand of this character is then shown as a shadow through a piece of paper steming from a book, and as this page is turning, the characters hand is moving futher and further away, trying to remain hidden.
A black pen is soon shown, seeming to be crossing out words of a book. 2 stand out words which are blacked out are 'Transsexual' and 'Heterosexual'. This same pen is then used to black out a line across someones face, blacking out their eyes and the bridge of their nose. The same picture is then shown completely blacked out, using many straight, horizontal black lines of a felt-tip pen. This character is then shown placing all of these individual pieces of media, camera film, photos, cut out words etc. An image of a man with what looks like an arrow going through a mans head then appears on the screen. This image is used to unsettle the audience as up till now, this character could have been a stalker, or obsesser, but now he is shown to be involved in much more serious matters, murder/death. The finishing touches are now being added by this character so that their scrapbook is now up-to-date and now complete. The word 'God' is the last input of this opening sequence before the camera reveals loads of what looks like scrapbooks on a shelf/bookstand.
The clip is finally finished with the music finally introducing some lyrics, however I can not make out what these lyrics are. The soundtrack is played throughout this clip and is used to help create a certain suspense around this character in particular.
Hopefully, this analysis can help me and my group with our own opening sequence.
My group and I have also conducted audience research to better determine how we shoud approach our opening sequence task. I will shortly be embedding the link to the results of this audience research that we have conducted.
The questions that we asked were:
1) What types of media do you enjoy and why?
2) What is your favourite film genre and why?
3) What is your most memorable opening sequence and why?
4) What makes a bad opening sequence, do you have one?
5) What was the last opening sequence that you have watched what did you think of it?
Based on the responses that we got, I believe that it is clear that we have a good soundtrack, not so many opening credits - obviously include the necessary ones like producer, director, editor, cinematopgrahper, main cast - as some people just get bored of watching them and something a little bit unique to psychological thrillers. This will entice the audience into wanting to watch on as the unique element will be something that they have never witnessed in as a part of a psychological thriller.
The first two shots beside eachother will be shown to the audience as seperate shots both showing half of his body (face not shown). This is to show his 'normal' side and his 'dark' side coming or merging together as one person as shown in the shot below the first two shots.
This is one example similiar to what we intend to show in our opening sequence, here it shows two sides, light and dark. This can be adapted in our opening sequence showing the 'light' side and the 'dark' side of the serial killer.
Another example of a split screen looking almost exactly the same, again one side is brighter than the other - can be used showing two sides of serial killer and how they merge or come together as one person.
