Narrative Action / Shot List - First draft

• open with a close up shot of man’s eyes closed, not zoom out enough so we can’t see the ledge but     medium close up showing wind
• establishing shot from above
• side shot , shoulder up, man looking up into distance, heavy breathing
• shot of hands with nervous twitch and playing with wedding ring
• his POV of birds flying across the sky
• feet shot level walking towards the edge
• worms eye view of man looking over the edge
• back to feet facing forward moves 90° to pockets
• shot of emptying pockets
• shot of dropping coins over ledge where you can also see wedding ring
• shot of coins hit the ground
• medium close up of face flinching (reaction)
• Shot of walking backwards slowly as if to prepare to jump
• Close up to prepare to jump - breathing slowly and eyes closed
• Run towards edge – can’t do it - becomes aggravated with himself.
• close up of looking over shoulder in level with shoulder slowly.
• Man looks down towards pocket - sound of phone buzzing
• high angle shot - him half pulling out his phone - woman’s name
• emotional close up - closes his eyes really hard - sound of banging on the door and shouts and zoom out on the outside door. Man opens his eyes and looks over shoulder with eyes.
• did you invite anyone else? » Camera moves so we see unfocused antagonist man behind.
• Close up of eyes - I thought I asked you to come alone
• Medium close up - I swear I didn’t - begins to turn around
• Close up on lips- t t t - smiling
• Close up of protagonist crying/nearly - banging increases - looks down and then forward
• shot of behind his raising head zooms out to see him lifting his arms as if about to jump but finally goes in a surrender position where at the same time you see the antagonist holding the gun. Sound of gun triggering is heard. Cut to black

Costume

Protagonist:

White shirt

Simplistic tie

Black smart trousers - slightly torn

Dirty smart shoes

Antagonist:

White shirt

Black tie

Smart black trousers & blazer

Smart black shoes
Black leather gloves

Props

Cast List

Where will we be filming?

We will be filming in the Hurtwood House media studio. This is because as we are using a vast amount of green screen, we are in need of a green screen and are fortunate enough to have one. By filming in the studio, and just outside, it means we have more variety in what we can film, lighting and props around us. 

Main character - Research into how he would act

We realised that we did not know realistically how someone would act if they were about to jump off a building. With this in mind, I went off and did some research into how we wanted our protagonist to act/be.

After watching this Arctic Monkeys video, we saw a woman nearly about to jump off a roof. Her eyes were constantly looking down and were very wide as if in a state of shock. This was a characteristic I realised was important to have our protagonist have. As well as this, she was repeatedly taking in very sharp deep breaths which was also something that was important to convey our sequence as realistic.

After spending time in the studio and seeing how we would film our sequence, I realised I still did not fully understand how green screen actually worked and I found myself asking many questions.

To resolve this issue I researched, using google, to see if there were any videos or websites that would explain things.
One of the first results that came up was :
http://www.videomaker.com/article/c10/17026-how-does-green-screen-work

This explained to me why green was used, how to execute the process, and how it works during editing. This was extremely useful for me as I was able to grasp an understanding of what was important to focus on and the process of how some things would be carried out. This would help me later on when we start filming as I would have a basic understanding of what to do.

As well as this, I researched into how effective green screen looked in films and found this:
This was very impressive to me as it showed how little location and set you needed to be able to create a very impressive and realistic piece of film which reassured me as I was having worries that our final product would look obviously fake.

Green Screen

Wanting to film on a roof top comes with many difficulties such as :

- Health and Safety risks

- Permission

- Weather

- Location

- Limited choices

With this in mind, we sat down as a group and tried to see how we could avoid these issues. We thought the most practical would be using a green screen. This would not only make production of our opening sequence more practical, but also would result in us learning a great deal from the experience as none of us has experience in working with green screen. 

We spoke to our media teachers and were told the pros and cons of using a green screen. To make sure that the final product looked as realistic as possible, we had to make sure all of our shots did not, or tried to avoid, all side shots and any movement with the camera. This was because it was difficult to make it look realistic. 

We went into the studio and took several pictures to see what perspectives we could achieve and wanted for when we later filmed our sequence.
{taken by Thomas Guerlet}

Our new idea

Our new idea for our thriller opening title sequence is this:

It opens with a man who is on a roof looking very distressed. He is seemingly alone. From the shots and his expressions, the audience becomes under the impression that he is going to kill himself. He empties his pockets and there is a shot of the coins hitting the ground which shows the height of the building, therefore showing the threat. There is also a shot of his hand with a wedding ring to give a sense of the character. The opening title sequence finishes with a shot from behind the seemingly suicidal character where it slowly zooms out. As it does this, the character lifts his arms as if to show he is going to jump, however the hands move to the back of his head in a surrender-like manner where at that moment another character has moved into the shot with a gun. The sound of the gun about to shoot is heard and then it cuts to black showing the title.

Examples of shots:

Change

Due to problems within the class and a group losing a member of their team, we had to reorganise our groups. This meant we had to change group members and ideas, therefore starting afresh.


My new group members are:

Research into serial killers - trying to understand my character

Mood Board for chosen idea

Visit Eloise's profile on Pinterest.

New chosen idea for opening title sequence

After the problems faced with the previous idea, we looked back on our previous favourite ideas.

We chose to narrow it down to my idea, about the hair-obsessed serial killer, or Monty's which was about the ex-boxer.
To decide which was better, we made a pros and cons list for each one to decide which was a better decision.

For my idea:

Monty's idea:

After this we came to the conclusion that we all preferred my idea but wanted to approach it in a Kyle Cooper style where there is no obvious storyline, but the opening is told through a series of non chronological shots that give a sense of character and plot.

PROBLEMS

As we progressed with the kidney stealing idea, we came across a variety of problems resulting in unavoidable obstacles.

The first was that the editing we had chosen, continuous cutaways to add context to the situation the audience is seeing, was too commonly used and meant that the opening was not original, which was our primary intention.

Another problem, was that our teacher viewed it as too stereotypical. This was because we wanted to set it in a basement which was seen in many thriller/serial killer films, therefore furthering that it was not original.

After these problems, we tried to think of another way to execute the opening title sequence but we could not come up with anything. This made us realise that the idea was too difficult to achieve, which meant we decided to scrap that idea and start fresh.

Timeline for opening title sequence - Kidney Stealing

First Brainstorm - Kidney Stealing idea

We all decided to choose the kidney stealing idea because it had the ability to be developed which meant we could all contribute and include something we all wanted. We made a brainstorm as a group to see what we wanted to include in it and to see where it was going.

3 favourite ideas

The group and I came to a decision on fourfavourite ideas.

The first one was Fernando's called 'Ain't no crime in the city' which was an opening title sequence that was about theft and that was to be shot in the London underground and in an alley off of brick lane. Although we all liked the idea of the opening and the storyline, the chosen location spots were a bit too ambitious as there was no feasible way we would have been able to film in the underground or in brick lane, with out the shots being interrupted. This was an immediate problem for us.

The second idea was Monty's called 'First Punch' which followed the waking up of an ex boxer, who was clearly successful, where he receives a letter which the audience can tell is bad. We all liked the style of the shots as they were simplistic yet effective, and we also liked the way Monty wanted to present the credits as they were illustrated interestingly. However, we were worried the boxing idea was overdone and not original, and that the plot did not seem to look like a thriller. This made us rethink the plot or maybe the idea being around boxing.

The third idea was my idea, which did not have a name at this point, which was about a serial killer who had a fetish for the beauty of hair and was collecting it through these murders of women. The group liked it because of the extreme close ups I described of the victim's body being smelt, as well as the originality of the storyline. However, we were worried that the cutaways I included to add context to the characters was too similar to the other groups so we therefore would have to rethink how we would do it.

The fourth idea was another one of Fernando's ideas which was very simplistic as he had not worked on it much, but followed the storyline of a girl having her kidney's stolen. This idea was original, one of the reasons why we liked it, and the simplicity of the idea meant that we all could work on it as a collective rather than one person sticking to their idea. The only problem was that we wanted to make sure it was not a cliché.

My Group

After presenting my ideas for an opening title sequence, our teacher assigned us into groups through a random generator app.
My group's strengths are that we are all very passionate about media which means we all will contribute and want to create an original and effective piece of film.
However, with this strength comes a weakness as there can be dominating characters within the group which means team work becomes harder.


For my opening thriller title sequence, I will be working with:



First ideas that I pitched to the class

Research into thrillers

Actual Coursework Task

Video

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Both preliminary and main tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum four members to a group.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Tast - Editing

Following on from filming our preliminary task, we had to edit it in the edit suite using

adobe premier. My group split into two and India and I edited together to try and make a short sequence using the storyboard we had been given and the shots we had taken.

Whilst editing, I found that it was difficult to edit some shots as they weren't perfect according to the storyboard. To prevent this from being a problem, we should have taken more back up shots so that we had more to work with during editing. For example, during a close up shot of Lila, we realised later that she was staring in the opposite direction to how she had been before. This resulted in us not being able to use the shot as it did not look naturalistic or professional. This is an example of where a changed back up would have been idealistic.

The editing was a great learning task as it taught me the importance of precision and patience. To produce a fluid, effective looking sequence, one had to be patient regarding how long it might take to go through footage and cut which linked to precision as it is terribly important to be as precise as possible to make it look as naturalistic as possible.

Sections that consisted of several different shots to show one motion was difficult to edit as sometimes it looked uncomfortable to watch. The first edit, there was a shot of Lila turning around that consisted of a close up, then medium close up, then establishing shot. We got feedback that said that it did not look professional or effective as the editing made the shots look disjointed. Taking this feedback, we re-edited the shots by cutting a few and then found it to be a lot nicer to watch and less uncomfortable, which our peers agreed with.

Sound was another thing that, whilst filming, had to be thought of massively. At the beginning of the scene, the door opens and makes a very irritating screeching sound and if the dialogue were to start before the door closed you would not be able to hear it. During filming, luckily we took enough shots trying out different things for this to not be an issue, which was lucky and therefore showing the importance of filming things several times.

Preliminary Task - Storyboard