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