03/02/2011

Today our group had the task of selecting a genre for our film opening. The sci-fi genre was swiftly ruled out as the task of finding a location that looks sci-fi in which we would have permission to film would have been too hard to achieve. We also ruled out the action genre as finding suitable props that look realistic would also be a near impossible task without spending lots of money; we do not have a budget. Horror, romance and drama genres were also ruled out simply due to the fact they did not appeal to us. After several minute of debate we narrowed it done to the genres psychological thriller and comedy. Psychological thriller was very appealing however, the members of my group me included all favour the idea of creating a comedy opening. Despite not settling the issue what audience is this opening going to be aimed for we have confirmed that we are defiantly creating a comedy opening.

Sci Fi Openings

Starwars is thee most successful sci-fi films of all time. The first film ‘A new hope’ came out in 1977. Produced with a budget of $11 million it made a $460 million in the United States and $337 million overseas. Sci-fi films seem to give away their genre very early on, during their opening.

The text that comes up within the first few seconds tells us its sci-fi ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far away’ tells us its about space and different universes. Even the title ‘Starwars’ tells us that this film is based around battles up in space. More lines within the first twenty seconds give more hints of the sci-fi storyline ‘It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base,’ The word spaceships clearly shows us that this is sci-fi. Within the first two minutes more visual information feeds us this is sci-fi such as the location being in space, planets also help show this. There are huge white (white connoting futuristic) spacships, shooting red lasers out of a cannon also highlights that this is a sci-fi genre of film. This is the first Starwars film so the bold iconic music is not yet recognisable, however, it is loud, dramatic and made by a orchestra and it flows and mixes with the visual elements of the movie perfectly.

Comedy Openings

‘Superbad’ is a great example of a comedy opening. Comedies are suppose to make you laugh and happy and they are never supposed to take themselves too seriously.  The music is fun and upbeat connoting straight away this is a cool, happy film. The bright colours of the background and the people seen on screen also connote this is a happy fun film. The dancing is awful which suggests the characters in the film don’t take themselves too seriously; it’s funny making it apparent it’s a comedy. The two characters on screen are obviously close friends shown by them dancing foolishly together. This is all apparent within ten seconds of the film. The enigma code already suggests that the two characters are best friends and that they are young and reckless, not only shown by their looks but also through their dancing.

Horror Openings

(please only watch the first two minutes)

Horror films seem to have several different types of openings.  The horror films that seem to be the best are the ones based on true events such as ‘The Strangers’ and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ (2003). Both of these have the similar openings which include a speech about the events of the true story and shows brief video clips of the locations of the movie. ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ however also has pictures and a video clip which state they are from the original crime scene (it’s arguable that they may not be the original evidence).

The opening of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ begins with 'The film you are about to see is an account of a tragedy which befell a group of five youths’. The word tragedy already suggests that there is death included during the film. The wording is chilling making it apparent early on this is a horror. Other lines such as ‘an appealing summers afternoon becomes a nightmare’ also tells the audience this is a scary film.

Many images of ‘real’ evidence were also shown on screen which varied from bones, ripped shoes, finger nails and the chainsaw. Also, an establishing shot of the house was shown and it made it apparent this house was in the middle of nowhere already telling the audience the five youths won't find help. After one minute and fifty five seconds the title appeared underneath the date August 20^th 1973 feeding the viewer the historical period.

But the ‘real’ footage of the police tells us the most information about the film. It shows scratch marks running down the stairs showing some signs of struggles and touchier. He says ‘we’re now entering the Hewitt residences furnace room' telling the audience that the murder took place at the ‘Hewitt’ residence and that the furnace room will play a key role. Like 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, other horror films that are based on true events also use the enigma code. The clip after less than two minutes feeds the audience information regarding the location, historical period, the number of characters that are traumatised and their ages. This already sets the mood and allows the viewer to know the information that the teens are doomed before they do, creating dramatic irony.

Action Openings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRhWGGoUNTE&feature=related
(I apologize i couldnt embed this clip)

The thing that separates most action films openings from others is the fact it usually jumps straight into the action then seems to calm down. This is used so the viewer is already buzzed and excited for the film from a very early stage. The film ‘The Watchmen’ (2009) is a great example of this.  

The scene very early on shows several slow motion moments which include the door breaking and the throwing the glass. Within several seconds you see the presumed protagonist look at the gun connoting violence and death. The gun signifies this is an action movie. It has fast paced fighting mixed with slow motion which gets your heart pumping from the start. The house gets destroyed during the fight; the destruction also creates an exciting atmosphere. The blood connotes violence, sugessting a film that is not suitable for children. The smiley face shows the audience the brawlers' may have logos or a humourous side to death, showing they are comfortable around death showing that the brawlers are tough. The blood that drips onto the presumed logo becomes the easily recognisable icon for the film. The diegetic music in the background from the television is brilliant as the music itself is juxtaposition to the violence, however the lyrics fits with the character. The music is soothing and calm which helps to highlight the action and violence. The lyrics say ‘unforgettable’ and if you watch the film the man is a famous hero. All these features are part of an enigma code to make you ask why this man died? Who killed him? And finally, showing you this is an action film.  

brief summary of editing sessions

It’s 09/02/2011 and all three recreations of the chosen film openings have been created.

'The Strangers' and 'Vertigo' were both simple to edit. With no transitions, apart from several fade to blacks, they took less than two hours to achieve. However, despite how simply both of them were they are still off their estimated predicted time by a second or two. The same thing also occured on 'Juno', making me ask what did we do wrong; my simple conclusion is due to the transitions lapping over shots we miscalculated by several seconds. The Strangers also included a voiceover that reads the sentences shown on the screen. Our group did this with no problem as we did it all in one recording that lasted nearly a minute. However, speaking to other groups I discovered that they tried doing a separate voiceover for each sentence that seemed to end up in hard work as the voiceover would often carry on or cut short from the sentences on screen.

Juno was hard to edit and time consuming. Throughout the clip, two shots would happen in one frame (eg. crab in background tracking up front). This left us thinking outside the box and splitting scenes in two, halving their shot time so we can still fit both in, however, they now have their own shots. Juno also had names appear in separate, unique ways compared to other openings which caused us to experiment with what iMovie fonts fitted best with the one from the original opening. Often, the names would appear in the top or bottom corners of Juno however you can’t just do this by a touch of a button. Instead, we had to hold the spacebar button down until it reached where the text should be located; this too was time consuming. Also we used a drawn background in several shots and this showed parts of the whiteboard we stuck it to, so many shots had to be cropped during editing so that the opening seemed to be filmed perfectly with the size of the background.

27/01/2011

Today we filmed 'Vertigo'. It was simple to do we just found a dark room and did it in one shot (though it took several attempts). We then spent roughly thirty minutes starting our editing. We choose ‘Juno’ first as it has the most cuts and transitions and will be the most time consuming. Despite having the shot list we seem to be off by half or a whole second within each scene however using iMovie we are slowing down various shots by a second or less making up for the lost time.