How sound can make or break an opening

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdPWrAMXGGo
(Sorry i could not embed this clip)

This is 'Dawn of the dead' (2004) and it may be one of the greatest openings ever aurally. It creates the perfect atmosphere for the rest of the film and this is achieved by many overlapping audio sounds. The dialogue itself sets the viewer up for the plot of the film, feeding the audience much of the narrative. ‘We don’t know?’ is said twice connoting this is the end for humanity. The song itself is considerably cheerful and upbeat what juxpositions the visual images on screen. However, it doesn’t juxtapose this film as the overlapping creepy sound effects of roars, other dialogue, gunshots, screams and fuzzy television static sound all maintain the required and wanted eerie atmosphere that the director would have intended on producing. Much of these sound effects are non-diegetic allowing questions to be made by the audience without them even realising. Also, not seeing where the sound is coming from is more frightening than diegetic sound, once again creating the desired atmosphere.

Toy Story Two opening (1999)

Toy Story 2: Opening Sequence from Twenty One Inc on Vimeo.

Toy Story Two opening sound test




This is a great example of how sound should be played around with. The crew who did this test has an  youtube account being called ‘cws815’. Though personally, I feel their version isn’t as good as the original, it is still amazing. Both are very similar which highlights that the tiniest detail makes all the difference. The bit that stood out for me was when ‘Buzz’ jumps on the hovering platforms and originally the iconic sound is humourous to the audience. The replaced tester sound just highlights how sound effects can change the atmosphere and set how a different tone can can be set for the audience via sound affetcs.



This is ‘Kiwi’ a PIXAR shot film that on youtube alone has nearly thirty million views. Though it hasn’t really got an opening, as it’s only several minutes long the music may be one of the most amazing atmosphere producing pieces I have ever experienced. As the little critter sets up its master plan there is playful music, connoting it’s a bit devilish and child like. However, the contrast from this to the sad music what sounds like a child lullaby tune is devastating to the audience as it produces such an impact. This piece shows me the power of contrast, a valuable technique that if doing the right type of film I will consider using.

Music for our film opening

A website called Incompetech has thousands of royalty free songs that could be used for our film openings. As we need a royalty free song and this website has so many it is most likely one of these songs will be used for our opening.

After looking at the royalty website Incompetech it quickly came apparent that this site has great range of music but not for our chosen genre. Luckily for us we know several bands who will create music for our film. As long as they get mentioned in the credits they agreed to create a song for our film, as it will not just benefit our film but their publicity.

One band we took interest in and whom took interest in us was 'EPIVERSE'. The three member band (with many other guests) makes comical videos about their band practices called 'Random Jams'. However, they don't create their own songs but instead re-create already existing ones such as 'Starwars' with a rocky feel. The fact we need a royalty free song ruled these guys out.

The band set the task of creating our rocky cool song is called 'Forgetten the Fallen'. I won’t embed one of their videos as their songs are heavy metal and will serve no purpose to our film. Their talent however will. We have asked them to try a new genre of music and for one song alone, they abandoned their heavy metal and try to create a light rocky comical tune. They have great respect locally and have gigs with up to 600 people.

Audition process

Today we did the auditions for our film as seen on our group blog. This was fun to do and we wanted the actors trying out for the roles to feel relaxed. We explained each character to them and the story before starting, so they could have better understanding of each character and allow them to perform them in ways they see fit. Their friends came to watch which isn't necessarily professonal but it seemed to help them relax. Two actors, however, didn't wish to be watched so we got the audience to leave so they could act to their best potential. We did a short script and had at least two people try out for each part. The three geeks we selected called Bob, Stu and Harry (the irony being that two of our charcters are called Bob and Stu) fit perfectly. All three don't just look perfect but also acted perfectly for the part. Though one performer, Chris, seemed to play Bob better having more homourous acting skills, he just didn't look the part.

Actors i personally would use for our film

This is Seth Rogan, a talented actor, comedian and writer, who started his career doing stand-up comedy as a teen. Rogen was born in 1983 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Rogan's first big film was '40 year old virgin' (2005) and since has gone on to do many successful films. During his film 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno' (2008), Rogan played a loser called Zack. Zack, who is in his mid-thirties, lives with his best friend and works in a coffie house trying to make ends meet. I would take his character from this film and give him a geekier feeling which would could tranform him into the Bob needed for our film. The look shown below would fit Bob perfectly.



The reason Rogan would fit perfectly is simple due to his ability to bring a variety of characters to life each time with a humourous feel. He is a master of comedy and in the real world seems to be an actual geek making him perfect for Bob. 

This is Michael Cera; he is Canadian and was born in 1988. He made his first big film apperance in 'Superbad' (2007) where he played Evan; one of the lead characters out of a trio of geeks. Michael seems to be a geek anyway and then plays them well, deomonstrated by his now large film history of playing either the geek or a weak character. He always seems to play the intellectual geek who is a book worm. This would fit the character Stuart perfectly. If he had longer hair he would be perfect. However, say we were a big industry and could have him as an actor, he could just grow his hair.

As a child, I watched James Franco because of the spiderman films but only recently realised he is a huge actor capable of becoming anybody he wanted. He is very talented and has a huge contrast of characters he has portryed. In 'Pineapple Express' (2008), James played a drug addict geek called Saul Silver. This was the film that made me first aware of his comedy skills as an actor. In 'Spiderman' films to he also plays Harry Osborn: a calm geek who isnt humourous at all but yet still a geek who would fit the character Tom well. As Tom is arguably the most normal of all the geeks. I would take the James Franco comedy character, Saul Silver, and his boring but clever geek Harry Osborn and produce a new character that would fit Tom perfectly.



Cameron Diaz was born in 1972 in San Diego. Though she would be too old for Stacey, I would want an actress like her to portray our Stacey. Reason being is that in 'Something about Mary' (1998), Diaz played a humourous, attractive woman that several guys were fighting for. Diaz's character was also geeky in some ways making her perfect to play our geeky, attractive, cool Stacey.

When titles and names appear in comedy films

To gain understanding of when titles and names appear in comedy films I watched the opening credits for Superbad (2007).

*Production company; though this is the same with every film genre.

*Title of the movie - the title isn't glamorous and like most other comedy films it fits in with the frame instead having its own one.

*Followed by the actor's names starting with the main characters to the little ones. This is usually what happens in most other genres though not always the case.

*Followed by whom casted the film.

*Followed by the costume designer name.

*Followed by the co-producer name.

*Followed by music supervisor name. This may be a coincidence but the music has a funky little part as this name appears. This is either planned or ironic as the title/name is linked to music.

*Followed by who did the music. This funky part of music continues for this and as the name vanishes the music turns back to its previous state.

*Followed by the editor’s name.

*Follower by the production designer name.

*Followed by the directory of photography name.

*Followed by the executive producer’s names.

*Followed by the producers' names.

*Followed by the writers' names.

*And finally followed by the director’s name; though this is the same with every other genre like the titles.

Besides learning the order to put the titles and names during our opening, I also learnt that you can change things such as images on screen or music to fit with the titles like Superbad have done in their opening for the music crew.

Film Opening Final Storyboard

Today we created our final storyboard and script. We estimated the time to be around one and an half minutes. We had many discussions about what order the scenes should be placed in within the script and storyboard. However, we now feel it is the best it could be. We asked for feedback from other groups, in which we receive no criticism. However, our teacher queried if the title should appear earlier on in the opening. The choices for the titles introduction is when the boys close the doors of their homes when leaving for school. Or when they meet up and the camera tilts to the sky revealing the title. We decided to stick to our initial idea but end the clip after the titles. Previously after the titles we intended to have a few more seconds of our geeks getting harassed by bullies. However, this would have moved on from the film opening; a fault we are being careful to avoid.

Film opening Rough Storyboard

Today we started planning our storyboard for the final plot of our film. In a twenty five word film brief I would describe the film by saying 'Three geeks love the same popular girl, creating a competition who can bed her first. However, the girl turns out to geekier than all three combined.'

 In the opening we wanted the audience to ask questions about all three geeks regarding their identity. With the girl we wanted the audience to straight away be aware she’s a secret geek camouflaged as a popular girl. So we want to start the opening in the girl’s room as the alarm clock rings '07.00' to wake her for school. We then will vary shots from all four characters of them getting ready for school allowing the audience to be fed an enigma code of what each character is like. We plan the location of the girl’s room to be very pink or purple looking cool and when she opens draws for socks you see something geeky such as a comic book allowing the viewer to understand both sides of her personality, we won’t just show this geeky side through her draws but through many other methods throughout her room each time the nerdy prop hidden away.

We have already created character profiles and have our presumed final plan wrote down, throughout the next few lessons we will tweak the final plan through our storyboard.