Final- The Delivery Boy

This is our final version of our film intrduction sequence. I think we all worked really well toegther to produce a good opening sequence!!

Evaluation

Today we filmed our evaluation for our media project, we met round Dans house after school, and planned what we would say for each question from the blog. The seven questions we found quite difficult to answer straight away, but when we started to get into conversation about them it came naturally. It was quite difficult trying to film us as we found it hard not to laugh and got a bit camera shy, but after reading over our answers a few times practicing we were able to finish our evaluation.

Shot log

Today we went round Dans to watch over our opening sequence and record the shots we took, this didnt take long, and was quite simple to do.

Group Meeting

Yesterday we all went to Daniel's studio to edit and review our finished film opening we had to create a production name and logo we chose ' Phantom Productions'. We changed the length of the film introduction as man people thought it was too long and become a bit boring. Within the 5 hours we spent in the studios at dans we were able to cut the film down and finish of the few things that needed editing. We also created the soundtrack with dad doing the piano to create a different jazzy effect along with the music softwarer to fit in with our opening sequence.
We will be going to the studio as a group one day this week to make our final changes to the film, and make sure everything is converted and ready to hand in.

Title sequence

We watched many films that were at similar genre to our own, e.g. pulp fiction, goodfellas, lock stock and two smoking barrels e.t.c we deicided that we liked the effect of a plain text of white on a black background showing the simplictity, keeping the audiences attention on voice over and the scene. This opening titles was similar to lock stock and two smoking barrels, we thought simplicty would make the rest of our opening sequence more intreging

Film Music

We had alot of discussion on what type of music we would use in the opening sequence that would work well, as our genre is horror and gangter type, we decided to use a jazzy type of music which contrasted against the type of person he is. I first tried creating on garage band our own background music, of a upbeat music into more deep mysterious music, however as we changed our voice over a week before our showcase to bring the theme of gangster movie we decided to change the music to a jazzy sort of music which dan created, as it fitted the opening sequence better.

First Showcase

Our first showcase we presented our opening sequence to every one for the feedback to edit and change, we already knew that there was many changes to make, as i did not agree with the length I found it quite boring, i also thought the voice over was quite confusing,  however dan and luke said that when it was on the film it would work. We discussed this issue, and decided to leave it down to the class to give feedback on how we should edit our opening sequence to make it bettter. Yesterday was the day of the showcase and we had to present our final draft of our film intro.Despite some of he problems we knew we had, we got positive feedback and took in consideration everything the students and the teachters.Me, Luke, Daniel, and Alice have decided to goto Daniel's house at  11 on sunday, so we can spend a good 5 or 6 hours editing the film intro and so everything is perfect

Feedback from showcase

Here is two reviews which i agreed on

This review showed positive feedback rating mainly 8's and 9's. I agree with the sound effects and this has been discussed within our group to make them more obvious.

I thought this review was very helpful I also agree that there isnt enough shots of the main part of the girl in the booth theres to many in the the car. They also agreed on the review above about the bad sound.

The Delivery Boy

Working  Version

Things I liked:
 I thought that the camera shots worked well,  I thought the 180 degrees turn of the male character doing his tie up looked very effective with the narration, i also thought that when the voice over says black and white and the camera effect changs to black and white it works very well with the theme of dark and horror.

Things we need to improve or change:

I thought the narration got a bit boring, too much talking looses intrest in the film, i also thought the voice didnt sound strong enough to the dialoge as the scene at the begining is quite ordinary there needs something to keep the audience intrested. I feel like the driving to the industrial estate was a bit too long, there was some parts that didnt make sense, if he was supposed to be 'gangster' then his clothing should have been a bit more classy,  rather than shirt untucked and more creepy looking which fitted more in with the horror.

Editing 4

Throughout this month we've been using class lessons to help edit our production to get to the basic structured level. We have planned now to meet as a group and review and discuss adding any finishing touches that we believe will improve it to the best that we can.

Research on our genre

Our group had changed the idea of the voice over to create more of a gangster horror so we thought to help our knowledge of this to adapt it into our opening sequence, even though i enjoy these films and have already seen many of this genre we asked miss to bring in some British and American ganger films with a voice over during the opening sequence to annalyse and give more our ideas for our own opening sequence we analsysed : 

• Lock stock and two smoking barrels
• Goodfellas
• Inside Man
• American Gangster
• Bullet Boy
• Fight club

Garage Band

Between the middle part of editing we were introduced into garage band, which I had never used before, we each created background music for the opening sequence, mine was like the typical horror it took a few lessons to do, but after having a group disscusion on the backing music we chose to have Dans to do the background music as he was able to create his own music using instruments instead of using garage band.

Production Guide- Treatment Form

Original Draft Treatment- During writing process

Concept 

The concept of our opening sequence is an normal man who lives an ordinary life has another side to him which nobody knows of. He secretly is abducting a young girl in his boot, creating a mystery and to intrigue the audience to question the reason to why he has done this. 

Characterization


There are two main characters within our opening sequence. The male character we have used we have made to be perceived as ordinary, by his costume being a normal black coat and office work clothing. He has strong face expressions as he keeps a straight face, looks quite serious and have a mystery to him. The character of the young girl is introduced in the boot of the males car she is tied up with bruises and cuts just about visible, wearing a tracksuit which shows she has been taken on an ordinary day


Theme 
  Normality and the beginning of the opening which then ventures into a horror from the dramatic contrast you could say its classed as a psychological horror.


Tone 


The tone of this opening sequence begins as peaceful, normal, and happy which is in contrast to what is happening and his personality.

Story 

The story-line of the film begins with a man starting his daily routine before going to work. He begins to shave by then cutting himself which introduces the theme of blood. He then puts his clothes on and walks down the stairs, he puts his long black coat on and shouts goodbye to his girlfriend, which is answered to 'ring me after work' proving the vital information that the girlfriend is unaware of what the male character is secretly doing. He leaves the house and drives off. The music is turned of which is bright happy music which is contrast to the person he is to how people perceive him. The male character then arrives at the industrial estate where he gets out of his car and opens the boot. The camera is then turned to the new character of the young girl struggling in the boot trying to get out with her hands and legs tied up. The male character then slams the boot down ending the opening scene.

Camera Shots

The opening sequence starts as an ordinary man shaving in the mirror, as an over the shoulder shot. We then took a 180 degree shot of the male character when he is doing his tie up in the mirror which we all tried to put ideas and discussion to how we would do this as it was hard to use this camera effect whilst in the mirror. Dan then thought of the idea of using the camera shot of him grabbing the car keys of the kitchen side, i thought this was a good shot, as it really focused on keys, just an ordinary routine. The character then drives to the industrial estate, we chose to do a shot of behind the wheel where we could see a clear image of him driving and the characters face at a good angle, we also got a shot of the outside of the car to show the setting. He drives to an industrial state, where he pulls up we took a shot of the camera from the floor looking up at the car from a distance, this gave a clear position of the car, the male gets out the car and opens his boot. Theres a body in the back, screaming and struggaling to get out we show the camera shot as him looking down at her showing his superior to her as he has power over her this is where the sequence ends.

Film Introduction Analysis- Scream

Scream

 

Release Date: 1996

Written & Directed : Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven

Stars: Drew Barrymore,  Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette

 

 

Opening Conventions:

 

The first shots are of the production company 'Miramax' and ' Dimension Films'. It then goes on to presentd the title sequence, the film title is stretched across the screen in the colours white, against a black background bold and in capitals making a huge statement with added in red which symbolises blood. There is also the begining noises of faint screams, and phone calls to get the audience ready.

 

Narrative Functions:

 

The opening sequence presents the genre along with the name of the film, the lighting of the opening sequence is quite dark, and the voice on the phone is deep and scary, the character on the phone is kept unknown to build suspense.

 

Characters:

 

Main character is Casey she is introduced in the opening sequence as the character speaking to the unknown person on the phone, shes quite happy and excited in her voice, quite the auidece can immediatly tell that Casey is the main character as the main focus is on her. 

 

Hook audience/enigma/action codes:

 It starts wih a slow pace and gets faster as the story line gets more intreguing grabbing the audiences attention and making susupense. The opening sequence leaves the audience on  the edge of there seats wanting to know who the mystery man on the phone is and question what else will happen. 

Film Lang – MES, cinematography (light & colour):

 

The film in the year it was created would be new and was not many films similar to this, the lighting is quite dark as it sets the genre of horror. Casey (Drew ) is presented in bright colours (yellow) to show her happy normal character, she is also shown quite flir ty on the phone, and naive to start a conversatio with someone who had only called the wrong number. We cans  tell that it is set in america as the accents and language they use.

 

Film language- Movement- Framing-Editing- Sound:

There is alot of on and off screen sounds as casey is talking you see the boyfriend struggling, although the unknown person on the phone is off screen sound. There is mainly digetic sound throughout the opening scene, however there is added horror music towards the end of the sequence.

During the opening sequence there is a close ups of her on the phone until it gets more intense to show her body language as the sequence goes on .

Edit Day 4

Our 3rd day of editing as a group, we got loads done and worked really well together we had none of the usual bickers and arguments over what we thought would be best, we all agreed that our production was working realy well!

Editing Day 3

This was another long day of editing round dans house, spending about 5 hours editing and got lots of work done,  we could discuss everyones ideas and comment on what we thought would work well together, had a few arguments on what wouuld work best but as a group we figured it out, we have done half way through the editing and I think we've made good progress.

Day 2 Filming

Second day of filming we  got alot done very quickly, we took our first footage watched it and tried to annalyse where the best camera angles and effects could be used, we then spoke and decided to re take some shots to get the perfect camera angles for our opening sequence. We was worried that people might be able to notice that we did more filming on a different day but everything worked out well!

Editing Day 2

Today we were able to go back into the studio after the electrocuting incident before. After connecting everything up we were able to get a quarterof the editing done in about 5 hours with some breaks! We are now planning when next to meet at dans so we can carry on with out editing.

Personal Response

So far I think our groups been getting on really well we have all contributed to the ideas and each one of us have noticed our strengths and weaknesses, we decided when we would meet, our days of editing and planning and how we would work round everything. I have a small part in the opening scene in the boot of the car, we have decided before filming my part I would help with props and some of the camera work along with alice and luke , we have a clear outline and plan of our film and this is helping things to be more quick and easy for us all.

Editing Day 1

Today we all went to Dans house and carried on working in his editing studio we used and iMac with the fina cut pro and 2 studio monitor speakers. The day went well, and we all worked together until Dan electrocuted himself an we had to go home to edit more another day until we was safe to go back in there!

First day of filming

Day 1

On our first day, we all met at Dans house quite early on a sunday!About 10 o clock, as we knew we would have a full day of filming ahead of us, and needed to be quite quick. We decided Dans would be the most appropriate place to film, as the industrial estate was only round the corner, and he had been insured to drive the car so we could get the right shots of him.

We brought round all our planned props, and Alice helped me to put on makeup to make the effect of the young girl in the boot being hurt and tired and look like she'd been in there for quite some time. After getting ready the costume for the male character, and deciding where we would take each shot, we went to the bathroom which had good lighting to show his face and to introduce the idea of blood when he cuts himself, this took quite long as we were actually trying to make Dan cut himself! So instead we used red food colouring which looked effective with an over the shoulder close up shot.

After getting the right shot, we then continued with Dans morning routine, this showed him putting a tie on, we took many shots of this as we were trying to figure out what would look effective with the narration. We firstly had planned to go straight from the first shot of him shaving jumping straight into the shot in the mirror of him doing his tie up. I thought that could be quite boring and not effective so we then took another shot of 180 degrees tracking shot, to keep the audience intrested.

We went through step by step of how our sequence would go, the next step getting the shot of alice saying goodbye to dan, we decided not to film alice as she had no importance to the film we did not want to interfere with the main character.
I had an idea to film the shot of him driving off out the top bedroom window as well as from behind the car,  from the side and many different angles, however the shot from the bedroom window did not work as well as I thought so we decided not to use this shot.

The next scene we had to shoot was driving to the industrial estate, to the main climax of the film intro. We took many shots from different angles of dan driving, we put the camera over the shoulder shot, and also had a close up of behind the wheel of the car which added effect.

We then took some shots of Dan driving down the road showing the surroundings, and of him getting out of the car. I then had to get the props ready, with the gag round my mouth, and hands tied up, mess my hair up and look like i'd been dragged about a bit.  I then was being filmed from looking down, from a distance to see the situation I was in, with me struggling and screaming.  I thought a good shot would have been of me in the boot with the camera of my face and then one of looking up at him, to show his power over me, but the group disagreed and so we just took the shot of him slamming the boot down and his face of him laughing.

I thought our first day of filming went really well!! and everyone got along. We all had our own input and we knew our plan for what we had to do so there was no confusion on the day. Watching back on the clips everything worked well. I cant wait to start editing to see our final sequence!

Prop List

Props List

For our first day of filming we had to create a quick and ruff check of what we would need for that day at dans house.

Male Character 
Long black coat
Ordinary work clothes- Trousers, Shirt
Hair- Neat


Female Character 
Ordinary clothing 
Black tired eyes
Messy hair
Gag in mouth
Hands tied back

Teachers Feedback

Mrs Thrashers Feedback

Group y2

View more documents from Westhatchmediastudies

After Mrs feedback we took this into consideration and had a group meeting to discuss the points she noted on.

Our Finished Storyboard

Our first inital group storyboard showing the shots we plan to take.

Group y

View more documents from Westhatchmediastudies

Group y3

View more presentations from Westhatchmediastudies

We chose 4 main shots from the sequence to show the camera angle, sound, titles, visula style/transactions and notes on the shots.

Planning our opening sequence

This was a group discussion on what we all thought would work well it included our theme, storyline, location, costume and props and characters.  I think this lesson our group worked well and we agreed on most things.

Preleminary

To help practice for our opening sequence and so that we could get used to working as a group and using final cut, we was asked to produce a Preliminary sequence that we could practice using the camera angles and use group discussion and work around how we would take out a short sequence which helped to prepare for our opening sequence. We experimented a range of shots, close ups, zoom, panning shots e.t.c from what we had learnt in lesson.

Production Guide- Planning our opening sequences

On our first group lesson together we sat and discussed our initial ideas and plans of what we had drawn on a story board to compromise and decide on how we was going to film our opening sequence.  We all had different perceptions on how it could be filmed the best. I had decided that I thought the best opening would be of a man standing in the middle with an over the shoulder shot to show him washing his hands with blood I found this idea from a scene in psycho. I also had the idea of a girl been drove of in a boot to a forest I was influenced from this idea by the front cover of the movie eden lake . Both my ideas were used however slightly changed. We compromised to have the male actor doing daily routine leaving his house with him cutting his face with a razor which introduces the idea of blood. We also changed the young girl in the boot to be in the setting of an industrial estate which I disagreed would be the best idea however compromising the group had to work together. We then had to contribute all into creating our storyboard by giving our ideas, and shot ideas roughly and writing them down before we would draw the storyboard so we were planned ahead. 

Film Idea

We all contributed to creating our horror opening sequence, we each produced a storyboard and discussed what the best idea would be,We decided to use my idea of the girl in the boot as our ending part to the opening sequence, however i thought the location should be in a forest but after a group vote we went with dans idea to have it in an industrial estate to be original.  This seemed to get everyones attention, helped that it was easy to access using dans car, and we got permission to use the industrial estate.  Dans idea to add the idea that we should present the male character as a normal man to lead to confusion for the audience as the character leads a secret life of murder. Luke helped contribute to the idea that the film would be based on a kidnapping story as he talks about other people that our involved.



 

Research of Horror films and opening sequences

Research developed into opening sequence


I have researched horror films by looking on google and viewing popular opening sequences this gave me an insight to how they get the audiences attention, by creating mystery that the audience will question whats happening and intrigue them, we adapted mystery into the opening sequence by having an ordinary man living a normal life but leading a separate life of physchological maniac the part of him that enjoys kidnapping young girls. i also researched the history of horror films.

History of horror movies 


Horror films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears,  often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films effectively center on the dark side of life, the forbidden, and strange alarming events. They deal wit our most primal nature and its fears: our nightmares, our vulnerability, our alienation, our revulsion's, our terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, loss of identity, or fear of sexuality.

Day1

Today we got put in to our groups. Our Group Media P- Me, Alice Piner, Daniel Drinkwater and Luke Smith. We spoke and got on quite well, we spoke about what sort of films intreseted us, what type of genres we watch, they were all completely different but I felt we all got on well and we all had different skills that would be contriubted into making a good opening sequence as a group.

After this lesson we then indiviually went away and researched the genre of our opening sequene