Opening Sequence Summary

This is a small post to explain and summarise my opening sequence. My opening sequence is going to be set in the woods and will be shot around 5/6pm as I want the skies to be slightly dark and grey. There will be two characters, both girls named Olivia and Amelie, and they will be running through the woods trying to escape from their father who has been haunting them ever since his death. As they are running, there will be titles on screen about every 5 seconds telling the audience the people who are involved in the creation of the film such as the Director and Producer. Near the end of the the sequence, Amelie gets pulled to the ground and gets dragged along the floor, we do not see who is pulling her as it is the ghost of their father. After this has happened, the title of the film appears on screen very snappy and quickly.

3 Act Film Structure

Films normally have a three act structure and plot points throughout the film. Act 1 would be the beginning of the film, then the first catalyst moment during the film, Act 2 which is normally the main body of the film, then the second catalyst moment and finally Act 3 which would be the end of the film and where the plot is concluded and resolved.

Friday the 13th

Act 1: Act 1 of Friday the 13th is where the main characters are introduced and they are on their way to Summer Camp. These group of characters are the 'Counsellers' at the summer camp who are in charge of the children and take them to do activities. At this point in the film they are all happy, cheerful and having fun and messing around together. 

Plot Point 1: The first plot point in this film is where the first counseller gets killed. The audience don't see who or know who the killer is yet but this is the point that kicks off the film and gets the plot going as the characters and audience are now aware that there is someone who is plotting on the group of people and they don't know what is going to happen.

Act 2: Act 2 of Friday the 13th is where the killer kills each member of the group one by one, each in more gruesome ways. This is main part of the film and is a good part of the film because the audience are still in mystery of who the killer is and who they will take down next. This creates suspense and fear as they don't know what happens next.

Plot Point 2: Plot point 2 is where the last girl standing is face-to-face with the killer. This is an interesting part of the film because this is the first moment where the audience and character gets to see who the killer is. They both have a big fight which gets very nasty and the character tries to defeat the killer. In this scene, we find out that the killer is actually the parent of a little boy who died at the camp and drowned while no one was taking care of him. Killing all of the counsellers was their way of getting revenge on them.

Act 3: Act 3 is the end of the film where is it not exactly resolved as the killer is still living but they both escaped from each other. As the killer is still about and living, this is a type of cliff hanger because it makes the audience wonder was they will do in the next film.

Paranormal Activity 4

Act 1: In act 1, titles are on screen informing the audience of previous occurrences. They inform the audience that two characters in previous films that in 2006 they are killed by their sister Katie. Katie then kidnaps their son, Hunter and their location is still unknown.  The film then begins with a new family that live in Nevada. The teenager, Alex is the main character and lives with her parents Holly and Doug, she has a brother named Wyatt and a boyfriend named Ben.

Plot Point 1: The first plot point of the film is where Alex discovers a little boy, Robbie, who lives across the road and starts coming to their house and hiding in their treehouse. Coincidently, Robbie's mother is rushed to hospital and Robbie now has to stay with Alex's family until his mother has recovered.

Act 2: Act 2 is the main body of the film. In this part of Paranormal Activity 4, it is discovered on tape that Robbie is talking to an invisible person in the middle of the night. Over a series of nights, they capture him on camera talking each then eventually a faint figure of a person stands up and walks away. A few days after Alex and watched the film footage, she discovers that Robbie had drawn a symbol related to a group called the Coven on Wyatt's back, this symbol appeared in the previous film (Paranormal Activity 3).

Plot Point 2: Plot point 2 is where Robbie takes Wyatt over to his house. Alex then follows then to discover Robbie's mum, who is actually Katie. That night, Wyatt informs Alex that Katie had told him that he is adopted and his birth family needs him. Wyatt gets filmed in the middle of the night having a argument with an invisible character, demanding that his name is not Hunter. This gives the audience a clue that Wyatt is really Katie's nephew.

Act 3: In act 3 of this film, Alex gets trapped in her garage after hearing strange noises. This is set up by Katie and gives her a chance to go up to Wyatt's room, who is hiding in his closet, and try and persuade him to come with her and explain to him that she his his auntie. To make sure that none of Wyatt's family members get into contact with him, she kills them all one by one for Alex to find them all dead, then she too is demonized by Katie.

My Film

Act 1: Act 1 will involve my title sequence and then the film will start like a flash back. The film will start of when the two girls were little and living with their mum and dad, we will be able to see a day in the life documentary and witness their father being abusive to their mum but we don't know why.

Plot point 1: The first plot point would be where the Mother is going out to the shops and  the two girls hear banging and shouting. They are in bed but what they don't know is that their father had just found that his wife had been having an affair and the other man comes in to protect her but ends up beating him to death.

Act 2: The second act will consist of the two girls living their normal life going to school, coming home and hanging out with their friends. One day their Mother decided to sit them down and tell them about their father, as they were too young to remember it. From that day they hear strange noises, things keep moving and live in a uncomfortable and scary atmosphere.

Plot point 2: The second plot point is where the two girls discover that the strange noises and atmosphere is actually their dad haunting them. The strange activities become more frequent and threatening after they know who is behind them.

Act 3: In Act 3, the haunting still continues and comes to a whole new level. The girl's father provokes a fight with them by trapping them in their bathroom and turning the bath on causing it to start flooding the room.The two girls panik and eventually escape after knocking down the door and trying to break the window, one of them grabs the phone and rings somone who is specialised in killing ghosts spirits. As the phone is answered, this is where the screen goes black and leaves the film on a cliff hanger.

Marketablitiy

If my film was real and was going to be advertised I would need to think about my marketing campaign and methods. Since my target audience is between 15 - 24 years old, I need to choose methods of marketing which would suit my target audience and where they are most likely to see the advertisements. For example, there would be no point in putting an advert on BBC Radio 4 because this would not reach my target audience as they are not the age group that listen to Radio 4.

TV Adverts

A TV advert for my film would need to be aired on specific channels that my target audience watch. It would be no good for it be aired on a channel such as Nickelodeon or Disney Channel because the age group that mainly watch these channels wouldn't even be old enough to watch my film, so this would not be useful. I would need to put my advert on channels such as ITV, E4, Comedy Central and MTV. I would choose these channels because these are the channels that show TV shows that 15 -24 year old are most likely to watch. Therefore, if there was an advert for my film on these channels they would get seen by my target audience and then they would be aware of the film and hopefully get persuaded to go and watch it.

 Posters

Posters for my film would need to bold and eye-catching to be able to grab the attention of my audience's eye. I would place these posters in places like bus stops, colleges, and shops because these are the types of locations that my target audience is likely to see these posters because they go to them often. A good place would also be on the sides of buses because as people are walking down the street, they may see the poster on the side of a bus as it drives past or if it was stopped at a bus stop. Posters being in these locations would be useful because if they were out and about with friends or family, they could see the poster together and maybe make arrangements to go and watch it.













Social Networking Sites

Social Networking sites would be good sources for advertising my film because there are a very big amount of users on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. There are also a wide range of age groups which use these sight from the age of 13 onwards. 

I think advertising my film on social networking sites would be useful because it is an easy way to get people aware of my film and also lets people share posts and put status' for other people to see which were not aware. I would also like to advertise my film on Youtube because this website gets used everyday and there are always adverts playing before videos start. By doing this, it would make sure that the viewer the advert.

Comparison of 3 Films

I am going to watch the opening scene of 3 different films and compare them. I will be looking at the use of camera, how it has been edited, use of sound, Mise-en-scene, narrative, themes, use of titles and the function of the films opening sequence.

Paranormal Activity 3

Use of Camera

The camera in this opening sequence is used in a way which shows that it is a home video. There aren't any specific shots, its quite shaky and jumpy with lots of moving around and showing different things. It is a home video of a couple moving into a new house and are expecting baby, in the opening scene they painting the baby's room and show the audience around the baby's room.




Editing

As the filming is mean't to look like a home video, there aren't any fancy editing techniques. The videos are all very long and only have simple cuts going onto another time and place as if they have just stopped filming and turned the camera off for a while and then turned it on again when they have decided they want to film something new.

Use of Sound

There is not any music throughout the opening scene, just the sound of the people in the video talking to each other having a general conversation. If there were sound such as background music, then it wouldn't be a very realistic home video and would be more like a set up. If there were to be any sound it should be something such as the radio or television sound in the background.

Mise-en-scene

The mise-en-scene of this opening sequence is a normal house with lots of boxes, furniture and things packed to show that they have just moved house. There aren't any made up settings. They are just living their day-to-day life in their home getting ready for when their new baby arrives.

Narrative

There was obviously a script written for this film but it is just general conversation like you would have any normal day. The script is also spoken in a way which gives the effect that they haven't rehearsed what they are going to say and is completely unplanned. For example, the sister asks them if she can put some of her stuff in their basement and they have to think and come to an agreement together. This is a realistic, everyday life conversation, not something you would find in a typical thriller film.

Themes

The opening scene to paranormal activity doesn't show any themes as they trying to not give away too much, however throughout the film there isn't specific theme either. Its about possession, ghosts and being scared of what is going to happen next and as there is lots of suspense.

Function of the films opening sequence

The function of this films opening sequence is to simply set the scene of where the main events of the film are going to happen and who the main characters of the film are going to be. It doesn't let us know who the good people are or who the bad people are, this is something that is going to keep the audience wondering and want to carry on watching.


The Devil Inside

Use of camera

The opening sequence to this film is a quite different because they don't actually use a camera at all. They use a sound clip of a phone call which a women had made to the police confessing that she had killed 3 people. I think this is an effective way to start a film because straight away you know the background story to the film and will know what is happening in the film clearly.      

Editing

Because there is no camera involved in the opening sequence, there isn't much editing but they do type out the phone call on the screen to read because the voices aren't the clearest to understand. This would be quite simple to do because all the editor would have had to do it type out what they were saying and put them onto a clip with a black background.

Use of Sound

The only sound in this opening sequence is the sound of the two people talking on the phone and any background noise of where the phone call is taken place. There is also the ringing sound when the caller hangs up the phone on the police.

Narrative

The narrative of the opening sequence is not scripted because The Devil Inside is based on a true story and the clip of the phone call is the real phone which was made by someone in 1989 in their own home to the police.

Themes

The opening sequence lets us know quite early on that this film is about a women who had murdered 3 people, but we don't how or why just yet. This would make the audience want to carry on watching to find out the story behind the murder and why it happened. 

Function of the films opening sequence

The function of the films opening sequence is to give the audience a bit of background information and to let them know what the main story of the film is based on. Unfortunately, I was not able to talk about the Mise-en-scene of this opening sequence because there is no camera filming involved, it is just a plain black background with text.

Seven (Se7en)

Use of camera

The camera shots in the opening sequence of Seven involve lots of close up and snappy, glitchy shots. This creates the effect of lots of movement and makes them feel confused and maybe uncomfortable. Its like the opening sequence is trying to tell a story within a few minutes by using lots of different shots and cutting them short.

Editing

The editing of this opening sequence is very snappy and lots of shots have been taken very close up and been cut very short and put together to create the glitchy effect. I like this effect because it is interesting to watch as your not looking at the same thing for a long time and its not just plain backgrounds with text.

Use of Sound

The background music is this title sequence is quite a low sound but with a fast tempo. It creates the effect of fast movement and like something important is being done such as some sort of task or mission.

Mise-en-Scene

The mise-en-scene in this title sequence in very dark and it looks like an office or a basement. There are lots of little lights glaring on important subjects. I think that a type of investigation or research is happening because the character is cutting out lots of images and sticking them into a folder, reading through books and writing down lots of notes.

Use of Titles

The titles in this opening sequence look like they are almost handwritten. They look scribbled and go in and out of focus. I like this effect because I like how they move slightly when they appear on the screen, they arent perfectly in line with eachother and are placed in different positions. I like the way these titles are create because I like the idea of hand written writing and I like the contrast of the white titles on the dark background, they stand out well.

Fuction of the films opening sequence

The function of this films opening sequence is to tell you who is involved in the film. They tell you who play the characters, who the director is and who all the names of people who play an important role in the creation of this film.

25 Word Treatment

Treatments for films are something which tells the audience what type of genre the film is and a little taster of what happens without actually telling them the whole plot of the film in lots of detail. They aren't meant to tell the whole story but tell enough to make the audience want to pay money to watch the film.

My treatment was only meant to be 25 words, however mine is 29 words, which isnt a lot but I tried to keep it down to as little words as I could!

My treatment:
'Lost in a dark world all alone, they keep running. Running from something that was gone a long time ago but haunt them as if they were alive.' 

Choosing a Production Company

Even though I will be the producer of my opening sequence and will be using my ident that I created at the beginning, if i were to choose a production company that would produce it for me, it would be important to choose one which is successful as creating thriller films. I am going to be researching a few different production companies and will be thinking whether they would be a good choice or not.

To research these companies, I tried to think of films that are very similar to the one I want to create. These were films such as Paranormal Activity and Eden Lake. Both of these films are more thriller and full of suspense rather than lots of blood and gore. 

The production company for Paranormal Activity is Blumhouse Productions. This company also took part in producing films such as Sinister (2012), Paranormal Activity 2,3 and 4, Inside Out and a new film due to be released in 2013 called Insidious Chapter 2. These are all thriller films and were popular with there audiences. 





The production company for Eden Lake is Rollercoaster Films. When researching this production company, Eden Lake was the only film that I could film which they produced. This says to me that they are not a very big company, and because they have only made one film, maybe it wasn't successful enough to create more. 

I think the production company that I am going to choose for my film is Blumhouse Productions. This is because they seem to be more successful than Rollercoaster films and have made lots of thriller films which are all similar and filmed in the same style that I want my film to be like. Another reason I am choosing Blumhouse Productions is because when I visited their website, they are a company specialised in Horror films and don't produce any other genre of film. This means that they are able to focus on horror and are very successful to be able to carry on producing lots of films.

Audience Expectations

To do some research into our target audience, I had to find out what people actually thought about horror films and what they expect to happen. I went around college and asked a few people a few questions about horror films, such as if they like horror films, what they like about them, if they would go to the cinema to watch one, what sort of things they would expect to see and what they would expect to see in the first two minutes.

 I asked specifically about the first 2 minutes because this is opening sequence part, which I will be making myself. By asking them what they would expect to see in the first 2 minutes gives me a good idea of what appeals to my target audience and what sort of things that I should make sure are included in my opening sequence. I filmed the people I spoked to and edited it together into a short video, here it is: 

AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS VIDEO

Audience Research

Target audience is an important thing to consider and research when making a film because if you do not know what genres are popular with which audiences, you may target it at the wrong type of audience. If your film is target at the wrong target audience then they will not be interested, therefore it may be difficult to persuade people to pay to watch the film or buy the DVD.

For my audience research, I need to find out information about horror/thriller films and what age range goes to watch them and what genders they are more popular with. To do this, I am going to read through the BFI statistical yearbook to find out the information that I need.

After reading through the BFI yearbook, I have decided on an audience between the ages of 15-24 year  olds. This is because, this is the age range that generally go to the cinema more often therefore are likely to watch more films. 

In the BFI yearbook, it tells me that 15-24 year olds go to the cinema more than any other age range. In the graph above, it says that in 1997, 15-24 year olds were 47% of the people that went to the cinema and even thought that can decrease over the years up to 2011, it is still a larger percentage of the cinema audiences than any other age range.

Unfortunately, this is the only relevant information that I could find in the BFI year book about audiences. However, I think that 15-24 year olds are a good target audience for my film opening because teenagers are the main characters in the film so this makes it more relatable to the audience as they would be able to connect more and understand their feelings and emotions. If the target audience was an age group such as 45+, they may not understand the storyline as well or understand how or why the characters are acting the way they are, simply because they cannot relate as well.

Another reason I think that 15-24 year olds are a good target audience is because most horror films have a certificate of 15. I would not make sense if the film was targeted at people younger than 15 because they would not be able to buy a ticket at a cinema or buy or rent the DVD, because they are too young.







To try and find out more information, I compared my film with one which was very similar in genre and style of film. The film I used was Paranormal Activity. The reason I am using this as an example is because it is a similar documentary style film and is a psychological thriller, which is the type of film I want to create.









The screenshot on the right is some statistics of who went to watch Paranormal Activity and what age they were. This information tells me that more females watched Paranormal Activity with 51% female and 49% Male. This is not a big difference in percentage so this tells me that this type of horror film is generally appealing to both genders. 55% of people who went to watch it were 15-24 years old. This is quite a big chunk of the audience which shows that this type of film is defiantly most popular with a certain age range, which happens to be 15-24. These statistics back up my decision for my target audience and I think Paranormal Activity is a good film to compare to because it is very similar.

Thriller Mood Board

Since I have decided on the genre of film that I would like to create a opening to, I created a mood board full of pictures that I relate to thriller and to show what images appear in my head when I think of a thriller film. I think there is quite a bit of difference between normal horror and thriller. Horror has a lot of gore, blood and murder, it is a lot more physical where you see the scary things happen right in front of you rather than thriller where its psychological and more about ghosts, mind games and suspense.

Initial Ideas

The time has come where I need to choose which film genre would like to create an opening to! To help me decide what genre of film I would like to do, I had to think about different genres and research what was included in different genres of films such as what type of events happen and what types of people are involved. Since I am working in a pair, we will be researching and filming together but we will be doing blog posts and the editing of the film opening individually.

ACTION:

• Guns
• Spies
• Missions
• Conflict
• Explosions
• Fights
• Cars

CRIME:

• Conflict
• Robbery
• Gangs
• Police
• Weapons
• Rough areas/estates
• Streets and alleyways
• Swearing
• Criminals
• Prison

COMEDY:

• Humour
• Sarcasm
• Sexual Inuendos
• Americans
• School/College (teens)
• Nerds/Geeks
• Popularity

TEEN:

• School/College
• Relationships
• Enimies
• Friendships
• Bullies
• Outcasts
• Growing-up Problems (Boyfriends/Girlfriends, School Grades, Appearances)

DRAMA:

• Abuse
• Relationships
• Families
• Historical
• Probelms
• Arguments
• Fights

SCI-FI:

• Space
• Aliens
• Planets
• Robots
• Experiments
• Science
• Schools
• Professors
• Educational

HORROR:

• Gore
• Murder
• Ghosts
• Death
• Creepiness
• Scary
• The unknown
• Surprises

ROMANCE:

• Love
• Drama
• Problems
• Arguments
• Love Triangles
• Marriage
• Finding Love
• Dates
• Valentines Day
• Boyfriends and Girlfriends

THRILLERS:

• Mysterious
• Dark
• Psycological
• Complicated
• Murders
• Drama
• Scary music
• Suspense
• Ghosts

After thinking of all of the things that are involved and are associated with different genres of film, me and my partner decided to do a Horror/Thriller. I think this is a good decision because it will be fun to create a setting for our film opening and will be fun and interesting to film and act out. We want to create a psychological type of thriller which is quite jumpy and scary but you don't witness lots of blood and gore. 

The Incredibles Title Sequence Analysis

For this task, I went onto a website called Art of the Title. This website has lots of different title sequence's but they are all very clever and well thought out. The creators of them have thought outside the box and experimented with different effects and ways that they can add titles with a little more fun.

The Incredibles title sequence is very colourful and has a retro style to it. It is made to look like it has been drawn like in a comic book so all of the shapes and images are quite simple and are plain block colours. The whole sequence is 2 minutes and 27 seconds, which is quite normal for a title sequence.

The image above shows some screen shots of the title sequence. As title sequences are about introducing characters and giving the audience a taste of what the film is about, this particular title sequence introduces the main characters in a way which shows the audience what super power they have. 

For example, this shot in the title sequence tells the viewer that this character is a very strong character. This is because of how it is holding the words up and it spins them around and throws then which then turn into letters and tell us who the film editor is, Stephan Schaffer.

Another example is when they introduce us to the families son. They show us that he is the one that can run very quickly as in the sequence he is running quickly and dodging lots of things that get in his way. This is shown in the image above. This part of the sequence also takes the opportunity to tell us who the character supervisor is, Bill Wise. They do this by using a firing target at the boy and the words appear when the target is on screen, this is shown in the image below.

The same character is also shown a bit earlier in the sequence and is quite obvious to the viewer that he is the fast one of the family. This is because when he comes on the screen, he runs around some of the titles and the words spin around as if it is the strong wind from him running past. 

I like how the creator of this title sequence has used clever ideas of how to include the titles and the names of people. One of my favourites is where two of the characters are in a protection bubble and as they move along they leave a trail of sparkly lights behind them. These lights then turn into music notes and into a music sheet and then tells us the name of the music editor, Micheal Giacchino. I like how they have made it connect in a relevant way instead of names just appearing on the screen.

The Incredibles Title Sequence Timeline

The image below is a timeline that i created for The Incredibles title sequence. I watched the sequence through and at every point that a title comes up on the screen, I paused it, wrote down the time and wrote down what it said. I did have some difficulty fitting it all on the timeline, it it turned out ok!

By doing a timeline, it gives me a good idea of how often a title should appear on a title sequence and how much time should be between each one. This should help when I come to create my own sequence.

Film Opening Sequence Analysis

The Day After Tomorrow Opening Sequence

I chose to analyse the opening sequences of the film 'The Day after Tomorrow'. This is because I personally like this film and I think it would be a good one to analyse as it is an action film and this film genre has good story lines.

As always, the first thing that appears on the screen is the ident representing the production company. This takes places at the beggining of every film and for this particular film, the production company is 20th Century Fox.

The film starts with the credits, informing you of the important people that took part in the creation of the film such as main characters, director and producer. Whilst these are on screen, the camera is gliding along showing lots of melted ice caps and this suggests that the film may be something to do with global warming or what happens in the film is one of its side effects. It gives the audience a little idea of what the film is going to be about. As a viewer, it tells me that the film is going to have something to do with the Earth and nature.

The next shot is an American flag, this is a quick and easy way to tell the audience where is it set, which is quite obviously, America. It also shows two men in big orange suits in the middle of snow, which looks to be somewhere like the North Pole. At this moment we don't know who they are, why they are there or what they are doing but they have lots of equipement with them such as a tent and a camera. This suggests they are maybe doing some research or are looking for something and are staying there in the tents for a period of time.

We also see another person using a big drill, drilling into the ice. This is another suggestion that they are trying to find something or doing some research to do with global warming. However, this goes terribly wrong and the starts to crack and create a big divide that carries on for many miles. The film then goes into the next scene.

 This opening sequence doesn't give away too much because the audience still doesn't know about the plot of the film, they just know where it is set and that it is modern because of the big, technological equipment.

The characters we see in the opening sequences are the first people we see, so we may assume that they are they are the main characters or play an important role. However, who the main characters are is
still unclear to the audience as we meet many other characters throughout the next scene.