Woman in Black opening scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCR4tfQBd6w

This opening scene is in some ways similar to the idea that we have about what we want our opening scene to be like for example, there is no talking between characters, which is something that we intend to do in our opening scene. We will have one character in our opening scene and there will be no other characters but you will hear characters voices with a voice over and this will be her thoughts. The music used at the start is quite simple and sounds like a children’s song but then it starts to sound creepy with the sound of a clock and the expressions on the children’s faces change. The music gets louder which adds suspense and then it is put into slow motion which emphasises the movements and this is also something that we intend to use in our opening scene.

Thriller Research

As a group we have discussed the possible genres to use for our Main Task and we have come to the conclusion that Thriller/Horror would be the best genre due to the fact that they use a lot of typical conventions and techniques that can easily be seen as thriller just from watching the first two minutes of a movie. We are leaning towards a thriller because horror is more gory and it is hard for us to portray this in the opening scene because we do not have the technical equipment that would be essential for a successful horror opening. We have researched many thriller openings and have got a lot of inspiration from this clip of The Ring opening:

Analysis of Opening Titles - Se7en

Analysis of Opening Titles - Juno

This is my timeline of Juno's opening titles. We did this analysis so that we can use it as a basic template for our titles in our Main Task.

Final Preliminary Task

This is our final preliminary task, we took into consideration all the things that we did well and all the things we could improve on and incorporated them into one final task. We also used the same location and story line of the previous task. The first shot tells the audience that the two people are waiting for something and you can see the awkward smile between them which tells them that they do not know each other. We used the three close-up shots of Shaiane to emphasise her anxiety and used the heartbeat to show how nervous she is. The shot reverse shots of Shaiane and I talking to each other is much more equally spaced out which flows well because you can see the gaps between both of us. The dialogue used is quite tension building for the audience because when Shaiane says “I heard this interview is really intense” it creates suspense and makes the audience feel anxious. We then see a close-up shot of Kate’s pen running down a paper with a list of names on it which have all been crossed out which makes the audience assume these are people that have already been interviewed but then another name is crossed out and she taps the pen on Shaiane’s name and there is a loud dramatic noise which makes the audience think that this person is dangerous. We then see Kate walking through the doors in a low angle shot and opening them both which makes her seem powerful and when we calls Shaiane’s name there is a shot of the back of her head but you can see Shaiane and myself sitting there and we look extremely small compared to her, also the fact that you cannot see her face makes her seem mysterious. The next shot is a point of view shot from Kate and this shows her walking very close to Shaiane and once they are in the room Kate shuts the door behind them and you can see her looking through the glass directly into the camera and doing a creepy smile which makes the audience anxious. There is then a close-up of Kate locking the door and then it cuts to a shot of two people who could have been potential candidates for the interview tied up in a room, it then cuts to a blackout and back to a shot of the same two people who are awake and trying to get away and out of being tied up which creates suspense and tension for the audience.  

Preliminary Task 1

This is our first preliminary task which had to include someone walking through a door and dialogue. In the first shot we do not show my face which creates suspense for the audience because they do not know who this person is and we also used a low angle to make this person look dangerous. On the other hand Shaiane is shot from a high angle which makes her seem weak and vulnerable, she also has earphones in which tells the audience that she will not hear the person walking in behind her. There is a point of view shot which shows me walking up to Shaiane and this creates tension for the audience because they know she has her earphones in and you can hear the music very faintly in the clip. When Shaiane gets shocked on the shoulders there is a shot of the paint pallet falling on the floor which has been slowed down the add effect, but there is also too much focus on this. In this shot Shaiane hasn’t got her earphones in anymore which is an issue that we found after we had finished shooting all the scenes and went to edit; the audience can assume that the earphones fell out when Shaiane got shocked but this makes the continuity of the clip seem unrealistic. The location we chose was good in some ways because it was quiet and there was no noise to disrupt the scenes but ultimately it wasn’t an ideal place to shoot our preliminary task because we were shooting with the light behind the action which made Shaiane’s face particularly dark while my face was facing the light and therefore the contrast was very noticeable. After shooting and editing this and looking at the things we could improve in the clip we decided to do another preliminary task.

Match on Action

This is our first task we did as a group which we each edited. We had to include someone sitting down and standing up, someone walking up the stairs, someone turning pages on a book and a movement of our own choice to show our understanding of match on action. The first movement of someone sitting down and standing up flows well and also the dropping of the bag looks realistic but we needed to get more footage of the turning of the book because there is a gap where the book is open and then it goes straight into the page is already half turned which doesn’t look like a continuous movement. The person walking along the railing flows well but the gap between when he jumps of the railing and when he lands on the floor is a bit too long. In the shot of the person sitting in the chair and then running up the stairs we had some issues about the light, there is too much natural light which means that the continuity from shot to shot was bad. We had to edit the colour of one shot because the light was too dark and the shot before that was quite light.