Survey on responses

 I have created a survey on responses to our opening title sequence and have asked 10 people to answer truthfully. You can find the survey here 

Here are the responses that I have collected from carrying out the survey;

Production Company - Working Title Films

     (Below I have created some GIF images of a scene from some popular Working Title films)  

                      

                              Billy Elliot

                        Shaun of the Dead

                    Drop Dead Fred

Bibliography

http://www.bombedoutinspace.com/2010/02/08/an-assessment-of-the-work-of-working-title-and-its-effect-on-the-british-film-industry/

http://www.creativeskillset.org/film/stories/production/article_3457_1.asp

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/michaelwalford/entry/working_title_history/

http://www.slideshare.net/mickgoogan/g322-case-study-working-title-and-the-boat-that-rocked

http://www.workingtitlefilms.com/

Title's

I have researched various existing titles to some horror thriller films to give me an idea of how ours should look.

I have noticed that all these titles have followed the codes and conventions of a horror, being that they are monochromatic and use blood red as a predominant colour. They're also either very grunge like or thin and sharp. When looking at font for our film I will keep these in mind so that our title will give the right impression to the audience.

For our title we have looked at various fonts that we could use. They are;

We liked this font due to the fact that it looks pretty grungy and horror like, we considered we might use this one if we can't find another that's up to this standard.

This font we liked because it has a mirrored effect which would work with our story considering it contains a mirror.

This font is pretty good, although we weren't too sure if it work work well as it looks kind of fantasy looking rather than horror.

This font here is a great horror font, although I think it would work better with a hack & slash horror genre rather than a ghost horror genre.

This is my most favourite font out of the five as I like how it has sharp edges and I like that it's very thin. I believe that it creates a great horror image and I think it would work best with our sequence out of the 5.

Secret Window Analysis

Opening title sequence analysis of 'Secret Window'

The opening here is taken from a psychological thriller film called 'Secret Window', directed by David Koepp, starring Johnny Depp.

It starts with a sound bridge of windscreen wipers while the distribution company is shown to the audience, this leaves the audience thinking, what might that be? Then, the shot changes and focuses on Mort Rainy (Johnny Depp's character) while driving a car. The shot shown here is a close up, done to show you the facial expression, which looks stressed. This can connote that something bad, worrying or upsetting may have happened to the character. A voice over then plays, which strengthens that view more, as the dialogue is: "Turn around. Turn the car around, get the hell out of here" and "Don't go back, do not go back there". This strengthens that particular view because those are imperatives, ordering him not asking him.

As he back up in a car, heading towards the motel, a monochromatic long shot is shown here, which the blood red colour, connoting danger, of the Motel sign and the car lights stand out. He is then panned across the screen, heading into the cold, gloomy and dark night as he walks into the Motel. The protagonist then walks straight out of the shot as another character walks into it looking puzzled, this can connote that the protagonist has something curios about him, that he has done something without permission. Leaving the Motel, a point of view shot from inside the car is shown, driving towards a blood red coloured door. The sound of a distressed car then dominates. As the protagonist gets out of the car and enters the door, non diegetic sound plays, sounding quite haunting and chilling, again giving you the impression that something bad has happened as the sound creates suspense. 

That shot and sound then fades into a long shot of a river, with almost psychological sounding orchestral music. This is in contrast to the first scene, as in this one, the mise-en-scene has a warmer feeling of day, opposite to the cold in the night from the first scene. This is also where the titles start to appear, fading in and back at as the sequence plays, connoting mystery' or 'weariness. As the title 'Secret Window' appears, this is the only blood red title used, making it stand out from the rest, the blood representing a thriller.

This scene then fades again into a long shot of a mysterious looking house surrounded by trees, the camera then has one long take of the whole scene, going around to the side of the house until it focuses on a window. It continues to focus on the window until it reaches it and 'crawls' inside, show a long wide shot of the inside of the house. As the camera continues to move throughout the house, it then  focuses upon a laptop opened on a word document, sitting on a desk covered in papers. This may represent that the protagonist is a writer and had a busy time doing it. The camera then 'leaps' over the banister and continues to take one shot until it reaches the protagonist, which he is laying on a sofa with his back facing us. He is dressed in a tattered bath robe, this is representing him as someone who may be low on money or depressed, not willing to care how he presents himself. As this one shot is taken, the non diegetic orchestral sound continues to play right up until the point he is shown.

The whole opening title sequence to 'Secret Window' helps you to understand some points of the movie, without giving too much away. This then leads you to watch the whole film as you want all the questions, which were created in the start, answered. This is one of the main conventions of a thriller film, using 'a taster of what is to come' to grab the audiences attention.

Inspirational Scenes

Our group have looked through some scenes from the film 'Candyman' and 'The Grudge' to give us some inspiration into how our filming could go. We found some scenes in particular very interesting and some scenes we thought weren't too catching.

This scene from 'Candyman' we liked as we want to take the idea of the antagonist just appearing out of no where because it can sometimes make the audience jump. One shot is shown perfectly quiet and nothing much happening, although the tension does build up, and then suddenly the next shot focuses on the antagonist.

This scene from 'The Grudge' we liked because we all found it to be freaky due to the fact that the grudge is 'following' the character around. We also like the idea of the flashback that the girl gets while staring into the mirror and hope to achieve this ourselves.

Our chosen sub genre

Our group of 4 have decided to use the sub genre of horror thriller. We chose this genre because we all have favourite films within that genre.

We have chosen to use the film CANDYMAN and GRUDGE to help and guide us through our task.

We plan to have our antagonist looking similar to the one on the film 'The Grudge', as we all agreed to having that character looking pale with deep black eyes and hair, creating the 'freaky' effect. 
We will achieve this by using white makeup to cover her face completely and using black eyeshadow to go around her eyes, smudging them softly into her face to try and get a ghostly appearance. We will also get hold of a white gown which covers all her body, basically letting it hang over her shoulders, this will give a ghostly walk to her movements. 

For the events in our opening we would like to achieve a similar 'summon a ghost' as it is in the film 'Candy Man'. We're going to try our best to get the best effect of this as we can.

To do this we will be using mirrors as well.

Survey on thrillers

My survey on Thrillers;

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TZSQ532


I carried out a survey on Thrillers to 11 people, here is the outcome;

From carrying out this survey, I have found out that horror and psychological thrillers are the most popular and that opening sequences only sometimes attracts the viewers interest. People don't mind whether the protagonist is male or female as they believe that gender does not matter, that it won't effect if the film is good or not. A lot of people have said they like unexpected twists, possibly because this would keep them interested throughout the film. The main traits that people say their reason for watching a thriller is the emotional outcome and the plot, people like to experience feelings while watching, whether it be sad, happy, scared or excited. Almost everyone who took my survey has said that sound effects and editing does matter in a thriller, I would agree with them on this as I believe that both these things put the thrill in thrillers.

These answers will help me and my group with our own opening sequence to a thriller as we can decide upon things based on this survey.

Codes and Conventions of a thriller.

There are many types of sub genre of thrillers, but each and every one do have the same overall codes and conventions.
The codes and conventions of a thriller are music that shows tension or suspense (See video one below), lighting which is dull, dark or low (See images below) camera angles that change, flashbacks, black and white images, quick change in shots/jump cuts and shadows.
An opening sequence to a Thriller can have an enigma code - they usually put in a fascinating question in the mind of the audience that only watching the movie will answer.
Each code and convention here have their own connotation, for example, dull, dark or low lighting connote mystery, eeriness or loneliness, and flashbacks can connote 'looking into one's past'. These help the viewers into understanding a thriller film, but also enjoy it at the same time.
All these aspects are included in thrillers as thrillers are films which include exciting plots, and adding all these within the film create even more excitement and thrill.

   Video One

These type of soundtracks are played within a thriller because music that builds up gives an impression to the audience. Depending on what type of music is played within a film can determine what emotions are conveyed within the audience. People like to experience something that will keep them alert, or something that will cause them to jump while watching a thriller, so keeping to the codes and conventions within the music side of a thriller is very important.

Some examples of thriller scene contain the dull, dark and low lighting.

Opening title sequences, important?

Why are opening title sequences important to the film industry?

Opening title sequences are important to the film industry because these first few minutes of the film are what the viewer sees first. They show you what the producers intentions are and they also give you expectations of the film ahead. These are important because the viewer may base the film on what they see first, so putting in a unsuccessful title sequence may lower the viewers expectations of the film, whereas putting in a very successful title sequence will keep the viewer's interest.
Saul Bass once said, "making a main-title was like making a poster, you're condensing the event into this one concept, this one metaphor, a back-story that needs to be told or a character that needs to be introduced."

I researched on the internet and found a particular site interesting, here. It helped me a lot to understand why opening title sequences are important.

Analysis of a thriller opening title sequence

Resident Evil: Afterlife;

This is the opening title sequence taken from an action/horror thriller film called Resident Evil: Afterlife, directed by Paul W. S Anderson, starring Milla Jovovich.
It's starts off with a sound bridge, fading into a monochromatic birds eye view of a city at night, while the camera pans around revealing more of the city in the shot. The shot also changes each time to different locations of the city. This can give you the impression that these particular locations which are being shown are important within the film. The fact that these shots has been filmed at night can help you to understand the genre of the film, being that darkness can connote 'evil', 'fear', 'murder' etc. and these particular connotations are some of the main codes of a horror thriller. The monochromatic colour within the shots here can connote 'eeriness' and 'mystery', again helping you to understand the genre. The non-diegetic music that plays throughout this scene conveys emotion and sets a certain mood. The eerie musical build up of the strings starts off quiet, rising the pitch followed by a violent orchestral hit. This gives the music a very sinister sounding track, giving you the impression that this scene is definitely building up to something. 
As the shot then changes to

9 - Saul Bass posters and logos

Here's a number of Posters designed and created by Saul Bass;

All his posters here have meaning behind them, they tell you what the film includes, for example, the poster for The Man with the Golden Gun has a Jagged arm and off-killer typography, this could suggest some type of struggle that has gone on within the protagonist.

I find his designs very unusual as they're something I'm not used to. From first looking at them, the impression that I get is plain and nothing too interesting, yet I can still tell that they're not just any designs, but successful ones.

Saul Bass was also recognised for the logo's that he creates. 

In this picture here, the logos are; (From left to right) 

Bell System, General Foods, United Airlines, Avery International, Continental Airlines, Celanese, United Way, Rockwell International, Minolta, Girl Scouts of USA, Lawry's Foods, Quaker Oats, Kleenex, Frontier Airlines, Dixie, Warner Books, Warner Communications and Fuller Paints.

These logos are well known and remember mostly within the USA, but Saul Bass also produced a number of logos for Japanese companies as well.

8 - Saul Bass brief description

Here we were asked to research about Saul Bass;

Saul Bass was a graphic designer and a filmmaker, he was known for his film poster designs and his motion picture title sequences. He was born on May the 8th 1920 in New York City, USA. He died on April 25th 1996 in Los Angeles 

He created title sequence's such as; The Man with the Golden Arm, The Big Country and The Victors. He also created a new type of kinetic typography for Vertigo, Psycho and North by North.

5 - Camera shots, angles and Movements

For this lesson, we re-capped on the different camera movements and shots. Here is the picture we were shown to re-cap on the camera shots and movements;

I remembered all theses shots and movements very clearly, but this lesson did help me to keep these shots and movements in mind for when my group film our continuity sequence.