Titles

I began to plan how my titles are going to look and playing around with After Effects. I found it really hard because i hadn't ever used it before. I added the text, changes the colour and added some lightning.    

I tried to go for the stereotypical red against black to show the thriller genre. I played around to get to this and i like the simplicity of the font. My next step would be to try and add some diversity to it, maybe make it move a little. 

Weather

Forecast for Friday

We considered filming on Friday but by the time we finish school and get there, we would have missed the sunset lighting so we considered filming saturday instead.
We wanted to start filming on saturday but the weather forecast predicts sleet from 11:00pm to 1:00am, Friday into Saturday. It wouldn't be much of a problem because it wouldn't set, however, we didn't want to take the risk of filming in wet weather incase the equipment gets dirty. Also, incase we have to film on two different days because it may break the continuity.

Postponing the Shoot

We decided to postpone the shoot because it has snowed a lot more than we thought it would and has begun to set. Looking at the weather, I don't think we're going to be able to shoot because it will be hard to shoot scenes with tracking in the snow. This also intervenes with health and safety because we could slip while filming and we don't want to damage any equipment.
We'll see how the weather turns out for next weekend too and decide whether or not its suitable.

Characters

Here are all the characters we will be using in our thriller opening with a brief description of them and the role they will be playing.


Name: George Schena
Age:17
Role: An agent who worked with the government agency and has now gone rogue. He is shown to be helping the main female character gain confidential information that has be stolen from the government.
Why he was chosen for the role: George was chosen for this role because of his mature look and personal style. Him and I worked through the planning process together so he had an insight on what the character should be like, which made him suitable for the role.
Costume: Black coat/jacket with black trousers and smart black shoes

Name:Leena Tulsidas
Age: 17
Role: She is a main character and is also an agent gone rogue who used to work for the government agencies. She is after the confidential information for her plan which is not shown in the opening.
Why she was chosen for the role: Leena was chosen for the role as we wanted to challenge representations of action thrillers and have a woman play the role of the main character in comparison to the typical male agent. Leena's ethnicity also challenges certain types of representations commonly used throughout media as brown women are less often places as a main character.
Costume: Black Coat/jacket with black leggings and black ankle boots.


Name: Mitul Yadev
Age: 17
Role: Government agent who is trying to retrieve confidential information and capture the female agent gone rogue.
Why he was chosen for the role: Mitul was chosen for this role because he is fairly short yet built (body wise). We thought he would be perfect for the role because him and Mrushad (second agent) go well together and have the stereotypical look, both being built but with the height difference.
Costume: Black Coat/jacket/Hoody with black trousers and black shoes












Name: Mrushad Halai
Age: 17
Role: Government agent who is trying to retrieve confidential information and capture the female agent gone rogue.
Why he was chosen for the role: Mrushad was chosen for this role because he is Quite tall and built (body wise). We thought he would be perfect for the role because him and Mitul (other agent) go well together and have the stereotypical look, both being built but with the height difference.

Costume: Black Coat/jacket/Hoody with black trousers and black shoes

Filming Tomorrow!

We're really exited to film tomorrow but the wether has forecasted snow tomorrow. Its snowed little already but hasn't set very much which would still be suitable for shooting. We'll see how it actually is tomorrow and decide whether we can still film on the weekend or if we should postpone the shooting date.

Producers

I began researching some producers of independent films to find our more about their producers and who would be suitable to distribute our thriller opening. I narrowed my search down to two production companies that would be suitable for my film; Pathe and Vertigo.

Pathe is a British production company that specializes in independent films. It is involved in all aspects of film-making, from production and development through to international sales and distribution. Pathe is the worlds longest established film company, and now encompasses a diverse range of media and entertainment interests.                         

www.pathe.co.uk

They are a trustworthy company and are promising with their productions and distributions of such successful films such as The Queen, The Iron Lady, Slumdog Millionaire, chicken run and many more.

Vertigo is known as the leading British independent film and distribution company. They currently make more films per year than any other film company. They go into almost every genre such as thriller, comedy, horror, family films and many more which makes them so suitable. They take pride in their breaking new talents and emerging creativity. 
The company finances/ co-finances for a variety of budgets. It is the co-owner of Protagonist Pictures, although its films are not exclusive to the company.
Protagonist Pictures is commercially minded and thrive for creativity as do vertigo making it perfect for independent films.
Vertigo films seems to be most suitable and shows wonderful successes considering their flexibility. They have been part of production and distribution of very well known and successful British films such as StreetDance 2, StreetDance 3D, Horrid Henry, The inbetweeners, The Kings Speech and many more. 

www.vertigofilms.com

After researching about the two production companies, we decided to choose Vertigo Films to Produce our thriller film.

Target Market and Audience Research

I began looking on the website to see what age group out film would most likely be rated at. We want it to be available to a wide audience but it has to meet certain standards. I started off looking at 12A and 12 to see what the difference is and what can be included in it. 12A means that anyone aged 12 or over can go and see the film unaccompanied. the A stands for 'accompanied' and 'advisory'. Children younger than 12 may see the film if they are accompanied by an adult (eg, someone over the age of 18), who must watch the film with them.

(click to go to the website for more info)

However, just because children under the age of 12 may see the film with an accompanied adult, the film may not be completely suitable for them.

The website of BBFC was really useful as it answered all our questions on what we can include in our film opening.

After looking at what 12A may contain, I thought of looking at the age rating up (15). I saw what the age rating of 15 may include and I think it suits our target market considering our film. The 15 symbol indicated that no one under the age of 15 may see the film or buy/rent a hard copy of it.

(Click to go to the websitefor more info)

The film may contain strong violence, frequent strong language, portrayals of sexual activity, references to sex, nudity, drug taking etc.

BBFC

Uses And Gratifications

Costumes

We want the characters to wear either dark or black clothing as they're all involved in secret activity. We stereotypically see secret agents wearing dark/ black clothing, probably so they don't drag attention to themselves. I think having all the characters wearing black also establishes that they have something to do with each other and triggers the action code (their actions will effect/influence future events).

I typed in 'Secret agent female' in Google images and these are the results I found:

I highlighted the images and features I liked about the results on the first page. There are many stereotype images of secret agents that we are used to seeing. You can see that they are all wearing black which once again proves the stereotype.

I love the image (top row, 5th image from left) of Ann Hathaway. I think the biker leather jacket gives off a daring impression

Below is the sort of clothing we would like our main female character to wear.

Black leather jacket

Plain black leggings       Long black boots or any plain black     shoes.

We could also have her wearing a hat like this to cover the top of her head. We thought about hiding her hair to make her gender a mystery but it would have been given away by the clothing and body figure.

The hair being let out could look good when she is running and also give that feisty look to her.

Inspiration and Tips

I was looking through the production advice on our chief examiner, Pete's Media Blog to get tips. I watched this small film clip (Blitz) produced by a student. I thought that it was a wonderful fiction film clip and was very well executed. The lighting was interesting and still gave off a dark atmosphere. The Camera movement was also inspiring as it kept moving around the room hinting what the clip was about with the addition of the non-diegetic sound of the radio. 

There are captions throughout the film clip to show what had been done and why. I think it all worked together very well and there are many elements throughout that we could consider about our thriller opening such as the soundtrack, mise-en-scene, lighting and much more.

Inspiration

While planning our thriller opening, me and George watched a few openings of films to get ideas and inspiration. I found this music video quite inspiring as it had quite a similar concept of two men chasing a woman (antagonist?) and a man who is in on a plan. 
I found the shakiness of the camera interesting and thought it worked more effectively than how it would have if the camera was still. It gave of a quick intense impression with the short shots and shaky camera which is something we could consider.

Here is a shot of the men who are running after the woman. I like what they are wearing in this video (black). I think me and George could look for two people who are fairly built in body to play the role of the governments men. However, we decided not to have so much running as they would not initially want to drag attention to themselves as they're part of the governments secret agency.

Research and Planning

I looked through a media book that gave tips about shooting different types of scenes and how to execute them. I thought it was really helpful because as well as giving written information, it showed images of how the shot should look, an example and camera placement and movement.

I looked through the book to find tips on shots and scenes that we could and may be able to use.

The double page below shows how to shoot 'passing through tight spaces'. This would be useful while doing chase scenes or even tracking in small/tight spaces. The image shows what position 

The double page below shows 'travelling with the subject' which would most likely be heavily used in our opening. We can also use these tips and adapt them to shoot a chase scene.

The double page below shows how to make a character stand out in the crowd. As we planned to shoot in Central London, I thought this section would be quite helpful. However, even though it did help, its harder to execute as its outdoor and we don't have all the materials that are available for films with a larger budget. It would also be difficult due to health and safety as we don't want to harass members of the public and we don't want them to harass us. 

This image shows how lighting can make a character in the crowd stand out so you know that they are significant or are one of the main characters. It would be difficult to do with the equipment we have but we can still try. 

The Long lens pan would be useful during our chase scene or when shooting a long shot. Looking through this book helped a lot because not only did it give us tips but, it also gave us more ideas for our opening. We thought about having shots from a long distance and possibly adapt it to use for establishing shots and when trying to build tension.

The tips below on shooting 'through open spaces' differs from 'passing through tight spaces' and once again would be great to use during a chase scene or when following a character (tracking). However, considering our location, it may be more difficult to find an open space where we wont get in the way of the general public.

I think the page below on 'building tension' has been very helpful and interesting because it actually gives tips on what we're trying to achieve. The first sentence explains that staring into an open space builds tension as the audience expects something to appear. This plays with the unknown and in my previous research, I realised that the unknown is what fears us the most. staring into open space could even be done with a point of view shot to suggest that the character is looking/hiding from someone or something. The book says that you can slide the camera along behind the character and I like the idea because, it builds tension making the audience ask questions and fear for what they don't know.

'Your character should, therefore, be staring through a doorway, down an alley, or into another space.' For our opening, I think that we could defiantly use these techniques, especially down an alley way or into another space. 

 The double page below links in with the tips above on building tension as once again they are the 'UNSEEN attacker'. This also plays with the unknown again and almost creeps around to look down an open space.

Health and Safety

As we wanted to shoot our thriller opening outside and in Central London, we had to think about health and safety. Our teacher must know that we are going to use the equipment and when before we take it out. The main concern would be when we're outside because we have to take the equipment on the train to get there so we don't want any of the equipment damaged. 
While in London, we have to be careful as we don't want anyone to steal any of the equipment, and we don't want to lose any of it either. We also have to consider a back up area to shoot as we may be denied access to shoot in some areas. We may even be told to move if the general public feel disturbed.

We want to shoot the opening to give it a dull atmosphere, maybe in late afternoon or sunset. This may be difficult as it heads around rush hour and it would be really difficult to shoot with the equipment with loads of people around. As well as this, we have to keep the weather in mind and check it before. We wouldn't want to shoot in rain as the footage may be unclear and we don't want equipment getting wet.

Ideas and Location

From all our previous ideas, we began to narrow it down. We were very keen on doing a chase scene somewhere in the opening so we knew we had to build a storyline including it. We considered shooting in a local area but decided that Central London would work better. Below are the locations in Piccadilly Circus that we chose and really liked. We wanted to have a chase scene going down the long wide road on the left. We then roamed the area on Google Maps and loved the location on the right. The image was taken a while ago so its hard to determine whether or not the flags would still be up there but, even if they weren't, it has wonderful perspective and a sense of modern and traditional London.

We wanted to shoot the main chunk of the opening in the image on the right and we began planning a story board around it.

JUNO

 

           

This is my Juno recreation. It allowed me to practice editing on final cut, how to add text and putting audio over it. However, I didn't manage to finish completely by adding the audio on top but this is where i got up to. 

By doing this task, I learnt how important a detailed story board is especially as we were recreating the opening. I also learnt how important it is to add all angles and shot styles with detail so you know what sort of shot you want to achieve.
Beneath is the original version of Juno to compare how close i was to the original. 

Se7en

I looked at the opening sequence to Seven which is by far one of the most successful opening I have seen so far. The shots throughout the opening were amazing. The amount of detail that just brings it all together as a whole is immaculate. As you can see below, there is 9 frames of the sequence that was already chosen. It shows the main shots that stand out amongst all of the shots. 

I decided to pick some more shots that I found interesting and possibly inspirational other than the ones above.

This shot below is eye-catching. We first wonder what it is and have to look deeper until we realise it is a close up of a book. The angle of the shot is very original compared to the angle we would usually see of book (of the front cover). It builds enigma as we wonder what is in the book and what is it for?

 The shot below shows someone writing with slightly faded version over-lapped which may suggest quick, repetitive movement. It is an extreme close up once again which builds tension as well as enigma for the audience. In this shot, we can see the typography which seems to be hand written in white to stand out on top of the picture. The blurred vision makes us wonder, 'what is written?'

This close up shows a page/ book with writing that has words crossed out with black marker. The lighting in the middle, fading darker on the edges of the shot allows us to focus on specific words of the passage. Sexually related words throughout the text are crossed out which suggests that the character may not approve of this. This also builds enigma about the character and who they may be.

The shot below shows pages of text once again but this time, hand written and in a big chunk close together. We can see the shadow of a hand writing which tells us that there is a lot more. The audience may begin to think more about what is written, why it has been written and who keeps writing?

                                     

I particularly liked this shot because of the typography. It is jagged and looks printed as well as being hand written. The shot is once again at such a close up that we get to see the detail in the characters hands and the delicate work they're doing.

Once again, we see crossing out but on a little boy's face. There is a light focus on the boys face which highlights the fact that his eyes have been crossed out with darkness around. This suggests to the audience that there is something wrong with this character or they are not normal, perhaps they are the antagonist? This shot stood out to me because its not as close as the other shots, its more obvious in a way that it is meant to be understood.  

      

In the shot below, we have another extreme close up again. I love this shot because of the attention to detail and how intricate it looks. It is at such a close level that we can see very clearly, the string going through the needle with the characters rough fingers with bandages. The focus of the camera work allows our eyes to focus on the action the character is performing rather than anything behind.

The thing that inspired me about this shot was the lighting and detail. The way they have cleverly placed a small bit of hair on some clear plastic with an image of boys with their eyes crossed out. this automatically makes us assume that it is theirs and there is some sort of uncomfortable relationship between them and the unknown character.

The close up below is very interesting as it gives us a sly hint about the character and what sort of person they may be like. The fact that the character has taken the word 'GOD' out of the dollar using forceps rather than hands suggests the careful and purposeful intention. This makes us wonder whether the character has something against god or is an atheist. The angle of the shot is interesting as the note is upside down, changing it up a little bit.