FILM OPENING: FINAL DRAFT

This is the final outcome of all our prepartion, planning, and changes. As a group we are happy with the film, we have worked well together and are able to recognise all our ideas put into the piece.

FILM OPENING: FIRST DRAFT CHANGES

We have made alot of changes due to our feedback. For example one thing we were pulled up on was our title 'Stockholm'. So we decided to take an idea that we had previously seen during the opening titles of the film Pulp Fiction where we see the dictionary definition of the work 'Pulp'.

We made our own definition so that the audience will know what the title is about and understand the storyline much better. This is a screen shot of our definition which is made to look like a real dictionary definition. this makes it look much more formal.

 

Also at 00:52 seconds til about 00:58 seconds in the first draft, we had a light continuity error as you could see it in this shot, but not in others and so in order to over come this we had to crop it out of the shot, which made tis shot now become a lot more zoomed in and slightly blurry, however it didn't look too bad and it was better then getting marked down for the light error.

We also re-dubbed the audio by doing what I prevoulsy mentioned in other posts which was to have James speaking in a posher tone of voice to make the news report seem more realistic. We managed to make this work really well and sync the pieces together well so that the audience couldn't tell the movie and audio were two seperate recordings.

FILM OPENING: FIRST DRAFT FEEDBACK

The feedback we revieved was very constant, with people pointing out the same errors and mistakes, and also praising us on the same things too.

Pros

• The use of the boiler room was recognised with people saying 'good use of Mise en scène'
• The shadow on the wall was mentioned a couple of times commenting that it worked really well and added to the tension and eerieness of the piece.
• Also, with regards to sound, people said that the tracks we chose to use worked well.
• Our opening titles were also praised saying that they worked well and looked professional. We used non copyrighted images off the internet and edited them on Photoshop. The idea of Boiler Room Productions tied in with our opening due to the setting however, Red Door Studios was a very random name which we came up with as a group.

Cons

• The main problem that almost everyone mentioned was the background noise on the news report which distorted the sound actually been said by Ethan. However, this was also criticised saying that Ethans voice didn't sound very professional therefore withdrawing from the authenticness of the report. In order to overcome this problem, we re-recorded the audio to cut out any background noise and to allow full focus to be on what was been said. However, to solve the problem of complaints about Ethans voice, we decided that James would speak the news script and we would then have to add this to the video and sync them together.
• Another con which was mentioned was the way Cindy looked saying that she looked too neat etc as she had make up on and her hair was tidy. We decided here that we would have Lauren purposely looking so neat in order to make her look more sexualised to play on the idea of the weird relationship between Cindy and kidnapper.
• We received some good and bad feedback about our title Stockholm. We as a group knew that it referred to the syndrome although our audience did not. "Explain the title Stockholm" was used. So we found a way to express its meaning. This was where we were influenced by Pulp Fiction in having a definition at the beginning of the film. This allowed us to establish and explain the title, so that no one was confused by it.

Below there is some feedback in graph form, allowing us to present our feedback differently.

We used a system where we asked the audience to rate each section from 1 - 5, 1 been bad, five been good. Here you can see that our scores for each element of the first draft ranged from 3.4 - 3.7, a reasonably high score for our initial draft. We were happy with this.

For example you can see our sound has not scored as high as camera shots and mise-en-scene so this was clearly one of our main areas that we had to focus on.

The above bar chart is a clearer way to show and compare the different sections.

FILM OPENING: FIRST DRAFT

This is the first draft of our film opening, it was successful in many ways and overall we were happy with the outcome, however there were some errors and problems which we weren't happy with and intended on changing to achieve the best outcome possible. We did stick to our original storyboard however a few shots were changed as during filming we had new ideas which we wanted to add in.
We intended on making these changes, but first we also wanted some audience feedback and so we made Questionnaires to allow us to find out what outsiders believed needed changing, but also what worked well.

FILM OPENING: STORYBOARD

This is a copy of our storyboard, at the beginning with have the titles including production company and studio names, and over this Ethan's voice begins to fade in talking about an irrelevant news story, like what happens at the beginning of 'I am Legend'. Then, the actual news screen comes into view and Ethan begins to talk about the disappearance of Cindy Lake and provides the details on her disappearance etc. This allows us to provide the audience with the narrative of the story in an unusual but effective way, introducing the audience to the kidnap scene before it has begun. I think this works really well, and is a good idea to also add to the serious and formality of the film.

The news report continues, but the camera begins to zoom out away from it to reveal the news report been played on a laptop. It continues to zoom out and move away from the laptop to eventually reveal Cindy on the left side of the shot, looking over her shoulder obviously meaning that she is watching the news report on her own disappearance. Then, a shot of her hands tied up and her struggling and trying to break free, a tension building shot which signifies she is in captivity and playing the role of the hostage.

Another successful shot which we have used before and decided to incorporate into our film opening is the shot of Brads feet walking towards the camera. We did this in our first practise and our group decided to use it again as it is effective and builds tension, an element that is much needed in thriller genre movies.

The opening ends with a POV shot taken from the antagonists perspective looking down onto Lauren, symbolising that he holds the higher status, he is in charge. He puts his hand onto Cindy's shoulder and the clip ends with the main title of our movie coming onto screen, 'Stockholm'.

FILM OPENING: SCRIPT

News report to be voiced over titles like in the I Am Legend opening sequence:

And we'll talk more about that over the next half hour right here on ABS News. Figures have emerged recently however that point towards a double drop in the recession and could lead to further financial problems for 2012, as the Chancellor of the Exchequers previous prediciotns are looking less likely - with economic growth actually falling but 0.1% in the last quarter. 

And finally and update on our main story this afternoon at the top of the hour, the disappearance of Cindy Lake moves into its 7th day now with volunteers and forensice teams still sweeping the Woodland area around her home. 

16 year old Cindy went missing around 4pm last Thursday on her way home from school walking through the Brentwood area, when her parents reported her missing twenty four hours later a nationwide search party was put in place to help fnd her.

Scotland Yard have released this sttement in regards to the case, "With details still unclear as to the situation surrounding Cindy's disappearance - we would like to urge anyone with information to come forward and assist in the investigation". 

MAIN TASK: FURTHER PLANNING

Genre: Thriller


Narrative:
Who? Cindy has been kidnapped, news reporter talking about it
What? An evil dark figure
When? Present Day
Where? Boiler room as it looks like a basement and somewhere underground and hard to find is a typical setting for the thriller genre. Somewhere dark and vacant needs to be used, dingy and dull.

Camera Shots: 
Close ups on the girls face to show the fear and build up tension, other shots of her include ones looking down on to her, showing that she is of low power, also points that she is in danger and needs help.

Shots of the kidnapper are often medium shots as to not show his face completely to evoke mystery and of course build tension. There is also close ups used on his feet, this sparked nerves and his feet were obviously walking towards the girl. And we also include a couple of POV shots, such as when he looks at her and we have a full shot of here tied up on the chair, and then another one right at the end as he stands behind her looking over her - again establishing power - and puts his hand on her shoulder. 

Editing: 
Low key lighting - used Sony Vegas movie maker to adjust the lighting.

Music: 
Slow, creepy, eerie. Footsteps.

Mise-en-scene: 
Boiler room, low key lighting. 

The kidnapper to be dressed in all black, with a big coat and big black boots to make him look scary. Girl dressed in school uniform to show vulnerability, age, etc. Red connotations of danger. Newsreader to be dressed in smart clothes to show the formality and importance of the news reading. 

Props

Pretend gun

School uniform

Chair

Rope

Costume - Big coat etc

Fake coat

Laptop