Basically we finished our storyboard and so transferred it into a digital format, then we realised on the computer you couldn't actually see the writing very well and all the faint lines were very hard to see. So I decided to re-do each page in photoshop, where I typed up all the writing, and went over all the colours in pictures!
We will bring the storyboard with us to film, therefore hopefully we can easily see what we need to be filming and what we still have to do!!
Hello! So this is my analysis of previous students work. Its a thriller opening called 'The puppeteer's playhouse', and the opens the story with a saw-esque plot. It features one main protagonist and he is portrayed as a dominant male. The other character it features is a controlling antagonist who the protagonist sees only through a screen. This gives the antagonist superiority in this opening, but also it gives him the aura of a 'mysterious character' which is a main feature of thriller films. I'm now going to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the film and what we can learn from it. Here is the film:
Strengths
-The lighting is used very effectively. The main light is a floodlight in the corner of the small room. This creates the atmosphere of isolation and enclosure for the protagonist. The main light is also directly above the non-moving puppet who we later find out is the apprentice of the antagonist. Because the main light is directly above the apprentice, it casts the apprentice in shadow which makes him another 'mysterious character' to involve into the plot. This involves the audience further because it makes them question the identity of this character.
-The camerawork is very good. They used a lot of handheld shots when the protagonist is getting more tense when trying to escape. This causes the audience to be on the edge of their seat a lot more. Also, a POV shot from the puppet (we don't know he is the apprentice yet) influences the fact of the 'supernatural' and the fact that something is amiss. It also makes the audience very uneasy and excited for the rest of the film. This good for a thriller audience because they go to the film expecting to be interested and involved in the storyline.
-The music is excellent. The main strength in terms of music is the fact that it builds up when the protagonist is trying to escape. This is very effective for viewing pleasure because it contributes heavily to the tense atmosphere. It also increases the audiences interest in the plot and characters because the audience realise that the music is building up towards a big event, which draws their attention.
Weaknesses:
-I think the actual plot isn't very good at all. The fact that they decided to do a saw-like film is just a complete copy of a franchise which is not what the task. It doesn't seem original, especially with the 'puppet' characters because they are a complete copy from the Saw franchise. Also the plot of saw films rely heavily on gore and are based more around the horror genre than the thriller genre. This opening fits into the thriller genre but sets up the rest of the film to be a horror type film, not a thriller.
-The character of the puppet master's costume is not very effective. It is almost comical. It is not the kind of thing that thrills audiences, it scares them. The point of a thriller film is not to scare its audience, it is to make them use their imagination instead if being a passive watcher. Also, the pupeteer character looks extremely fake and unrealistic. This storyline may not be completely realistic but that character makes the whole opening seem fake and shatters the suspension of disbelief. I don't think the use of this character is very effective.
-The editing is not very good. All shots are either very short as in half a second, or very long as in ten to fifteen seconds. This makes the film drag on a bit. Even when the plot and the protagonist is becoming more tense and the music is building up, the editing does not which makes the sequence drag a lot. It makes it slow for the viewer because when the sequence is building up, and creates the an only partially tense atmosphere.
Points to take from this:
-Firstly, we know to make our plot interesting, but also to make it as realistic as possible.
-Secondly, our characters need to be as intriguing as they can because the aura of the 'mysterious character is very intriguing for an audience member.
-Also, the use of music and lighting can be very effective in a thriller opening. It creates atmosphere but also influences the personalities of the characters and highlights them for the audience.
-We need to consider music and sound a lot more because the use of sound is used very effectively in this opening, and contributes a lot to the main bulk of the plot and story. It also reflects the entirety of the situation and what the atmosphere is like.
-Lastly, we need to plan costume and props a lot better because we don't want our characters to look unrealistic and we want to suspend their disbelief and make them interested in our story.
Before we put our storyboard on here, I thought we should tell you exactly what is happening in our thriller opening, the plot line has changed slightly since the beginning of this project, however overall it's the same idea!
So it begins with a shot of a stereotypical family house, then cuts to a man asleep in bed. He's wearing light coloured pyjamas (showing he's the protagonist). He then wakes up, looks to where his wife should be and realises she's not there, he doesn't seem to be panicking at this moment, but gets up, puts on his dressing gown and leaves his room. We then see him looking into his childrens rooms - looking round the rooms in search of his children (the audience will know they are his childrens rooms due to the colours, props, mise-en-scene. The audience will also know that he is searching because by this time he will be beginning to look slightly worried as it seems his family is gone.
By this time he is becoming panicked and runs down the stairs into the kitchen - shouting for his wife and children (therefore we know that they are missing, and we understand that he is becoming extremely worried). He looks round the kitchen frantically, and finds a note, the audience will be able to see this note from the camera angles - and we see that it's a ransom note stating that someone has taken his wife and children, and he must find them from a clue within a deadline (hence the title 'deadline') From this moment a clock begins ticking in the right corner of the screen, showing he only has about 5:00 to find his family. From this point there are random short clips around 1/2 seconds but getting longer each time of his family being held hostage in what looks like an old barn.
Immediately it seems as if he knows where he's going, he runs to the car and drives away - we then have shots from inside the car of the dad driving to this place. The tense music has faded in by now and is slowly getting more and more tense - adding to the suspense of the audience. The dad arrives at what also looks like an old barn, he gets out of the car (the shots will be much shorter now to add to the suspense of the scene) and begins shouting his wife and childrens name whilst running around searching for them... after looking around for a while he realises he has obviously come to the wrong place, all the while we can still see the countdown clock in the corner counting down to 00:00. He looks at his clock and realises he is about to run out of time - this obviously makes him break down as he thinks his family will die, although he still gets in his car and drives away in the hope he can still get to his family in time.
The last shot we see is the antagonist shaking his head and walking towards the family who are still tied up.
We feel this ending is extremely climatic and shows enough to hook the audience, therefore making them want to watch the rest of the film. Although it shows a lot we think it conceals a majority of the information about the situation, again making the audience ask questions and wanting to watch on. We think this plot sounds like a stereotypical hostage thriller opening, whilst still being original and different to any we've seen, it includes a huge variety of conventional thriller shots, codes and conventions, and storylines.
Our storyboard will be up later today for you to look at, and hopefully be able to match the shots with this plot line!!
So I thought I could do some planning to get ready for filming, we decided on 2 days for filming and we thoroughly discussed what scenes and shots we need to film at what times.
Our film is set in the morning, and in 'real time' it would only span across about 5 minutes, therefore the time of day needs to look like it hasn't changed at all - this is going to be extremely difficult because obviously filming each scene will take quite a long time. To solve this problem we thought about the lighting we are going to have in each shot - the only scenes that need natural lighting are when the dad is in the house waking up, when he's driving and when he is searching for the family in the 'fake' barn. The hostage shot wont use any natural lighting as we will be using halogen lights in the hostage shots as we believe this will create a certain atmosphere. So the hostage shots don't actually need to look like it's in the morning - therefore we will film these shots last as it wont matter if it's become slightly darker!
We will film the shots of the dad waking up and all shots in the house first thing when we film - as these definitely need natural light for these shots and it needs to look like it's in the morning.
We will then film the shots of the dad driving to where he thinks his family are being held hostage - as these also need to use natural lighting which looks like it's straight after being in the house!
Thirdly we will film the shots of the dad at the 'fake' barn where he thinks his family are, as once again these shots need to have natural lighting and needs to look about 2 minutes after the dad leaving the house.
Finally we will film the hostage clips, as like I said this does not require natural lighting therefore it doesn't matter if this is slightly later on in the day!!
I think this plan for filming will make it easier for us to film, and as we are so organised we will be able to inform our actors of this information once again meaning the filming process will go smoothly and with less mistakes and troubles.
Oooo blueee... So just thought I would write a little update of whats going on and where we're at and how i'm feeling about the process in general!
I've now finished all my planning and research, although I found analysing previous students work and existing film openings really helpful and interesting so I may analyse a few more and blog them! I feel all the research I've done has helped me in every way to get ready to make our own thriller opening including technical codes and conventions of a stereotypical thriller opening, and how to edit, shoot, direct etc well. Today we had a pretty major setback as we hadn't actually been told that our deadline for filming was the 20th of January so in our group we were discussing that we could film on the 22nd of January when someone pointed out that the deadline was apparently the 20th. This made us all extremely stressed as we hadn't been told this at all and we would have preferably liked to have been informed at the beginning of the project or earlier than today!! After finding this out we had to rediscuss our entire filming process, and after much consideration and debating we have realised the nearest possible date we can film is the morning of the 21st and the day of the 22nd - we realise this is past the deadline date but unfortunately there is no day before this when we would be able to film. To ensure our filming goes smoothly and we achieve the quality opening that we want, we did lots of planning for the shooting of our film in class today and discussed everything that needed to be done in depth - I contacted people about possible locations and I contacted people that we would initally like to star in our film, therefore I can start organising what times we need to be at what places in the day to make sure our filming is as productive as possible. In class I also planned where I would get each piece of the characters costumes from so I can collect all the costumes before filming.
I now need to contact the people we want to act in it again and inform them exactly what we want them to do, at what times and where. I will also need to contact certain people to enquire about the use of their locations (for example we will be using my house, so I need to check with my family. We will be using a friend of ours' barn so need to brief him on what we will be doing) Also I need to make sure all of my job roles are complete, and then complete the planning prior to filming!! Our storyboard will be up in a few days - IT'S AWESOME!! :D byeeeeeeeeeee x
I've decided to analyse another past students work as after viewing and analysing the first one I felt it helped me realise just how constricted we are in our technology and time limit - this made me start thinking about our own video and I'm not sure if it's slightly far fetched. After this I have been watching as many previous students work as possible to get a better idea of what other students did.
The thriller opening I have decided to analyse this time is called 'Smile', aaaand here it is;
Strengths:
* I think the use of the voice over worked really well - it's the only form of dialogue in the entire clip so we fully focus on what he is saying. Also the voice over starts as soon as the clip starts, surprising the audience as perhaps we are not expecting it, but it also hooks you by surprising you as you immediately listen to the facts he is saying.
* I thought the use of different shot types in this clip were brilliant, there are a range of close ups, mid shots and long shots, high and low angles and the use of panning is fantastic on the cork board. I thought the shots of the friends sitting together worked well as there were only mid and long shots on them - making it seem as if we are looking at the group of friends from an outsiders point of view, perhaps the antagonists point of view which is stereotypical of a thriller film.
* The cross cutting between the scenes of the friends and scenes of the antagonist reading, and looking at pictures works really well as it creates a mysterious atmosphere as the audience don't understand whats happening.
* One of the best things about this thriller opening is the integration of the credits and titles into the film itself - they are all written on various polaroids, meaning we look at the titles whilst getting an idea of whats going on in the opening still which I think is really intelligent. At the end the antagonist writes 'smile' on a polaroid of what looks like a girl lying on the floor - leaving the audience wondering whats happening, who this man is, who this girl is, and why he is obsessed with her.
Weaknesses:
* I think the main thing that could have been improved was the use of costumes - every character was wearing dark clothes which usually connotes evil and antagonists, therefore the audience may become confused and think that the group of friends are all antagonists, when actually they are supposed to be the protagonists. The costumes should suggest to the audience who each character is and what part they play in the film - meaning the protagonists would usually be wearing bright clothing to connote goodness.
* The lighting was all key lighting in each scene, and for the friend scenes this worked really well as it was meant to be a happy, lighthearted scene - however on the clips of the antagonists hands reading and tearing up paper there is also quite bright lighting, and I think it would have worked better if there were shadows or dark lighting on this scenes as it would show that he was the antagonist therefore the audience can immediately judge him and feel a certain way about him.
* Although the music worked well, I think it could have come in at an earlier point to make the clip more tense, and the music could have become faster and more climatic towards the end to make the ending more of a climax as opposed to the music staying the same throughout.
I think this was a really good thriller opening; the story was really well thought out and it's very clear whats happening, whilst still holding back information for the audience to wonder whats going on. The music fitted well with the story and the acting was really good. The lighting could have been improved and also the use of costume would have made the characters easier to identify with. I also think the integration of credits was brilliant and perhaps this could be something we could think about in our thriller opening.
