Shooting Schedule

In order to make sure we film everything that needs to be filmed, and get it finished in time to start the editing process it is crucial we plan out what days we are all going to film. We have additionally included the location, shot description and the people who will need to be present at the certain tasks. Below is a shooting schedule of our plan of action.

Character Description

Due to the fact our opening sequence is going to be quite puzzling, we will only have two characters featuring in it. One of these being a young girl, who gets kidnapped, tied up and held captive. The other being an old man who will actually be the one keeping the young girl. However, we will need to have a better and more detailed perceptive about these characters in order for the actors to play their role greater. Therefore a character description will illustrate in more detail, the background of both of the characters but also more about them as a person.

The Girl:

Name: Jane

Age: 17

Ethnicity: White

Hobbies and Interests: She is extremely focused on school, as she wants to succeed to go onto university. She has a part time job in a local restaurant, but on weekends and in her free time she likes to socialize with friends, by going to parties and the cinema etc.

Social Demographic: Working Class

Personality: She is a shy, timid girl in front of people she doesn’t know and additionally in situations she is not comfortable with. This changes when she is with her friends, as she knows how to have a laugh and comes out of her shell more. Jane is a pacifist and doesn’t like hurting anyone or being hurt herself, this leads her to be over-protective of the loved ones around her.

Her Role: She gets captured and held captive, but cannot remember what happened or the reason behind it. She is kept for roughly 2 weeks, until she meets another victim and together they plan their escape.

The Man:

Name: Intentionally his identity is kept quiet

Age: 45+

Ethnicity: White

Hobbies and Interests: Loves being in control and is not a socialite. He doesn’t have any friends, and lives by himself in a moderately large house. Frequently he enjoys a game of chess, and this becomes evident further into the story, he also enjoys reading, but X-rated books are more his thing. He is mentally ill and believes what he is doing to the young girls is tolerable and of the norm.

Social Demographic: Middle Class

Personality: He keeps himself to himself, but due to the fact he dresses in branded suits, we make an assumption that he has a well-paid job, if one?

His Role: He captures the young girl and keeps her in a hidden location. He excuses his behaviour by bringing dinner, and talking to her. He thinks he is being harmless, and doesn’t really understand the consequence of his actions although.

Script

Characters:

Old man – deliberately kept with no name throughout
Young woman/teenager – Jane

Plan – two scenes shooting identical ideas but contrasting between the two

Start of the opening sequence:

Production Company Logo shows then fades to a black screen

Opening sequence starts:
The old man is sitting at the table with a number of candles lit around him - the camera is concentrating on the arrangement of this table, when the man’s hand is exposed to light the final candle.

There is complete silence in the background.
The camera at this point is still centring on the hand.

Old man – “Perfect”
Picks up his knife and fork.

Gentle and romantic music starts to play.

Credit appears on top of the scene; director 

The camera gradually moves up (over the shoulder shot) to the man until finally were in contact with his face.

Old man – “Would you like some wine?”
The man picks up the bottle of wine which is centred likewise on the table.

The camera follows his arm down the table and then a fade-in fade-out is used.

[The location has changed to demonstrate to the audience the definite reality of what is actually happening as an alternative to what the man is seeing in his head]

The camera is still focusing on his arm.
He finishes filling up the glass for the person which he is speaking to.

The music is still playing; however from this point onwards the man doesn’t say anything else.

The camera slowly rises and pans around the setting, until it ultimately reaches the person he is speaking to on the other side of the table. 

A girl which is tied to a chair with tape around her mouth struggling.

The rest of the credits are shown on top of the scene; actors
Narrative enigma is immediately created leaving the audience curious as to why she is tied up, but also why the man in his mind is consuming a pleasant meal with her.

Storyboard

We finalised a full storyboard for our film opening sequence, this was to clarify exactly what was going to happen throughout the two minutes. Our storyboard was in depth and it included shot descriptions, durations, sound, music and editing transitions. We met the full requirements of the storyboard being hand drawn and from this we scanned them in. Below are a copy of our storyboards.
(As we missed out number 6 on the storyboard we have added this in nearer the end).

Film Motifs

A film ‘motive’ is a recurring image or idea that is designed to enhance the viewing experience for the audience. It is shown throughout a film to subconsciously create a build up of tension or the reverse effect of a tranquil feeling- it conclusively represents what kind of genre the film is. For example, if a heart is repeatedly shown within a film (for the background effect) then the audience will associate the film with romance and pick up on the certainty it is to do with love.

EXAMPLES:
1) In the film 'Psycho' by Alfred Hitchcock, birds were used as his motif. This was purposeful as for some cultures birds are seen as a bad omen. Hitchcock used this motif to remind the audience on a regular basis that his film contained ominous, frightening themes. Therefore, just through the use of crows, ravens etc. the audience throughout is reassured and reminded of the genre in hand.

2) A second example of a motif is in the film 'Jaws' by Steven Spielberg (1975). The motive used in this film is the repetitive music. Due to the fact this specific fast beat music is played whenever the shark is close, helps the audience to label the shark as fearful and dangerous, which would regularly create tension whenever it is played. In addition, it also reinstates the genre of the film, as the bold, commanding and non-diegetic sound involves the audience further making them continuously on edge.

3) A third example would be from the film ‘The Woman in Black’ by James Watkins (2012). The colour black is the motif for this particular film, as it signifies death and sinful behaviour the audience can immediately become aware of the genre. The decision to use this colour throughout would make the audience feel anxious of the unknown, but also apprehensive with the film in hand. This would have the exact effect Watkins wanted, as a chain of anonymity is thoroughly created.

Although we have researched into different motif's and seen the effects they hold with their target audience we have decided to not include a motif in our opening sequence. The reason for this is because, although we believe they work well with films and give off the needed emotion for us to include one in a short amount of time in our opening sequence will be difficult, and may not have the same effect.

Encoding our Text

Encoding is the name of the process by which institutions embed ‘signifiers’ into their products to act as a signpost to the audience, which will help them to understand the genre, the narrative, the form, the purpose and the messages they want to get across. The audience will ‘decode’ these signifiers and interpret them to come up with a meaning. As a group we have decided what ‘signifiers’ we are going to include in our opening sequence.


Music:
We have decided that one of our signifiers will be the music we use. The choice of music from the start will be soft and soothing, this will give the audience the initial impression that the genre of the film is romance, but as the opening sequence slowly comes undone, the music will evidently be opposite to the feeling the audience is receiving. This is up until the last few seconds where the music suddenly changes, and there is a loud bang at the end. Although this music doesn’t signify from the actual start, it slowly unravels and this has a greater effect on setting out the genre for the audience, but additionally will help with the message we want to get across, of not making any assumptions when watching opening sequences.


Texts/Fonts:
By choosing to include our credits on top of the scene when the sequence is running, ensures that the audience don’t overlook the action that is happening - but instead make them more cautious of it. By having bold, black and old fashioned writing, any assumption that the genre in hand is a comedy or romance will soon be out of the picture. I think that the type of font which is used is vital and this is because it lays out the mood of the film, but also shows to have a meaningful purpose when making the audience feel uneasy (when referring to a crime-thriller).


Locations:
Likewise, the two diverse locations which are used contradict each other. The first location being a dining room, the audience will feel no worry, but as the opening sequence goes on and the location changes to a dark and dingy forest, this signifies clearly to the audience the genre of the film. This will furthermore help us with our representation of gender. A stereotypical man is publicized to be more powerful and dominant than a stereotypical girl who is shown to always need someone to ‘save’ her and is frail and vulnerable. Where we see the girl tied up in the forest and the man causally eating dinner, it is obvious who the more dominant figure is.

Analysis of Primary Research Results

Following on from our questionnaires and our focus group, I produced a series of bar and pie charts to illustrate some of the results in a different format. As it was only possible to make these charts from our closed questions, I analysed the results of these and discussed how they were to influence our film idea.

If you were to film this, what location would you use for the young girls point of view?

- The results from this question show that the Forest and the Abandoned place are the most favoured locations where people were likely to film. This was beneficial for our group as we had already planned to film in a forest, therefore knowing that this is a popular selection means we made the accurate decision.


What age group do you associate a crime-thriller with?
- When we asked people what age group they associate a crime-thriller film with the most common answer was 15 year olds, which was 70% of the total result. However, 30% of the people said 18 year olds would be the most appropriate age range. As a result of this, we are going to aim our opening sequence for the age group of 15+ therefore it
meets in the middle.

What do you think the most important thing to include in an opening sequence is?
- Our final closed question asked what the most vital convention is to include in an opening sequence. 60% of people answered music, and due to the fact no other convention came particularly close to this answer, when filming our opening sequence we will ensure the music chosen is relevant and therefore has a virtuous effect.



 Although these results help us a considerable amount with our final film idea, when watching the focus group and reading the results from the open questions, we have gained an enhanced understanding of what people prefer and controversially don’t prefer about opening sequences. Boring, dragged out, long winded and too predictable were some of the main answers agreed which were unconstructive things about an opening sequence - whereas the music used, real life situations, sudden expectations and mysterious surroundings were some of the answers given which people were fond of in opening sequences. We have therefore took all of this into account, and although we are going to keep our film idea the same, we are going to make sure the music we use is suitable and not make the opening sequence too extensive or unrealistic.  

Focus Group

For this task we grouped people together and filmed a group discussion about what they think should be included in a crime-thriller film. We intentionally filmed our target audience, which is 15+ to get an improved understanding about what as individuals they think about the genre - we accomplished this through asking a series of open questions. We made sure we collected all the equipment we needed beforehand so we were fully prepared for the task. After filming, we uploaded the video onto final cut and edited what was necessary.

Questionnaires

For this task we created a questionnaire to hand out to our target audience, this was to help us work out what their thoughts were on our film idea. We had a set of requirements to work with, and from the answers given we will re-think our final idea. For our questionnaire, we asked for the persons name,age and gender - this was so we could make sure they were in our targeted audience. We then layed out a brief description of our opening sequence, and from that asked a series of both open and closed questions referring back to our description. Below, is a copy of our questionnaire results, which we scanned in and uploaded in a prezi.

Questionnaire Results on Prezi