Sound

Eliza and I decided that there won't be a lot of dialogue within our opening, but we want a tense and fast soundtrack, consisting of piano and maybe some brass to get the instrumental type of sound. We looked at several film trailers and soundtrack but found that Maze Runner and London to Brighton had soundtrack similar to what we wanted, but ones that are still reproducible at our level.

We want the soundtrack to build the tension, and we will be looking to use aspects of atmospheric and folly sound in our film opening.


 

Ident small practice

Here Eliza and I came up with a simple ident practice, I used cinema 4d to create it, and will be looking to add smaller text underneath using motion:

IDENT RESEARCH

Idents are an important part of the marketing towards a productions company and also can be used with a sound bridge to enhance and the atmosphere set up for the film that is about to happen.
Whilst researching ideas for our own ident concepts we came across a selection of 'Film 4' idents as shown above. Eliza and I liked the composition of these indents though we know it isn't possible for us to create our own ident in a similar way. We liked the concept of a dark graphic, cleanly cut ident that was simple. We liked the motion animation of the film 4 indents which worked to create a slick, professional and thrilling ident. We aim to achieve the same effect with our own ident; though it is graphic and simple we want to make it edgy. Here are some indents we liked and thought would influence our ident design well:

Audience Video response

Here is our uploaded video of our response to our audience research. We did this as we found it easier to film and get our point across than type it up.

Vox Pops

Eliza and I recorded some Vox Pops alongside the rest of our audience research. Here is the video.

Target Audience

After doing our audience research, Eliza and I decided to change our target audience from a lower age group to 20-30. This is because we discovered that younger ages where less keen on the idea of a social realistic thriller compared to a slightly older audience.

This gives us a better idea of what the audience wants and so will allow us to create a film specifically for that audience.

Graphics

For Graphics, Eliza and I were keen on using an idea similar to 'True Detective'. We love how the titles are simple, and the use of the text in the negative space, which makes the titles really effective and visual as the cuts are composed of layered video. However our only concern would be how to make it feel more like a film, rather than a tv series, which will be the biggest problem when producing the titles.

We thought this idea would fit well with a social realism thriller, as the narrative we have decided on consists of real teenage life, with a dark and edgy tone. This will be shown in the titles with the gurney backgrounds and layered photos/ videos to really get the idea of the dark life shown in the film.

In the opening few cuts of 'True Detective' there are some really nice still shots (or slightly moving) of people which is then over lapped with video of rural areas and the setting of the show. This will be interesting to try in photoshop, and then upload into motion to get the movement around screen.

Here are some screen grabs of the 'True Detective' opening titles:

Eliza and I then had a go at creating our own little still shot in the style of True Detective:

Camera shots - First plan

Eliza and I came up with a plan for the shots we want to use before starting the story board. These are just simple shots of the rough ideas we wanted to use, and this gave us a good idea to the overall plot, layout and shots needed for the story board and for when we shoot the shots. 

Our film opening consists of interspersed shots of past and present.

A rough plan, more shots of each point will be seen in the story board.

Italics = past

Normal = present

Fade from black

Cut to footsteps running 

Cut to protagonist present footsteps running (chase)  

Close up running away

Close up protagonist looking back (the chaser) 

Close up keys unlocking the door

Running to push open the door

Footsteps climbing stairs

Footsteps running up cement staircase (estate stairs)

Enter room, calm, dump bags

Enter room, frantic, lock door

Close up head against door

Profile in darkness looking up at estate

Shot of here running around

Shot of her moving to draws

Draw opening

Shot of moving around the room

Close up looking under / around her room

Cut to tilt upwards of antagonist entering estate

Bend down under bed and find package

Backing bag

Close up of zipping bag

Leaving room (door open)

Running through tunnel

Skyline ots of London

Hand on shoulder

Titles

Style / Tone

The overall style and tone of the opening that Eliza and I want to achieve is that of an edgy and urban environment, where for young people their atmosphere is a place of threat. The style will be similar to several films, especially Kidulthood, where there are a lot of urban shots, much more simple camerawork than other films and  an edgy feel with lots of close ups and point of view shots. This will present a feeling of personal connection between the audience and the character. This will also be achieved through the presentation of the protagonist in the past, as the audience (as discovered by audience research) finds a film more intriguing when they know elements about the character.

The setting will play a huge role towards tone, being dark and tense. The contrasting light between the past and present is what will really emphasis the present as being atmospheric and grungy. The buildings and locations we use are what will really present the realism feature of our film, and will set the edgy feel that we are working for.

Here is a scene from Kidulthood that represents the urban and natural environment we will being aiming for to create the style and tone:

Narrative. Decided

After discussing together, Ewan and I decided to edge our narratives together to form the plot of our opening sequence.
We decided upon following the life of a girl (our protagonist) and the change that has taken place in her life ( like a before and after). Her life used to be simple and normal but it now seems obvious that a person has come into her life who has put her life at threat.
We wanted to set up a a parallel between two moments in time; matching and cross cutting between different locations and shots.
It seemed that we wanted to leave the ending to our story undecided, a cliff hanger: where will she take her life after this moment? Whilst still we found from our Audience research that it was crucial we established an emotional attachment between our protagonist and our audience.
We came up with the idea of a package being involved, shots of our protagonist searching for the package unable to find it, interspersed with shots of our antagonist figure searching for her.
We hope this will create a sense of pace, rush and an awareness of time; just as time has lapsed and changed our protagonists life completely.