final Product - AS Opening Sequence 'Premonition'

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

During the time between my preliminary task and the opening sequence i have just created, i have learnt a lot. Little things like match on action and eye line match have been made evident to me and we as a group thought about this carefully when filming to make sure they meet. Also continuity has been thought about a lot and to make our film look realistic we have thought about this. Like when we were in the forest filming, i kept on snapping random plants and tree branches, so when i did this we had to re-film in order to keep continuity. Also continuity was used when i was getting ready in the morning scene. as when buttering the toast, we did it wrong a few times, so i had to re-film it because it would look weird if i buttered it one way and it looked different. When filming for this task, i hada better idea about camera angles and differnt camera shots, so as a group we wer able to combine our thoughts and make the opening sequence as good as possible.

How did you attract/address your audience?

In our opening sequence, we address the audience immeditialey by making it look like i open my eyes and see the audience, then a split second cut attracts the audience, as it appears as if they are looking through my eyes and seeing exactly what i'm seeing. This attracts my audience immediatley as they can experience what my character is, and also try to picture themselves in that situation. We were also able to attract our audience as we used a young innocent looking character that they may be able to relate to. We also attracted our audience immediately as the use of very odd non diegetic sound interests the viewers as to why it has been used.

Who would be the audience for your media product

This would be the audience that my thriller opening is aimed at, as they are young aduls to adults and they will most probabably be able to relate to what is happening, also they would be roughly the same age as our main character, so the situations my character might get into may be similiar, or realistic, so they can relate. The opening sequence is quite confusing at a first glance also, as there is things like clocks in the woods, which could possibly interests young adults as they may like films they have to think about and guess what is going to happen. However, this isn't to say that older people wont enjoy it, as they may have experienced some of the feelings my character has in the opening sequence. Through the use of very up beat music for our opening sequence we hoped that we interested our young audience as they may listen to this kind of music themsleves. However, through the use of the non diegetic sound of the music box, could relate to many age of viewers as they may have had one as a child.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

These 2 companies may distribute my opening sequence as these 2 companies have uploaded other films similiar to mine, with the same genre of a thriller. Having these 2 companies associated with my film will also add to the popularity of my film as these 2 are quite big well recognised companies.
Thrillers Spyglass have produced- The cabin in the woods, The tourist, The happening
Thrillers hollywood pictures have produced- The invisible, Sixth sense, shadow conspiracy.

How does your media product represent particular social groups

AS we only had one character in or opening sequenced, we spent a lot of time choosing suitable attire for our character in order to portray to the audience what type of person he is. We wanted to portray our main character Damien, played by me, to be a well off young, hard working and educated young man, about 21 years of age. To do this, we chose our character Damien to where a suit, whih represents his working class and to show that he is a typical hard working man. To show that Damien is a normal everyday kind of person, we show him doing normal activites in our opening sequence such as eating breakfast, going to the toilet and getting ready for work. All of these things we deliberately did in order to fuel the stereotype of a young working man. However, we did challenge the stereotype of men, as usually in films, we show the women in danger, and the men seem to be the heroes, however, in our opening sequence, we showed that Damien was in trouble.
I looked at the main charater of shutter island to help to understand the kind of role i was going to be playing. The reason i chose Teddy from shutter island is due to the fact that he was a well respected, well off citizen who seemed very normal and organised. He was dressed in very tide clothes such as suits throughout the film to portray that he was well off. However, during the film, we as the audience find out that he is very psychologically challenged and suffers from mental flashbacks and horrific, detailed dreams which was very relevant for our character, as our opening sequence was a dream sequence that out main character was trying to make sense of.

Here you can see where we have thought about lighting, as although the time scale of the dreams in both scenes are different, we still used the bright white light so that we could distinguish the similarity between them.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product has been influence by the 2010 film Alice in Wonerland, as we chose to do our first setting in a forest with many confusing, yet spooky objects to add to the eerie effect we are giving to the audience. We chose to use many normal house hold objects as this would add to the confusion further, as the audience would be asking questions, as to why they are in the middle of these woods. Looking at the Alice in Wonderland pictures, we saw things such as clocks in the strange environments, and this gave us the idea of the clock.

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(Screenshot of clock part on our opening)

I think as a group we conveyed a very psychologically confusing opening as we used more common every day items, such as an umbrella in the woods, a dressing gown, and a small neatly wrapped present. Much like Alice's dress, we used the colour light blue as a theme running throughout or opening, as the dressing gown and the symbol that appeared was blue.

Script

In our opening sequence we have chosen to have no dialogue contained. This is because in order to create a high amount of tension, we thought we would use non diegetic sounds, as we could exaggerate them more and make the opening sequence seem strange and confusing, in order to grip the viewers. The only diegetic sound we had was of me breathing, and even that was exagerated to create more tension, and we also had some sound of usual household objects such as the toaster.

Brief

The Brief is to create the titles and opening of a new fiction film, and to make it last a maximum of two minutes.

Shot lists

This is Katie, Gemma, James and my shot list with the different types of shots we used and to what effect and what that type of shot will be showing. For example, Mid-shot when Damien opens the fridge.

What have you learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

During lesson i experimented with live type, in order to get titles onto our opening sequence, to make it look proffesional and to credit people with what they have done. For example the cast, directors and camera crew. Although i found it very difficult to work it at first, with help from fellow strudents and Mrs Jarret i was able to create titles effectively to be used on our opening sequence. Imovie was also hard to get used to, and this helped us to cut and change the length of our clips, we also added music onto this, and this made it easier to getcertain shots in sync with the music, like

~ During my time when making my opening sequence we also used the tripod, which we used effectively in many shots to enable the steadieness of the shot. Without the tripod we would have had to film everything free hand, which may have been difficult as there was movement in some of the shots, and the tripod allowed for smooth constant movement, whereas free hand would have been much harder to use.
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Blogger has also been a main part of my media piece, as i have been able to do posts about
progress and analysing different thriller openings. The blog is also where i have posted all my
research, my planning and the preliminary task, which helped as it allowed for peers to
evaluate it and i could receive feedback on it.

The camera was used in the construction of our opening sequence however i did not get to use it, as i was acting in the majority of the shots. The camera was obviously our most important piece of technology as if we didn't have it, we would not have been able to create our opening.



We used the fig rig for our first shot, which enabled us to steady our shots and to perform effective tracking shots without having a wobbly camera. We really needed our first shot to be good, as this would be at the beginning of the film, and this would most probably determing whether people continue to watch our film or not.

Location Shots

These are the pictures taken at our setting for filming our opening sequence. We decided to use this setting for our opening sequence as it looks like a very unappealing place to be, which would explain how my character acts when he discovers this unusual setting.

Titles Fonts we could use

These are a range of titles that i found on a website called 'Dafont'. I looked through a range of categories in which to try and find the best title possible including, Handwriting, Medieval, Gothic and Horror. Some of the above titles are from these categories and i am choosing which one would be most appropriate.

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Font 1- The first font i really like as a title font for our film, as it looks quite scratchy and like it is quite faded, which may suggest it is like a faded memory which you cannot remember properly. This would be very appropriate for our film, as it is about a dream that our character had and throughout the film he is trying to remember and figure out why he is having the dream. Because the font seems quite neat and very business like, it could look like it is written by our character, as our character wears his suit, which suggests he is upper class and educated.

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Font 2- This font i really like because it is really in your face and obvious. The all capital title suggests that it may be really important or like it is being shouted. This font can also relate to our title, as again it suggests dreams and premonitions, as there is pieces missing in the font, so this could connote the puzzle of the dream he is trying to accumulate together. It also looks like something has attacked the title, as it looks like its been stabbed or sliced, which suggests a killer in our opening.

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Font 3- This font is really effective because it looks like someone has painted it in a rush, or to the effect to scare someone. The scary messy writing shows that maybe someone has been in trouble in our film like at the end of the forest scene. Also it could be used as a warning in our opening sequence as if to deliberately show the character he is in a dream, and to make him think 'why am i in this dream?'.

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Font 4- I really like this font for our film, as it can suggest evil as the edges of each letter are really sharp which the audience may be able to depict as blades or knives. This could feed the stereotype of our thriller with the fact that there is a death and a killer. The fact that all the letters are in capitals also suggests that really sinister tone to the audience.

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Font 5- This is my favourite font that i would like to use for our film for many reasons. The main reason is due to the fact that it looks like someone has done it in a real rush and so it could suggest that there must have been a reason why they rushed it, maybe because they were in real trouble at the time. Another reason i like it, is because the letter t looks like it is reaching out to the 2 i's either side of it, but they have not got their arms out to reach back to the t, which shows the t is isolated, which could connote our main character as he too is very vulnerable and isolated.

Sounds

http://www.youtube.com/user/FreeSoundtrack#p/u/25/ktG2KFYDSY

http://www.youtube.com/user/FreeSoundtrack#p/u/31/qy6_ToZRU6w

These are 2 of the links that we thought about using for our opening sequence. We found these on the youtube channel 'freesoundtrack' and thought that they would be useful as the sound that is created from these tracks seems very appropriate for our opening sequence, as they contain low tone and slow paced music, which could be used to portray our slow and confusing start, and will help to create the tension and sinister mood. We may not use these exact songs, however, these connote the type of mood that we would like to portray to the audience whilst watching our opening sequence. We thought we could use these type of sounds whilst we start our forest scene, as this is meant to be amongst the highest points of tension in our opening sequence and the mood needs to be set immediately in order to grip the viewer. However in order to complete our opening sequence we will need to find a more upbeat song which will be able to keep up with the pace of the next part of our opening sequence which is the scene where I will be getting ready for work.

List of props

This image shows the blue colour scheme that we have running throughout our thriller film, and also shows the toaster which is an important prop in the morning scene.
This prop is used efficiently in our forest scene as this is what introduces the all important symbol to our character, Damien.
The dressing gown is one of our main props in our film. As well as it being our prop, it is an important costume for our opening sequence. In the beginning we see the dressing gown in the woods, which adds to the confusion of the beginning, as we see a dressing gown in the woods. Also in the next part of our opening sequence, we need it as our morning attire for Damien as in the morning, it sets the scene, as if he has just woken up.

Audience research 2 (displaying our data)

This is the pie chart that we created as a group to show what types of thrillers people prefer to give us a better chance of making a successful thriller.

This was our questionnaire that helped us to choose which location to film our thriller in as we can see the setting that got the most votes was the forest, so we decided to film in the forest.

What titles?

Different titles have different importance in an opening sequence for example, the more important titles may appear first or in a bigger or more obvious font. Some titles appear at the end of the film as these are less important.

Important titles that may appear in an opening sequence can include;

-Director,

-Actors

-Camera crew

-Costume designer

-Supporting actors

-Set director

-Art director

-Assistant director

-Make up

What does a title sequence look like?

To create an efficient title sequence, there needs to be a certain amount of visual elements in order to grip the audience and make them want to continue watching. It needs to contain;

- Some close ups of the main character so we as the audience can tell that he/she is the main character.

-A brief establishing shot so we can see where the opening sequence is set.

-Some thrillers contain a brief shot of a main prop, like in Memento with the photo's.

-The titles need to appear in an appropriate place so that it makes sense, like in Memento, a memento is like a token of remembrance so the title appears on the shot of a picture, which is clever and effective.

-The directors name or the main actor sometimes appears in an opening sequence in order to try and lure the audience into watching it as their favourite actors might be in it.

Feedback on Research & Planning

Hi Ryan,

I've had a thorough look over your blog, and I am pleased to see that some posts have been really carefully put together and show lots of creative thinking and grasp of some key technical language. it is also good to see that you have responded to the feedback Ms Ingram gave you the other week about how you can improve your Research section. I can see that you have added in a good post for Double Indeminity and completed the post on the conventions of a Thriller.

There are still a couple of important post that remain missing from the Research section, and these really should have been completed well before now. You must make sure ALL of the posts we set for you in the checklists are completed, and completed carefully - these are what the exam board requires from all A level students - and you will need to really show that you are investing time and effort into your blog (as this is your coursework) to strive towards your B target.

I will be marking the Research & planning section for FINAL time from Mon 7th. Please make sure all of the posts for both sections are completed properly by then.

Research - to do:
3 - What titles? JIN ran a session specifically on this. You need to come back to this and fix - or watch the opening of the Sixth Sense and make a list of all of the technical roles that appear on the screen in the opening credits - these are the titles you will have to add into your film to make it seem authentic.
4 ?
12/13 - needs evidence of additional research into your genre
17/18 - needs the results of your survey to be collated in the form of graphs / charts. You need to show that you have handed your survey to the type of people you would intend to be your target audience. You need evidence of having collected the results and thought about their responses - and evidence of you showing that you have considered how you can use this information about audience preferences to shape your own ideas.

Planning - to do:
Posts 3
Post 4 - Sound - I noticed you spent almost an entire lesson one day searching for possible soundtracks to use. Where is this post then? You need links to sound grabs you found on the websites you were looking at and a written explanation about why you are considering using it / connotations...
5 - Storyboards are scanned in - but they have not been completed properly? You need to come back to them and add in more detailed information about each shot - otherwise the storyboard is pointless.
6, 7 - to do (these need loads of photos to make blog visual)
9 - to do
10 - needs written character profile / explanation
11 - font selection and connotations

There's quite a bit for you to do here Ryan. You could certainly achieve more in lesson time, especially when you are predicted a B grade.

SJA Feb 3rd

Today's Filming session

In today's filming session we managed to get all of what we planned done in the time we estimated. We filmed all of the morning scene where you see me wake up and get dressed and ready for work, and then you see me leave the house, with the symbol behind me. There was some problems we had to overcome and we quickly corrected them in order to make our film look as good as possible. For example, when we started filming, i had hair gel in my hair, and then i suddenly thought it would look weird in a film that if i woke up with gel in my hair, it will look like a film, rather than it looking real, which is what we wanted it to be. In on of the shots we filmed, i realised that i had re-tied my dressing gown, but to the other side, and this would have ruined the continuity of our editing, and would have made it look like they were filmed seperately. OUr next lot of filming will be done this friday and will be done in Nonsuch park, we will leave straight after 3rd period and probably get back just before it's dark, depending on how long it takes to frame each shot.

Conventions of a thriller opening

To create a successful thriller opening, many things need to be done in order to grip the viewer and to make sure they do not switch it off. The opening sequence is probably the most important part of the film, as it sets the mood, and gives vague character information so that the audience want to watch and find out more. In opening sequences in films such as inception and green zone, there is a lot of action, and this immediately interests the viewer and grips them into the action. In other films like Se7en and Silence of the lambs, there is a more slow and creepy opening which also keeps the viewer interested as they want to know why the director has chosen this strange opening. Slow openings often seem to mess with the audiences mind a lot more, so it seems like a good choice as the viewer can get very confused and can start thinking of possible scenarios in their head. The character in the opening sequence needs to be quite strange, or a hidden character, which will create tension fot the audience which in turn will make them want to know who this character is. A lot of tension is built at the start which keeps the audience on the edge of their seat

Double Indemnity

Cinematography- The camera is used very efffectively in the opening sequence of Double Indemnity, as the rapid movement of the camera suggests something either not right is going on, or that the person the camera is following follows a very fast paced life. My fouth screenshot is a picture of a stop sign, as we first see a car speeding down the road and he obviously ignores the sign, so we as the audience are thinking why has he ignored it, what kind of rush is he in? The shot which is my first screenshot however, is very slow and it keeps the viewers interested, as all they see is a man hobbling towards the screen, and they cannot see his face, and do not know why he is hobbling. This immediately poses questions, like who is the man? why is he on crutches? and, Why can we see his face? The title on the screen is very bold and stand out in front of the man, which says a lot about the film already, just by calling it Double Indemnity as the audience immediately know that there will be a strange death or accident. The use of the camera continues to be clever throughout the opening sequence, as initially we cannot see the main character's face, we jsut see his big build and what he's wearing. Any facial shots we see are obscured by shadows or objects, which makes it strange for the audience as we do not know who this man is.
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Sound-The sound in the opening sequence is very cleverly used as it is very fast paced, much like the film, high pitched music is used as the car seems to be excaping from something or racing to someone. This is non-diegetic sound and is used deliberately to add tension to the scene for the audience. There is some diegetic sound in the opening sequence too which is of the car skidding and the other cars 'bibbing' this is useful for the opening of the film as we as the audience can tell it is going to be fast paced and action packed. The sound after he has got out of the car is also strange, as it seems to add errieness to the scene without anything actually happening. The music happening on my 5th screenshot is very clever, as th actor seems to be looking at the workers confused abd the music used is very strange aswell, very high pitched and slow, which makes the opening odd.
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Editing- A clever fade is used in the opening sequence, jsut after the cars have skidded, as this sums up the cars journey. One minute he is racing through town nearly crashing into other cars, then the next minute he is pulling up quietly outside what looks like a hotel and the cross fade is used to just cut out the main boring parts of his journey. The editing of the colour is very clever too, as it hides the characters face and adds to the tension as to why is his face hidden. The sound is cleverly put together, as the highest point of tension is accompliced with the the loudest and fastest sound.
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Mise-en-scene-The costume of the main character is very well chosen, as he is a very well turned out business man, and the opening sequence seems to be following him. This is reiterated by the sign just outside his door saying 'insurance' The dark colours used are very clever and appropriate as the character is a very dark and shady figure and the darkness helps to hide his identity to the viewers. The use of the nice fast car at the beginning shows that he may be very rich and have a lot of money. The main characters facial expressions show that possibly he is in some sort of danger or stress.
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The opening sequence suggests that this film is a thriller because of the way it's presented. The use of the dark colours create a nice tension which it leaves it open for the viewers to think of scenarios in their heads. The use of the fast car in the beginning scene portrays that the film will be fast paced and entertaining. the use of shadows to hide the man's face shows that the character may be seen as quite shady and maybe not a conventional upper class person.

Premonition:

Our main character, Damien,has continuous premonitions in his dreams involving specific reference to a symbol. (Right)

As these dreams become increasingly frequent and vivid, Damien becomes fascinated by this symbol and makes it his own business to find out what it means within the real world. The symbol is on advertisements, clothing and other manufactured products and although it seems to go unoticed, Damien realises that people are becoming emotionally affiliated with it. AS well as this, he also faces troubles at home when his girlfriend begins to turn against him.

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Damien's intense research into the symbol produces no deep results and he is kickstarted into physical action when he discovers a tattoo of the symbol on his girlfriends neck while she sleeps thus explaining the way she's been acting.

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The next month Damien spends examining the REM of his girlfriend in order to discover as much information as possible, the name of a man is repeatedly evident. He tries to find the man to no avail and later realises the man only exists in dreams/premonitions. People in the world all around him seem to be becoming brainwashed by the symbol and eventually people are spending 23 hours a day asleep- the only place they can see their master.

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Damien finds out that if he applies pressure to the tattoo on his girflriends neck it allows him to intercept her dream he there interrupts a meeting with the organisation and its followers with the intention to kill the master...

Shooting Schedule

We as a group have devised a very precise timetable which we will need to stick to in order to make our film successful and complete by the deadline. We have all checked our school timetables to see which days we have free periods in order to miss the least amount of school as possible. Our scenes are not being filmed in order, as previous scenes may affect the way that we film later scenes. The weather will also effect our filming, because if the day that we want to film in the park comes, and it's raining heavily, we will have to postpone the filming, otherwise we will be recording in the rain, where the camera will have to be sheltered and we will all get very wet.

Storyboard for Premonition

Our group took a lot of time in preparing and creating our storyboards for our thriller so that our group could visually see our opening sequence panning out in front of us. We also took great detail in colouring in our storyboard, so that we get an idea of our colour scheme, and how our shots will look within the frame. Each individual story board has a shot type, so that when we are filming, we know that we will have a certain range of shots in our opening sequence. Some of our shots in the storyboard have the camera movement box filled in, this is because some shots have no movement, and others we are not sure about the movement yet, and when we film them, we will come to choosing the movement.

Initial ideas

Written By James Sullivan
This is our initial ideas for making an opening to a thriller film. This is where we jotted down rough notes about how we should film our thriller, and also about different ideas and storylines. The idea of having a premonition can help people to relate to the thriller, as premonitions are real, so upon watching the opening sequence, they may believe the story, more so than if we had zombies.

This was the thriller questionnaire we handed out to people to find out what they like and dislike about thriller films.

Casting

Brick Opening Sequence

Title-

Brick was an interesting opening sequence to watch from the viewers point of view, as we were trying to work out what the director was trying to communicate to us. The way the title appears is very fitting for the type of film it is. The very normal, straight forward white writing on the black background makes the title of the film stand out. The title is also a Verb, so this confuses the audience as to why it is named this way, and makes the audience want to watch the film.

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How the setting/location is revealed-

The setting of the sewer is revealed in a very strange way, as the first time we see where they are, we see that there is a girl lying face down in the river. This immediatley poses the question to the audience of how and why is she in the river. Straight after this shot, we see that the boy is also in the river, looking at the girl. At first i thought he had had something to do with as to why she was there, but as i saw the strange confused and sad expression on his face, i realised that maybe he is, during the rest of the film, going to find out why she is there. The next location we see is by the looks of things a school, as we see someone's hand put something in a locker. This shows the audience the age of the actors, and that they are no older than 18. The third location is a strange location chosen, as it seems very isolated and derelict, as nothing seems alive and nothing seems to be there. This is strange for the audience when they see a car go speeding past, and the audience want to automatically know was it a coincidence that the car went past as he was there, or was it planned.

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Costume and props

The way that the bangle is shown on her arm is very important as this perhaps connotes to the audience that she is a school child, as it is a cheap piece of jewellery, as school kids do not have that much money. Also this bangle is a very important prop, as we see it as she is lying in the sewer, then 2 minutes later we see this arm with the bangle again, so we can tell it's the same girl. The costume that the dead girl is in is very well chosen, as she isn't dressed normally like any other day, but she is in a smart dress, shoes and shirt, and we can tell that she was dressed up to go somewhere smart. The clothes that the guy is wearing show that he wasn't out to look for this girl, as he is on what seems like school shoes, casual jeans and a shirt.

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Camera work

A lot of close ups are used on the boys face, to show the expression of how confused he is about the girls death. There is also a very important close up of the bangle on the girls arm, which shows how much importance it has to the opening sequence. My second image is of a high angle shot of the guy, which is showing the low status that he has at this particular moment, and the audience are wondering why he has this low status. Also my first image shows a medium shot of the cigarette on the floor. This straight away tells the audience that the cigarette has great importance to the film, and whatever was on it, obviously this is of great importance to the guy as well, as the way he reacts is a puzzled epxression.

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Titles and companies

The title or company saying 'Focus' is very cleverly portrayed in the opening scene as you can see that this company have great importance to the film as they get a big shot on their own, not a little mention in the corner. Also the company are called 'focus' and this is very cleverly portrayed as the 'o' in the word, is out of focus, so it contrasts the companies name. The colour scheme associated with this company also helps create the mood of the film as they are dull brown colours, contrasting exsquisite blue colours which creates a weird effect on the film.

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How are the characters introduced

The character of the guy is introduced well at the beginning of the opening sequence, and the director is trying to make the audience see him as sitting by the edge of the river staring at the dead body. We also get a lot of close ups of his facial expressions which perhaps show that he is deep in thought and that he is an emotional person. The character of the girl is portrayed strangely, as at first obviously we see her dead, but after that, we see her put a note in the guys locker, and then next shot we see him in a deserted place. This portrays the girl as evil as she, by the looks of things, has set him up.

My first image is a relatively close up of the women's running feet, this is an effective picture as we can see the circumstances that she's in. Because she is bare foot and , out in the middle of nowhere, we can tell she is in trouble and in a bad way, as it is not normal to walk around a dark road bare foot. We also can tell from this picture that she has only a coat on, which maybe suggests poverty and that she is not very wealthy.

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My second image is of a long distance shot of the running women. Her voice really emphasises danger in this picture as we can hear her panting voice, as if she has been running for ages away from something or someone, and her voice also sounds scared, as if something is dangerous out there to get her. If you look closely in the background you can see tiny white lights, and this could be what is chasing her, as she seems to be running away from the light. The white line in the middle of the road seems to be at a weird angle, which suggests that the situation is uneasy, and not everything is in it's usual place or position.

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My third image shows an odd choice in status. The women seems to be standing over the man as if she has the higher status, but when you take into consideration what had happened prior to this part, we would think she would have the lowest status and the man, who has stopped to help her, we'd think he has the highest status. At this point the man is obviously not very happy with her as she nearly caused hi to crash, however she does not apologise or anything she just continues to pant, whereas the man has a rant at her as to why she nearly made him crash. Showing that he's a hero however he let's her in his car. He could be perceived as her 'hero' as he saves her and as his car is white, it can be perceived as his white stallion.

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My fourth image is a beautiful picture of the circumstances. All you can see is the outline of her black silhouette shining in the headlights and this is very effective for a black and white film, as the only 2 colours used are simply, black and white. Again we can see there is something wrong in this picture, as she is off centre and not in the middle of the screen. The car's headlights seem to be the only source of light in the screen shot, and this adds to the queer location she is in. This is a 2 shot as it shows her and the guy in the car. The diegetic sound of the car brakes creates good tension to the scene and adds the only sound besides her panting!

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My fifth image is of the first set of titles that appear. These are the titles with the biggest font and they appear first, so obviously these are the most important names to do with the film. The appear in a bright white light over the black background and they scroll downwards from the top of the screen. The titles appear while you can see the 2 people sitting in the car at the bottom of the screen. Whilst the titles scroll downwards, you can hear the diegetic sound of the radio in the car. The radio adds to reality, and reminds the viewers that the film they are watching is realistic and isn't stupidly far-fetched.

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My sixth image is again of more titles, and these are the very last titles to appear, these again are quite big which suggests the importance of who are what is being said in the credits. The diegetic sound of the radio is again what's being heard by the audience as the titles scroll down the screen.

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My penultimate seventh image is that of the man and the women sitting next to each other in the car. The man has an annoyed but concerned face on which shows that he is caring for the women, but maybe he doesn't want her to know that he's caring. Whereas if you look at her face, she still looks very shaken up and scared, as the event of running all that way bare foot was clearly traumatic for her. This is another nice 2 shot, and is also a mid shot, as it is waste and upwards. Here we see the man's costume. We can clearly see that he is quite well off as he is wearing a suit and we can see he is quite well turned out, and spoken. This contrasts the women who does not seem very classy as she is wearing barely anything and speaks rushed and common.

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My final image shows the trust that this women has put in the man that has just supposedly rescued her. Here we see a close up of the pair holding hands. Not only has this women almost caused this guy to crash his car, she also has asked him to lie to the police which is a crime. Here we see that the man blatantly has a soft spot for this women as not only has he accepted her into his car, but he has lied for her. This scene is charming to watch, as the viewers can almost predict a love a first sight scenario here.

Wallander

My first image is of the title screen and it is a very effective way of portraying the title, because the opening scene we find out that the girl has stabbed someone, and this is obviously a crime, and the clever way the title is portrayed adds to the tension, as you can portray the shape by the man as a blade, and could represent the knife in the previous scene. The colours chosen for this picture suggest that his personality is very concealed as only half of his face is shown and it is in Blue. Maybe the reason half his face is shown is because he may have a split identity or may be not 100% good. The use of the bright Yellow background is very contrasting as it suggests a happy and mellow man.

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For my second image, I have chosen a close up image of the knife in the girls hand. The use of the blood all over her hand is very clever as it portrays even before we know what's happened, what she has done. However, we do not know whether she is the victim or the one perpetrator of the crime. The Mise en scene of this shot shows the costumes used in the film very well. We see from this shot that the girls is dressed in black, which hides her personality and maybe that there is something mysterious about her that we will later find out in the film. Taking into the consideration that the girl is in Jeans shows that maybe it was just an abnormal thing, and she isn't dressed especially appropriate for running away from a crime scene, this shows that maybe the girl isn't normally a bad person, and that it was just a one off.

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My third image is of a tracking shot which is kind of used as an establishing shot to show the whereabouts of the area and where the crime has taken place. From this shot we can see that the area is very open and a crime would be easy to commit out on the hills as nobody is around, and nobody will be able to tell what is going on. Also if the man in the taxi who was stabbed was screaming nobody will be able to hear him, so the crime can continue and the criminals would be able to get away in plenty of time. The use of the lake or sea at the bottom of the picture shows that the area is meant to be peaceful and gentle, however this is contrasted by the sound of he ferocious winds, suggesting that it isn't an ordinary day.

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My fourth image is of a perfect example of the rule of thirds. Here we can see the two girls on either side of the frame, and we can see the car tracks in between them and they veer off to one side, suggesting where the car came from. In between the girls is a very oddly shaped tree which suggests the odd goings on. The girl on the right is the one we see who drops the knife, and due to her red hair and her clothes she is wearing we can tell she is a very outgoing character and possibly very confident. From what we have seen of the girl on the left, we realise that maybe she is innocent in this as from her facial expression we see she is shocked and she is not dressed abnormally and so we can gather that she didn't commit the crime but she was merely just there.

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My fifth image shows again a very nice example of the rule of thirds, with the man in the middle in between 2 police cars which are either side of him. Because he is in the middle we are able to tell how important he is, as he is right in the middle of the investigation. We can also tell how important he is by what he is wearing, for example, he is in his own clothes rather than in uniform, which suggests that he is high up in the ranks so people respect him more and he has more authority about his work place. The man's posture is very straight and high up which also shows he is important.

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My sixth image again shows rule of thirds in a way, because on one side of the frame you have the drivers head, which looks like he is dead, on the right side of the frame you have his taxi license which helps the audience realise that he is a taxi driver, and that he was obviously driving those girls. In the centre of the picture we can see blood on the windscreen which is obviously the drivers as he is lying on the dashboard not moving. If you look closely you can see that a drop of blood is dripping down towards the girls head, which is maybe pointing to the culprit, which contradicts what they are wearing because from what we've seen the girl it is pointing to is the innocent looking one, and maybe the blood stain has an omniscient point of view and can tell it is her.

Fargo opening sequence

Although the opening to Fargo did not really interest me and did not grip me in order to make me watch the film, it did still have some positive aspects to it, which may have made others want to continue viewing. In image one, the way that the sound is used is very clever as the pace and pitch of the music makes it sound heroic as the car trudges up the hill towing another car. This could make the audience straight away think that the person towing the car is a good person, a hero. However, as we already know it's a thriller film, this could completely be contradicted and the driver of the car may be the villain.

My second image shows the title of the film appearing in simple black font on a frosty blue coloured background. This is very effective due to the colour schemes chosen. The colour black is very dark and unknown, and the colour blue suggests a very serious and cynical storyline. Looking at the majority of the pictures however, they are very dark and frosty which reinforces the point of what is being suggested.

The third picture that i have chosen shows a company that has something to do with this film, however my fourth picture is linked in with this aswell. If you look at the third picture it shows another company, however this screen looks completely different. For the first company there is their logo and the background colour has changed, and on the second the background stays the same and there is no logo, this suggests that the first company has maybe done more to help the film than the second, or maybe has invested more money into it, so they get a bigger mention.

The next sreen shot is of very clever camera action, this part shows a pan shot of the car going past, and this poses a question to the audience as to where the car is going. Again the background is a cold blue colour which creates an eerie tension to the audience and the question of where is the car going is reinforced further.

My last screen shot is of a long distance shot of the car, here the music startrs to get very quiet and the pitch changes to a lower pitch, which suggests that the herioc music previously heard for the car has gone and passed, and maybe the audience have realised the mistakes the car has made, or have started to realise that maybe the car is not so heroic, and there is an element of evil in it.