RESEARCH INTO SIMILAR OPENING SEQUENCES

As part of my research I have decided to research into different opening sequences that are related to our genre and what our group plan to do in our opening sequence. From our first discussion we have decided to research opening sequences such as My Sister’s Keeper and The Butterfly Effect. After several other discussions between the group we believed that the opening sequence of Up was quite similar to the idea that we were planning to do for our opening sequence as it explores the journey between two very close characters through different stages of their lives. We have chosen to analyse My Sister’s Keeper as this film deals with a serious illness among young characters, we felt that this opening sequence would relate very well with our film as it has a similar genre. We wanted to analyse this opening sequence as we wanted to get a general idea of how other films deal with this subject, as we didn’t want to portray cancer patients in such a way that may be offensive to audiences. We also decided to analyse The Butterfly Effect as we wanted to follow this films method of filming in a non chronological order, as this film opens with what should be the end of the story if the film was in chronological order, we wanted to analyse this idea as we wanted to see how this method was done as we didn’t want to film it in such a way that confuses our audience. I will analyse these three opening sequences in as much detail as possible and will try and get different ideas from them, which I will then discuss with my group.

UP

The opening sequence of Up shows the relationship between the main character, Carl and his wife Ellie from the beginning of their marriage all the way up to Ellie’s death. The film Up was made by Disney’s Pixar in 2009. This film is directed by Peter Doctor who directed and wrote other Pixar films such as Monsters Inc. and Toy Story. Although this film is animated we felt that it was closely linked to the idea of our own opening sequence as it tells the story of two characters who have a close relationship, through short videos of various moments and events in their life. We felt that this was similar to our idea of filming one of our main characters flicking through a scrapbook, revisiting memories that she shared with her best friend who developed cancer through looking at photographs. This is similar to the brief story in the opening sequence of Up as both ideas explore various events between the life of two characters whether they be happy memories or sad. This idea is also similar to our own as it also explores memories between characters in a different way as opposed to the traditional flashback. What I like about this opening sequence as well is that there is no speech or dialogue involved, this is similar to our idea as we did not want to record any dialogue, however, we also discussed the possibility of a voice over in our opening sequence. We also discussed editing in a simple soundtrack to go along with the filming, similar to the one in Up. We liked the idea of a soundtrack as music can often tell the audience how to feel, for example, in Up, the beginning of the opening sequence plays up beat music which reflects upon the happy memories and makes the audience happy as well; and then when there are sad memories in the opening sequence and soundtrack will become more and more sincere and slower, which reflects upon the situation, and also makes the audience feel the same emotion as the character. Music is an important factor of film as it often reflects upon the emotions within a certain situation and can make the audience feel those same emotions, and I believe that this should be an important factor of our opening sequence. Overall, this opening sequence has provided us with ideas of how to use certain aspects of soundtrack and sound to make our opening sequence as effective as possible.

MY SISTER’S KEEPER

My Sister’s Keeper is a 2009 drama, based upon the novel of the same name by Jodi Picoult. This film tells the story of a young girl named Anna, who has been genetically engineered to be a genetic match of her older sister, Kate, who has leukaemia. This film’s storyline is very similar to our own as both deal with the subject of cancer and illness, its main characters are also teenage girls who have a very close relationship. This opening sequence is also very similar to our own idea as it shows memories throughout the opening sequence through home videos, this is an effective method to use as it can tell a story better than pictures do and it also shows emotions and shows how close the family is. This method is similar to our own as we plan to show pictures showing the character’s relationship, this is also an effective method as it can also show various emotions and can tell a story, in our case, the pictures will show the development of one of the character’s cancer. There is also evidence of a book of some sort, as you view the opening there is a silhouette of a book flicking through the pages, this is also similar to some ideas we had for our opening sequence, as we had the idea of showing pictures in a scrapbook which would reflect upon the character’s relationship. This opening sequence also uses a voiceover effectively, in My Sister’s Keeper the main character (Abigail Breslin) talks about the fact that the babies born are “coincidence” and then goes on to talk about that fact that she was made for a specific purpose which is to “save her sister’s life” The voice over in My Sister’s Keeper is extremely effective as it gets the audience prepared for how the film will unfold, it also makes the audience think about genetic engineering and how babies are “mostly coincident”, the voice over in this has been used to give the audience opportunity to think about what she is saying, it also tells how the audience to feel, in this case the audience feel sorry for the girl as she is very young and feels as though she was born for a purpose. This is similar to our own idea of a voice over as it tells the story briefly and hints at the main concept of the film, in My Sister’s Keeper the audience will know more about the sister’s illness when the young girl says “I wonder what would have happened if Kate had been healthy” this small sentence tells audiences that the sister obviously has some sort of illness. There is also a soundtrack used in the background, this is also effective as it tells the audience how to feel as it is slow paced and simple. This opening sequence has helped us to use soundtrack, voice over and images without the overall opening sequence looking too over the top. This opening sequence has been done incredibly well and allows the audience to understand the concept of the film without giving too much away.

PRELIMINARY TASK AND EVALUATION

After we filmed our preliminary task, we got together as a group and edited our footage on Sony Vegas, we found this difficult to use at first, but then got used to how it works and finished our editing within 2 lessons. The main objective of our preliminary task was to get used to using a camera, using various shots from different angles and to get us used to editing footage in post production. Overall we were pleased with the outcome. After we watched our finished preliminary task, we all agreed as a group that there were certain aspects which will be improved whilst filming our final project. After editing, we got together as a group to discuss possible improvements which would be taken into account for our opening sequence.

The first improvement that will be made for our project will be the camera quality. Amongst our group we decided that we would use a higher quality camera that would give us a higher definition and a better picture in general. We will also want a camera that can pick up sound a little better because we believe that the sound in our preliminary task was a little muffled and wasn’t very understandable. However, our group did use an iPhone so this was expected. To improve this we would use a high quality recording camera as opposed to an iPhone, we would also make sure that the camera had a higher amount of megapixels.

Whist filming we also did not use a tripod and took the handheld camera technique. This generally made the footage look shaky and unprofessional. This is because at the time we did not have a tripod available that would be suitable for an iPhone. This made our preliminary task quite shaky at parts when we wanted the camera to be still. Using the camera handheld also made the camera tilt slightly at parts; this also made the overall preliminary task look unprofessional. For our actual final project we will use a tripod for our camera to make sure that the camera is at the correct angle and is as steady as possible as this will make our project look more professional and slick.

Another improvement that could be made is with the sound within the piece. As the sound has been recorded with the microphone on the iPhone it is all natural sounds and all sounds in the background have been recorded as well. In our preliminary task you can hear the faint sound of people talking in the background, you can also hear the person operating the camera breathing. This is unprofessional and would not be suitable in our final opening sequence. With our final piece of work we may have to mute the sounds in the background and then re-record the sounds that we want in our opening sequence and then edit them in during post production, or we will simply find somewhere quiet when we are filming our opening sequence.

We also found room for improvement in terms of the lighting that is seen when filming. Whilst planning our preliminary task we tried to find a very light area that would allow us maximum light for higher definition. We believed that after we had found a suitable place with lots of windows and light we would not have a problem with definition, however, we found that the maximum light did not provide higher definition. From this, we learnt that we would need a higher definition camera and possibly more light in order to achieve this.

Overall, our group discussion allowed us to find where we had made mistakes and allowed us to find ways in which certain mistakes could be improved to make our opening sequence better. We decided that camera quality and positioning, sound effects and the lighting will have to be improved. Further on in the course we will test out different methods in order to make sure we get it right when it comes to filming the opening sequence. This discussion was very beneficial and we will take these and improve it in order to achieve the best possible outcome for our final opening sequence.

MATCH ON ACTION AND 180º RULE

Whilst we were creating and editing our preliminary task we had to pay special attention to two important aspects of filming, the match on action and the 180º rules. The 180º rule is where the director would create an imaginary straight line down the centre of the scene, one half of the scene is made up for recording and camera work, and the other side is dedicated to the acting part of the scene. This is done by film makers to make sure that audiences do not become confused with seeing the characters from different angles and with different backgrounds. As you can see from the diagram, you should only film from one side as this will prevent confusion as characters will be viewed in different places on the screen.

Match on action refers to the editing of a piece during post-production. This ensures that the clips during filming match up when put together in post-production, if the match on action rule was not paid attention to, then the sequence would not make sense to the audience, it also wouldn’t look very professional. For example, if a character was walking through a door in one shot, and then cut to a different angle of the same action then the audience would be confused and it wouldn’t look very professional. Those working on editing for a film would have to crop the unwanted pieces of film and then piece clips together and try to make the film look as realistic as possible for the viewers. A common example of this would be when a character goes to open a door. There is usually a mid shot of a character walking towards a door and then cut to a close up of the character’s hand on the door handle. This will have been achieved with editors using the match on action rule to make the action smooth-going and easy for the audience to understand.

PRELIMINARY TASK PLAN

As part of the media course, we were required to create a preliminary task, this was a short film created by our group which involved a short 30 second clip with a line of dialogue, various camera angles. We were also required to use the 180º rule, this is where a scene is filmed within a 180º radius and cannot exceed this limit. The aim of this preliminary task was to give the group a practice with a camera and to show the comparison between our preliminary task and our final media product. When we were planning our preliminary task amongst our group we decided to keep it quite simple and under dramatic, this is because we felt that this suited the genre of our opening sequence better than if we did an overdramatic short film. We also chose two actors that would act in our short sequence, this was so that we could keep our short sequence as simple as possible as this would match with the idea of everyday life. We also decided to make it look as though it was an everyday situation. So, after discussion, we decided that we were going to create a short sequence of two girls partaking in everyday life and having an everyday conversation. Whilst we were deciding what dialogue would take place between our characters we tried to brainstorm everyday conversations that would take place between our actors. After we brainstormed ideas for a conversation between our characters we decided on one character asking the other whether they would like to go and do some art work. We decided on this because this is a simple everyday question and we also found that this is a regular topic between our two actors. After we came up with our idea we decided to create a storyboard to try and get a better idea of the camera angles we wanted to involve in the preliminary task, this is shown below. This story board was drawn by two members of our team.

1. The first frame shows the title of our piece and will fade out into the black background and then fade out all together to sghow the second frame.
2. The second shot shows one of our characters (played by Becka) walking towards the door to open it, we decided on this shot as it would show where she is going to and what direction she is taking.
3. The third shot is a mid shot of Becka coming through the door and walking towards the stairs, we decided on the angles because we felt that it is necessary to show that she has walked through the door and is moving towards her destination.
4. The fourth frame will be of Becka sitting down next to Jess on the stairs, this will be a mid shot too. We decided on this shot because we wanted to show Becka’s movement, and we believed that this was the msot suitable shot to use. If we used a close up it would not be clear as to what Becka was actually doing and Jess would not be seen.
5. The fifth shot is of Becka talking to Jess. This shot focusses mainly on Becka as she is the one who is talking and this is the most important part at this moment in the preliminary task.
6.The sixth shot will be similar to the fifth, however this time it will be from an opposite angle, it will also be a mid shot and will focus on Jess’ dialogue.
7. The seventh frame will be of  the two characters getting up from the stairs. This will also be a mid shot so that we can show the whole of the characters’ movements.
8. The last frame will be a high angle shot of the two characters walking away, this will also be a tracking shot so that it is visible as to where the characters are going.

We have also taken pictures of our desired location below. We decided amongst out group to choose this location as there is plenty of light and would allow us to film with the highest definition picture possible. This areas is also a quiet area so would not allow much background noise of people talking etc.

OUTLINE OF NARRATIVE

After our first discussion we came up with a basic narrative for our opening sequence. Our main narrative is to show a teenage girl going into her room to find a scrapbook or photo album and she will be shown flicking through this scrapbook looking at old photographs and memories of her and her best friend. The scrapbook will begin when the two characters are young and shall develop and show pictures of the two characters growing up and will then begin to show the best friend becoming ill and will end with pictures of the best friend with no hair, showing that she developed cancer. The camera will cut back and forth to the main character crying as she is flicking through the pictures. We will then end the opening sequence with the film going back in time to a year earlier to show that the film will be based on the best friends development of her illness.

THE FIRST DISCUSSION

On the 1^st February, Becka, Abbi and I got together as a group to discuss our ideas for our opening sequence. In this discussion we managed to talk through lots of different aspects of our work. This included what genres we wanted to go with, what characters we wanted, our preferable target audience and other topics. We also discussed other films that had effective opening sequences that we could research to get ideas, films such as The Butterfly Effect and My Sister’s Keeper. I will research these opening sequences further into the course. We recorded our first discussion to put up onto our blog:

This first discussion was very beneficial for us as we all agreed on our most preferred genre and managed get agree on a general idea for our opening sequence. Overall we agreed on two female characters, which were an age similar to our own, who were best friends, one of these characters will develop cancer and the story will be about the way that both of these characters deal with this illness. We also thought about possible locations, the most favoured of these was one of the girl’s bedrooms. We also discussed what could happen during the opening sequence, we eventually agreed on the idea of a girl flicking through a scrapbook or photo album looking at pictures of her and her best friend and we will see a gradual progression in one of the girl’s illness, however we discussed the problem with time, as this idea may take over 2 minutes of film. We will continue to develop our idea and record them in a variety of different ways.

LOCATIONS AND CHARACTERS MIND MAPS

Here is a couple of mind maps that we created to explore different possibilities for characters and locations. We have done this to get a rough idea of what can be possible for us to include in our opening sequence. This has helped the group to brainstorm ideas for our opening sequence.

INITIAL IDEAS

Here is a mind map carried out by a member of our group, which was brought to the first discussion. It explores different genres that could be considered for our opening sequence.

QUESTIONNAIRE

In order to understand what sort of films different people like, we decided to create a questionnaire in order to get a brief idea of what sort of film our target audience would be interested in.

Below is a brief questionnaire we asked different people of various ages to fill in, in this questionnaire we asked:
– what is your gender?
– what is you age?
– what genre of film are you most interested in?
– what is your favourite film from this list? With this question we gave the people answering a list of different films in which they could select

 

For this questionnaire we asked 20 people of different ages to fil in our questionnaire. As you can see, we recorded people’s answers thorugh tallying, we did this so that we could record results quickly. I think to improve our results we could ask more open questions and more detailed questions. As we already know what target audience we wanted to go with, we felt that we could perhaps have only asked our target audience for their feedback, as this would give us more accurate results.

These results show us that our most popular age range was those aged 16-15 years of age, this is the age group that we intend to aim our opening sequence at.The most popular genre was Drama which was closely followed by Horror/Thriller, this shows us that these are the most popular genres and if we wanted to create a popular opening sequence then these would be our desired genres. And the most popular films were the ‘Harry Potter’ series and ‘The Hangover’ we thought that these would be the most popular as these films contain action and comedy.

 

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN TITLE SEQUENCE

In the title sequence for Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film ‘Catch Me If You Can’  the directors, producers, actors and writers are established to the audience. In most title sequences, genre is established straight away, for example in the title sequence for se7en, that I have analysed, the genre of horror is established through the use of music and font. The genre of this film is biographical comedy-drama, in the title sequence for ‘Catch Me If You Can’ genre is not really established as there is no key element to the title sequence that would give away its genre. However, some might guess at the comedy genre as the character who is played by Tom Hanks is often seen failing to catch the criminal, this might hint at a comedy-like genre.

The title sequence hints greatly at the narrative concept of the film as we often see the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio change his identity as the title sequence goes on. We also get a hint of what he changes his identity to, as images shown in the background are associated with certain job roles. For example, when he changes his identity to become a pilot we see stewards and stewardesses walking and planes flying above. The type of media of this title sequence is incredibly different to the media in the real film. The film itself is filmed with real actors acting out the storyline, whereas the title sequence for this film is of a series of drawings/stamps that have been put together to briefly show the audience the story line. The title sequence was directed by Kuntzel and Deygas who are famous for creating stamps and animations for title sequences. So the title sequence is totally different from the film itself because of the different director’s particular style. The title of the film itself also hints at the genre of the film as it gives the audience a hint that there will be some sort of chase involved in this film. In some cases, the music in the background hints at the genre of the film, this is what happens in films like ‘Se7en’ and ‘Mission Impossible’. However in the case of ‘Catch Me If You Can’ the background music of this title sequence does not link to the genre. This piece of music was composed by John Williams, who composed music for other films such as ‘Jaws’, ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Jurassic Park.’ Overall, the media used in the title sequence hints greatly at the genre of the film as it gives a brief outline of the storyline but leaves out the ending of the film and fades to the Tom Hanks character closing in on the criminal, which leaves the audience curious as to how the film ends.