'Fixation' Opening Sequence

Here is our final product!

Creating music - Garageband

Anna and I (Lucy) had decided that we were going to make some music on the software garageband as we could not find any copyright free music good enough to use in our sequence, so we started to make our own. We knew we wanted to keep to the 80's funky theme and include tense dark music in the points that the Stalker character would be on screen. Because of this we looked at our sequence and made a timeline to plan out at what seconds needed what type of sound. We would locate the point in which needed a different type of sound and map it out and then put this into our music. We successfully created this with alot of hard work and time, time being 3 hours. 2 lessons and a lunch time as we wanted to make it perfect, and we believe it was and we were very happy with it.



                                                                WHAT WENT WRONG                                                     
 However when exporting our now finished song into iTunes, we realised it said that the song was 2minutes and 58seconds, when it should of been 1minute 30 seconds. What we had realised is that what we had though was seconds on garage band was actually 3 seconds and this had made our music to long, we were gutted however we are going to try our best to fix this the next lunch time and lesson we have to make it fit down to 1minute 30.

After having to make loads of further edits working with what we had over having to go back and reshoot some things, we have managed to make some changes to our film that we feel are very beneficial to the film as a whole. We have managed to use the shots we had to create a shot reverse shot between the Stalker and Mandy as she approaches the scene of the murder. We found this quite difficult as we had to edit perfectly to make the continuity of the film work and keep the belief of our film there. This was a major problem as it was very time consuming and we hadn't got the titles or sound onto the film yet therefore we were slightly starting to panic as we knew we were running out of time.

We had to spend an hour learning how to get the titles onto each clip by using tutorials on Youtube to help, one of which can be seen below:

We found this to be a good way to learn as it was something we had no idea about and due to the fact we didn't have it told to us exactly what it was we were meant to do, we had the freedom to play around a bit with the different texts and transitions of each. This too was time consuming but it was worth doing as it means we have learnt something new we can use in the future on Final Cut Express.

Lastly, due to copywright we had to make the music that can be heard on the opening. This took almost 3 hours which seemed forever for such a short clip and we had problems with getting it all put together in time to make the deadline however it all came together really well and we're really pleased with the end result.

Research into Film Institutes

As a group we need to consider what sort of film institute would distribute our film. Obviously as our film is not a multi-million blockbuster we understand that our film would not be distributed by a world wide famous institute such as Universal Paramount Pictures. However a small independant institute would be much more realistic. We decided to look a some of our favourite films and see what sort of institues they were distributed by.

1) 'PolyGram Filmed Entertainment'
'Trainspotting' (1996) is a crime/drama film addaptation of the novel 'Trainspotting' by Irvine Welsh and directed by Danny Boyle. The film was distributed by 'PolyGram Filmed Entertainment', a film studio founded in 1979 but eventually sold to Universal Pictures. It was based in the UK and invested in many British films such as 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' , "Dead Man Walking' and 'Notting Hill'. PolyGram became part of Universal Pictures to create a joint venture called 'Gramercy Pictures' which was the distributor of PolyGram films in the USA and Canada. 'Trainspotting' was ranked 10th by the 'British Film Institute' in its list of top 100 British Films.
The 'British Film Institute' is a charitable organisation designed to encourage the development the arts of film and television in the UK.


2)  'Lions Gate Entertainment'

Crank (2006) is an action film staring Jason Statham and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. The film was produced distributed by 'Lions Gate Entertainment'. It is a North American independent film company founded in Vancouver in 1997 and its headquarters are in Santa Monica, California. It is one of the most successful independent film/television distribution companies due to its commercial recognition and many of its pictures have been very lucrative. 'Lionsgate' also has its own record label and publishing company.


3) 'Miramax Films'

Pulp Fiction (1994) is an American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino and distributed by 'Miramax Films', another entertainment company responsible for distributing independent and foreign films. Miramax was founded in 1979 and headquartered in New York. It was originally created to be different in that it would distribute films that Hollywood Studios did not consider plausible to distribute. Despite this original plan, in 1993 Miramax was sold to 'Walt Disney' for $60 million.


We feel that it would be totally unrealistic to expect our film to be distributed by any major Hollywood studios. However, an independent film company may be more feasible, even then, the independent film companies above are probably too 'high up the hierarchy' to consider our film. If we were to actually release a whole film I think that the best way to do this could be by previewing it at a local film festival, like that of the 'BFI London Film Festival' except perhaps a more smaller-scale festival, such as a regional or local one.

Feedback from Peers

The feedback we recieved from our peers was helpful as it forced us to perhaps notice things that beforehand we may not have noticed. It was also a good experience to see what other people's opening sequences were like and how they could possibly help us to improve our own.

The positive comments we recieved is as follows:

1. Lighting very good
2. Shots very good
3. Daylight good - easy to see
4. Close up of eyes good
5. Good costume 
6. Good location 
7. Simple but effective
8. Good costumes/shots
9. Good mis-en-scene
10. Good acting and characters
11. Good quality 
12. Good range of shots 
13. Good cuts 
14. Close ups good
15. Narrative liked
16. Continuity good

However we did also recieve some more critical comments, most of which will be solved in the final edit before submitting our film:

1. Some bits jumpy - this is down to the fact that the editing is not yet compeleted. Once it has been it will be a lot clearer in my opinion.
2. Audio is confusing - the audio captured in the film shots is going to be muted completely hence why we aren't too bothered about it just yet.
3. Storyline a bit confusing - it was not explained how so we don't understand how it is confusing in order to modify it. 
4. Editing wasn't smooth - editing isn't finished.
5. Some shots out of focus - this was meant to happen as it creates a certain mysterious atmosphere around Anna.
6. Could be more suspensful (when Anna is following Lucy) - once again will be rectified in final editing. The shots are going to be made shorter, there will possibly be more shot reverse shots etc.
7. Sound could be used before Lucy is on the floor - is going to be added when we get to editing that last little bit; the kind of thing we had in mind was to do like a blackout when the title of the film appears, with a scream then you see the final shot with Lucy on the floor.
8. Add more shots whilst walking  - once again, a problem that will be solved during last edits.

Recieving Feedback

After having Ms Thrasher watch our film and give us feedback, we realised that in fact there was quite a lot we had left to do.
For examle, she said that some of the scenes of the Stalker following Mandy were too long and needed to be edited down and a shot reverse shot perhaps to be put in - immediately therefore, we began to cut those down and have already out a shot reverse shot into our sequence but that still needs some more work. Also, we were told that the paning shot from Mandy to the Stalker wasn't a good idea so we have now cut that out and made it into two shots.
Also, there is a scene in the kitchen with Ted and Mandy which we were told was quite confusing as he suddenly changes position (due to two shots being edited together) which we needed to somehow fix and have done by making the shot more specific. We simply shortened the first shot so that the viewer can tell what is going on before they enter the front room therefore it doesn't appear as though we were trying to match the two shots together but instead were more just shortening the narrative but not in such a way that would be confusing to the viewer.
Also we needed to fix the sound up but we decided to do that last as it could go wrong and we would need a lot of help. 

Audio/Sound for the opening

Obviously we understand that one of the main important things in a film is not just what the audience sees on the screen, but what they can hear.

As we want our opening to be simple and effective and not have too many things going on at once we have decided not to use speech in our scene. Although this is a risky decision we have decided to use only an audio track throughout the geration of the opening. Accordingly, our next important decision was which song would we use? Before a discussion of coming up with possible songs, we decided that because our opening is set in the 80's era, we wanted a song that went with the cheesy upbeat vibe of the 80's, therefore we have come to the decision of using the song 'Sussudio' by Phil Collins. We feel that this song would fit perfectly with the costumes and theme that we are going for.

Because our genre of film is thriller/mystery we understand that this song is not the obvious type that you would associate with this genre, but this is something we think will work to our advantage. Because the song will sharply contrast with the events happening on screen, we believe and hope this captures the audience and although may confuse them, their confusion will encourage them to continue to watch. Our inspiration for this is 'American Psycho' when this song is played it contrasts with the action on screen and adds to the stylishness of the film.

What we have left to do

1. Finish off editing on Final Cut Express - we need to add titles into the sequence and check that it all flows properly and is believable and doesn't confuse the audience in any way. We also need to add the music to our clip and mute all of the different images making it a silent piece. 
2. Create surveys for peer analysis - when we show our clip for the first time we need to have it analysed by people in our group to tell us whether they believe it and would want to see the rest of the movie; we need to think about what questions we are going to include in this questionaire.
3. Re-edit the film - after having the peer analysis questionaires back and looking at the criticisms we recieve the film will most probably need some tweaking. This will result in going back to Final Cut Express and changing different aspects of our opening sequence.

Editing our sequence.

To begin with, editing was really easy and didn't involve much work for me personally as I was just offering opinions to Anna and Lucy who were doing all the technical stuff. We got on really well as a group and didn't disagree at all on what we thought we needed to do and where different clips should go in order to make the film as good as we could. However, today I was the only one in and may have struggled a bit not only with the editing software but with not having other people's opinion on what I was doing as it isn't only my grade we're working for and I didn't want to let them down. Furthermore, I had never used Final Cut Express before and struggled a bit with all the different buttons and things that I had to use. I also somehow managed to put the first bit of text onto the sequence which was very difficult as I started off not having a clue with what to do even to move clips onto a timeline and so I felt very proud when I managed to add the text onto the end. Now all that is left to do is the final tweaks to the clips and putting titles on it - an aim I think very easily done when we come back from half term.

Filming of Our Sequence.

We filmed the sequence today, so it is now ready to be edited and put together to create the final thing before peer analysis.

The filming only took about an hour and a half and we got all the footage that we needed. However, whilst filming we encountered some problems:

1. House set up: because Anna was a stalker, we had to find a way to make sure she was seen by the audience but not obvious to the main characters, Teddy and Mandy. This was hard as there was no bushes around the window so Anna had to angle herself at the side of the window so that she could 'stalk' the couple in the front room. 
2. When filming the murder scene outside, we had a man come up to us and start yelling expletives and threatening to call the police on us. We handled this by walking away and leaving the situation, however when we walked back that way to leave home he followed us for a part of the way. However, no harm was done except for a man in New Malden hating us. 

Overall, the filming was very successful and as a group we are really proud of what we created. We also took some photographs of the filming in process!

<---Lucy and Catherine setting up the camera outside the house, preparing to film the establishing shot of the location.

<---Lucy and Catherine having problems with the camera by the looks of things!

 <---A photo of our friend Perry's house where we shot our opening sequence.

<---Anna in role playing 'the stalker' spying on Ted and Victim Mandy.

<---Preparing to shoot a scene with Mandy and Ted.

<---Perry and Lucy getting into role, ready to be filmed.

<---The cast, Perry Vazquez, Lucy Findlater and Anna Wylde, all friends in real life however this is certainly not the case in the film!

<---Catherine did the majority of filming the sequences.

Meeting 3 - Storyboarding/Planning

This week we spent our lessons on creating the storyboard which will direct us on the day of filming, and we decided we would film on sunday the 29th of January. We discussed where we would film we decided to film at our friend Perry Vazquez's house, Perry is also playing the character of Ted in the opening.
We concluded that during filming we will take photographs of; the location, props, costumes, characters, a group photo and the filming in action.

Meeting 2 - Week 2 Planning

In the second week of planning our sequence we continued brainstorming potential concepts and fortunately we all agreed on an idea. We decided our opening would be set in the 80's era and we would show this through appropriate costumes, makeup and music. We agreed our storyline would focus on a jealous stalker who watches the boy she obsessed over through his frontroom window and she sees him with his girlfriend. She waits for the girlfriend to leave, follows her, and kills her with an axe.

So far our planning had gone well, all 3 of us work well together and listen to each others ideas without disgarding them or laughing at them. When Lucy proposed this idea we all put our own ideas into it and adapted it to its final concept.

Meeting 1

Before we could begin planning or filming anything we had to discuss ideas such as what genre our opening would be, what style we would use, when and where it is set, who is going to be in it, and most importantly what the storyline would be.

We immediately decided that our genre was going to be horror, however this eventually changed to thriller rather than horror. We were keen to so a victorian style film by using costumes and victorian settings, however we decided that is would not be viable as we do not have the budget, time or expertise to be able to make this idea a reality.

Prop List and Costumes for Opening Sequence

Prop List/Costumes

1. An Axe: used for the murder of Mandy by the Stalker. 
2. Fake Blood/Ketchup: used to create the blood coming from Mandy's body after the murder has taken place.
3. 'Alcoholic' Beverages: drinks that appear to be alcohol (but actually aren't) to set the mood that they are a couple having a nice night in together.
4.  80s music: sets the era, creates the mood of what is happening within the frame. 
5. Stalkers costume: long black coat, black jeans, black Dr Martens and a black top so she is camoflaged when she is peering through the window. 
6. Mandy's costume: a polka dot dress, denim jacket, Dr Martens, bright make-up (lots of blusher, bright eye make-up, bright lipstick) Big hair and hair accesories, fingerless gloves. These will all give the 80's feel as these were worn in that era.
7. Teddy's costume: Hawiian shirt, shorts, boot, big hair. 
8. 80's music. Sussudio by Phil Collins.

Characters

Mandy

Mandy is a 18 year old girl played by Lucy Findlater and the opening sequence is centred around her. Her style is very 'pop' and she has a giggly and mischievious manner. She represents the stereotypical 'bimbo' who has little substance to her, however is blessed with very good looks. She is very popular and girls long to be just like her (although this isn't outright shown in the sequence, it is implied by her appearance and the fact the stalker is envious of her). When she visits her boyfriend's house she is followed and when she leaves she is brutely murdered by her boyfriends jealous stalker. In most typical teenage thriller films the murder victims are made to be unlikeable and the audience tends to feel no pity when murdered, though they are interested to find out who has done it and why. This is what we have intended following in the creation of Mandy's character.

Ted

Teddy is also 18 and is Mandy's boyfriend played by Perry Vazquez. Ted is an important character because the stalker character is obsessed with him and is green with envy when she see him with another girl. Ted has similar characteristics as his girlfriend and also comes across as a silly teenager. Despite this, there is clearly something that fascinates his stalker, so much so to the degree that she murders his girlfriend out of jealousy. Ted is supposed to represent the obviously 'good-looking' teenage boy who girls are infatuated by, he knows this and uses this knowledge to his own personal benefit. In the opening scene it is not established why the stalker is so obsessed with him, however this is what remains part of the mystery which would be solved if the rest of the film was continued.

Stalker

Anna Wylde plays the stalker is also about 18 years old and could go to the same school as Mandy and Ted although this is not revealed in the opening sequence. The reason we have decided not to give her a name and refer to as the 'stalker' is to create a mysterious, dark and fascinating persona. The fact we have intended not to reveal her name is to interest the audience and keep as much hidden from them in order to encourage them to watch the rest of the film. The opening consists of her watching Teddy and Mandy through a window and obsessing over them. Then she follows Mandy and murders her with an axe that she keeps with herself all the time and keeps inside her coat. The stalker is a psychotic and derranged caricature, clearly mentally unstable and what psychologists would consider abnormal. The rest of the film would be the investigation of who murdered Mandy and why, the discovery of the stalkers true idenity would reveal why she is so obsessed with Ted.

Target Audience

We have decided that our target audience would be for young adults and teenagers. If this movie was to be released we would give it a rating of 15. We have given our film this target audience because we are aware that many young teenagers and young adults love the genres of horror, drama and thriller.
This style of our film can be related to by teenagers and young adults as it explores the feelings of jelousy. People experience jelousy at all ages of life but it can be most prominent at a young age.
The characters can be related to by the audience as they are young and enjoy drinking and having fun.
Another theme that this movie explores is lust, and we are aware of how much young people experience this feeling. Mandy the character in this opening sequence is very unaware of what is about to happen, which again relates to hw unaware teenagers can be.

The main reason that the target is the same of the characters is that some of the feelings can be related to, it will entertain this audience as these are the extremes that happen when these feelings are introduced to someones live, and maybe the audience has felt as if they would want to do something like this in there life but would never take anything to those extremes.

Ideas for the name of our movie

For the name of our movie we would like it to be relevent to our genre. We also want it to be a name that would draw the audience in to want to watch it, as we know that the title of movies is the first judgement someone would make when deciding to watch a movie.

 We do not want the title of our movie sound like it is another genre e.g comedy or a romcom.

These are a list of some movies which inspire us and we think work well:

Donnie darko – it has the word “dark” which has connotations of evil. The alliteration of the D’s makes it stick in your head so you can always remember the name of the film.

Silence of the lambs – this does not nessaserily have connotations referring to the genre of the movie, but it is relevant to the story line of the movie. And this makes sense when you watch it.

American psycho – this title again does not tell you what the movie genre is but it is naming the description of the main character, this being an American and he is a psycho.

Costumes and Makeup

As our thriller is going to be set in the 80's we have gathered some inspiration as to what makeup and clothing the characters should wear:

For Lucy's character (Mandy)she is going to dress in a bright red polka dot dress with Dr.Marten boots, lots of beaded necklaces and large hoop earings. Her eye makeup will be bright and colourful in order to capture the true 80's vibe.







Mandy's boyfriend (played by Perry Vasquez) will wear a bright coloured hawaiian shirt and his hair will be big and bouffant.

Genre of sequence - Thriller

The genre we have chosen for our opening film sequence is thriller. We have chosen this because it is a style of film and literature that all 3 of us enjoy. Its subgenres are generally, crime, mystery and psychological thrillers. When producing a thriller we must consider the following elements:
-The prospect of death
-Antagonism
-The main plot line must focus on solving a mystery
-All action and characters should be realistic in their representation
-The two major themes of thriller is the desire to seek justice and the morality of individuals.
-There should be a sense of unknowing throughout in order to maintain suspence
-The plot should be thrilling without the use of gore

In order to produce a an effective piece we believe the sequence should not reveal everything to the audience however it should intrigue them and make them want to watch the rest of the film.

The quintessential thriller films would be those of Alfred Hitchcock, whose work includes; Pyscho, Frenzy, The Birds (and many more). The deprivation of information for the viewer and convincing them to believe something that may turn out utterly untrue is what captivates them. Although our opening sequence is not planned to be similar to 'Psycho' it has still influenced us as it has set the expectations of most thriller films made ever since.

The main features of a psychological thriller are; mind games, confinement, split-personalites, stalking and obsession. In our opening sequence plan to utilize most of these elements.

Inspiration for our opening sequence

The hole is a movie centred around an obessive girl who is fixated on a boy in her school. She is motivated and influenced by love, she does all that she can to insure that she gets her true love and does not care who she hurts along the way. The film tells the stories of her twisted lies and how they've managed to ruin peoples lives, if not end them. It also displays how innocent people can be destroyed because of the envy and insanity of one individual. This is why this film inspires ours, jelousy, obsessiveness and selfishness are the main features. 

  

Locations

We have agreed on filming our sequence in New Malden, South Lane Parade. We have chosen this are because one of our cast members lives here and it is the perfect setting for our story.

Here are some photographs of the location:

This alley below the South Lane Parade sign is going to be used for the final shot of the sequence, where the main event takes place.

This is the view of the alley from the direction of the house that we will be using.

The house on left is the one that we will be using for the majority of our sequence.

Opening Sequence Idea

To decide what to do for our opening sequence was a very difficult task as we found it hard to select what to do from our ideas of modern day, Victorian and the last century. However, we decided very quickly what genre we wanted to do and have stuck to that throughout the brainstorming of our ideas. Eventually we decided that we want to base our sequence in the 70s/80s and that it is going to be a thriller. We came to this decision through thinking of the practical elements of creating a different time and how much money each would cost to create. However we always wanted to be original and set it in a different time and through looking through our wardrobes and researching the time, we realised that this idea would be cost free and easy to do as we had asked a friend from outside of our group to help us by acting and letting us use his house.

We have 3 people acting in our sequence and one of the group filming it. We are going to use props of 70s/80s clothing and someone's house as our scene. The story is a couple (girlfriend and boyfriend) at his house watching a film together, getting very close. However, there is a girl, his stalker, watching from outside through the window who is infatuated with the boy. She is so obsessed with him that she takes it upon herself to get rid of his girlfriend altogether by attacking her as she makes her way home. The stalker is carrying an axe and as the girl leaves she begins to follow her down an alley. When they are definitely completely isolated, the stalker pulls out the axe, the screen goes black and you hear a scream. The next thing the audience will see is the axe and the girl on the floor and a smile from the stalker before she calmly walks away leaving the dramatic scene behind her including the murder weapon.

We are going to use a few different locations in order to reflect the girl's journey home as well as a lot of different camera shots including shot reverse shot, extreme close ups, long shots and establishing shots.