Screen shot edits

We put our film company logo 'Boom Productions' at the start of our opening and added the explosion sound on the audio.



We aimed to put our titles on the film sequence at the appropriate time, for example we put our 'director' title on at the start, in the first 8 seconds of the opening because the directors' names usually come up at the beginning of a title.

 

 

 

 

 

We used a red colour balance as the gangster is standing behind Lisa because we wanted the audience to know that danger was arising, which was also emphasized by the slowing down of the film at this point.

 

The title appeared at 1.04 seconds, during the middle of the opening as it broke up what happens before she gets kidnapped and what is happening after she gets kidnapped.

We added on scary, eerie music in order to make it more thrilling and scary for our audience.

 

 

At the 'phone call' scene we used an echo, to show that they were in an eerie room and because they were on loud speaker it emphasized even more the desperation for Lisa to find out more about her captivation and if she will ever be rescued by her boyfriend Steven.

update/changes made on our coursework

My group and I have decided to record a video about our changes and updates we've made in our opening, instead of just typing it out as we wanted to come across as unique. We also felt to improve our ability to communicate and the technology used in our coursework as we want to have a range of items used in our blogs e.g. prezi's, slideshare, powerpoints etc.


(If there are any technological problems viewing this video or any difficulties understanding what we have said in the video, simply read the written version of the changes made below, thank you.)

There has been a few changes made in our film opening because as a group we felt this was best and we were faced with circumstances where we couldn't meet in our original ideas, so we felt changes were obligatory. We have removed the car scene from our opening as we couldn’t get hold of a car to use to drive Lisa off in.
So we came up with a new idea instead of dragging Lisa out and putting her into the car, she will still be dragged out of the party but you will see the gangster putting white tissue over Lisa’s mouth which is meant to seem as it contains chloroform and we meet this target by showing her pass out. We decided on this idea as it's still as effective as our other idea and it also links into our next scene perfectly, as when she passes out the screen will go black and the next scene will consist of Lisa being tied up, this makes perfecrt sense as when somebody is poisoned they usually wake up in a location which is unknown to them.
This meets the codes & conventions of a thriller as suspense is very significant in a thriller, and the use of posioning Lisa builds suspense as the audience are not aware on why or what Lisa has done for this to be happening to her, so this is effective as it leaves our audience wondering and it also meets our aspect of our crime thriller as poisoning somebody and kidnapping them is a crime.
Although we liked the idea of the car scene we weren’t too disappointed when we couldn’t find a car to use as we feel the chloroform idea works just as well and we improvised which shows we can as a group think on our feet and use our initiative well.

Props and wardrobe used

Outfits from nicoleowusu

 (This slideshare was created to  explained why my group and I chose the outfits for the our characters and what inspired us, view full screen if the writing is difficult to see)

The rough copy of Vengeance opening and evaluation.

The rough copy of Vengeance opening and evaluation.

When editing the opening of Vengeance we had to watch through all the footage and find the best footage, which meant putting all the funny shots aside. Once we saved them in a folder named 'Footage for coursework' we imported the files and just had a quick practice editing and cutting the shots as well as fiddling with the effects to see what we would use. We edited them in chronological order, aiming to use most of the best shots that we filmed. It was really tricky trying to edit the clips to get precise match on action because of the way we filmed the scenes (in small sections and cutting) and so it was difficult for it to run through the whole of the opening smoothly. We were still in the process of making out titles as well as getting the final sound effects and recording/uploading our audio files so they were not included in the rough copy.

Here I saved the file suitable to upload to youtube and made commentaries on the yotube video so viewers were aware of the missing bits and peices to the opening.

 

Below is the footage of the opening:

 

Inspiration

Our 'kidnap' scene was inspired by this short thriller film I found on YouTube whilst doing research on what type of film opening we wanted to do.
0:27 onwards you can see what inspired our kidnapping see as in our film opening we have black tape over 'Lisa's'(one of the characters from the film opening) mouth and in this film opening called 'One more time' they also have tape over the lady's mouth which they have kidnapped. This inspired us before I felt this part of the film opening was effective in terms of the way it made me feel as the audience because the mise en scene caused tension as there was loads of creepy posters on the walls and when the girl was weeping and moaning with the tape on her mouth it made me have sympathy for her and this is what my group and I wanted to create in our film opening 'tension yet sympathy for character'.

 

Feedback:

Deniece: The rough copy looks very realistic in the beginning as the people in the scene look like they're generally having fun, which created a positive atmosphere.

Hilda: When 'Lisa' was being taken away nobody saw it, which was interesting because usually at a party due to the music being so loud and the people around you enjoying themselves, you wouldn't really notice somebody being dragged away or you wouldn’t take it seriously. Although there isn't much people in the party scene and the man in the hood looks very noticeable as he is just standing still in the mise en scene, on the other hand it got me scared and caused tension whilst I was watching it.

Keri: The party was alright, although it was quite long so it became a bit boring. I began to become really frightened when the man appeared out of nowhere standing in the background, although if spoky music was added to it that would make the scene much scarier.

Evaluation:I decided to make the kidnapper stand behind the mise en scene so it can cause tension and cause the audience to question themselves thinking why he is standing there, what he is up to and why isn't he showing his face like the others in the party scene. By doing this it will give the people watching an idea that something bad is going to happen hence the kidnapper wearing an off black hoodie.

Furthermore, by having the party scene full of young girls it makes it more realistic as everyone is interacting with each other and literally enjoying themselves.

Criticism/How we will make improvements:It was said by one of our commenters that there isn't much people in the party scene and we have taken that on board as we will be cutting some of the party scene out where it looks too spacious and we will make the party scene shorter because it drags on for too long.It was said by Keri that we should use spooky music in our scene, this comment has been considered and you will now see in our final film opening that we have scary music over our original party scene music.
There wasnt much mentioned about the phonecall scene by our commenters, but the phonecall scene didn't go to plan as it was not actually a phonecall scene due to it being an extreme rough copy! Although my group and I will definately add an actual phone conversation in our final copy of the short scene.

 

The sound effects.

The making of sound effects, please view my prezi below:

How the logo was made

The changes made!

We have now changed a few things in our film opening because as a group I felt this was best and we were faced with circumstances where we couldn't meet our original ideas so changes were obligatory. We have removed the car scene from our opening as we couldn’t get hold of a car to use to drive Lisa off in.
So we came up with a new idea instead of dragging Lisa out and putting her into the car, she will still be dragged out of the party but you will see the gangster putting white tissue over Lisa’s mouth which is meant to seem as it contains chloroform and we meet this target by showing her pass out. We decided on this idea as it's still as effective as our other idea and it also links into our next scene perfectly, as when she passes out the screen will go black and the next scene will consist of Lisa being tied up, this makes perfecrt sense as when somebody is poisoned they usually wake up in a location which is unknown to them.
This meets the codes & conventions of a thriller as suspense is very significant in a thriller, and the use of posioning Lisa builds suspense as the audience are not aware on why or what Lisa has done for this to be happening to her, so this is effective as it leaves our audience wondering and it also meets our aspect of our crime thriller as poisoning somebody and kidnapping them is a crime.
Although we liked the idea of the car scene we weren’t too disappointed when we couldn’t find a car to use as we feel the chloroform idea works just as well and we improvised which shows we can as a group think on our feet and use our initiative well.

Sound effects

Sound effects

After browsing everal copy right free sound effect sites my group and I finally found what website to use for our sound effects
The site is http://soundbible.com/tags-scary.html
Here are a few print screens:

As you can see from the print screen above the site itself states that these are free sound clips, that sentence assured our group and I that this website was legitimate and could be used, it also copyright free.

The site was very simple to use we simply inserted what sort of sound effects we were looking for in the search bar provided:

 

Animatic

Our Party Scene preperation

How we created the music for our party scene.

Our teacher insturcted us to create our own music for our party scenes due to the fact that using already exisiting artisits music could be considered as copy right. So we decided to search on the internet for websites where we could create our own beat to avoid any future hassles.

At first, my group and I experimented on the different types of beats that we could use and which one we thought would be appropriate for our party scene.
We then narrowed our choices down to two beats as our party scene isn't extremely long, its approximately 40 seconds, we chose two different beats to include in our party scene to make it more realistic as in a real party the same music isn't played over and over again so we wanted to potray that same variety.

Furthermore, as you can see below there are two print screens which look similar, however, if you look closely into the blue rectangles(which make up the beat) you can gather that they're placed in different places in both print screens, this is because, as said earlier, we created two different beats.
Here are the print screens of the website we used:

Although we made our own beat, during the filming of the party scene we played music that our characters know so that they would really get into the party spirit as this will benefit our party scene into looking realistic, and during editing we placed our beat over the party scene and muted the music used before.

Here is both of our beats(However, the video footage that is used isn't extremely relevant as it was filmed only for the beat so no attention isn't needed to be paid towards the video footage, only to the beat):

 

 

Our film company title

We felt as a group we should include our own production company logo to make our film opening more unique and eye catching, This is effective because it shows how detailed and creative my group and I want to be.
Below is a few pictures of how the moving logo looks:



We created this using Fireworks for all the different images included such as the bomb, tag, title and all of the different sized sparks. As we are adding this to the start of the film you couldn't see the bomb and the title in Adobe Premiere Pro as the background was black. So we decided to change the bomb to grey and the colour writing of the title to white

Above you can see in this image the tag and writing are not visible as this is how it looks on Flash, but when we transferred it to Adobe Preimere Pro they are now visible.

 

 

This is how the bomb looks and I have added different shots of how the logo looks when it is moving. We like how it has turned out and we like how the spark moves to blow up the bomb, we think it will look good at the start of our film as it seems dangerous and exciting which is what our film is like. Also the word 'boom' goes well with the animation/logo as when you hear the word 'boom' you think of fire and loud items, so we feel that they link really well together.

Music inspiration

I found some websites where we could create the music for our thriller opening:

www.buttonbeats.com

www.audiosparx.com

As well as some ideas of how the music would sound:

The script for the phonecall in 'Vengeance'

(Below my group and I have made a script for the phone conversation in our short scene)

Lisa: *screaming* why am I here.. Help me.. Please somebody help me

*Kidnapper enters*(but only the hand appears)

*phone ringing*

Kidnapper: Guess who I’ve got

*removes masking take from Lisa's mouth*
*places the phone on Lisa’s ear*

Lisa: Steven... Steven why am I here(anxiousness projected in voive)

Steven: Babe, I’m so sorry this will all get sorted out… trust me

Lisa: But why am I he...

*kidnapper interrupts*

Kidnapper: you know what to do

Steven: I swear I’m going to kill...

*line cuts off*

This scene commences with Lisa screaming for help, this will immediately catch our audiences’ attention which is also an important convention of a thriller.
There are certain elements to a thriller that help distinguish them from other similar genres such as twists that are able to engage the audience and play with their mind. Our scripts conveys an element of twist as the kidnapper simply states to Steven that he knows what to do, once again this will lead our audience to deeply engage in our opening as they will be left confused on what the kidnapper meant by "you know what to do".Reasons for this type of script: I felt the phone call was effective because we don't have a scene where all the actors communicate, also 'Rich' and 'Kidnapper' aren't allowed to see each for the reason of it revealing too much, so we thought a phone call would be the best way that they can communicate so 'Steven' can get his girlfriend back.

We decided to keep the kidnapper anonymous in this scene as I felt it go according to the codes and conventions of thriller as the 'bad person' isn't usually revealed otherwise it will spoil the ending, in this case it had to be just a film opening and nothing else, therefore I felt revealing the kidnapper being revealed at a early stage would be unnecessary and it would make the scene not seem like a film opening this is why he was anonymous in the phone call scene, also to leave the audience wondering who he could be.

In 'Vengeance' you will notice that we decided to have a continuity of Emily's screaming in the process of her being kidnapped, only to make the scene more realistic as if you are in a situation where something scary is going on and you are on the phone- trying to get help, the person on the other line is not with you therefore you need to scream, shout and stutter whilst you speak so the person you are on the phone to can instantly notice that something 'fishy' is going on(this is another reason why Emily as 'Lisa' was chosen for our film opening because she has previously taken drama and was able to express her scared, anxious and flabbergasted feeling through tone and facial expressions).

And the filming commences/Feedback.

On the 25th of February, my group and I begun to film the first 2 minute opening to our thriller 'Vengeance'. We prioritised the party scene mainly on that day as the people needed to play in our party scene our alot of people and it wouldn't be as easy to gather them on another day compared to our main characters.

However, after filming and transferring the footage onto our memory stick we noticed that the lighting on the computer isn't as clear as it was whilst filming it on the camera.
Below is the footage:


Having discussed this with my group, we have decided to change the mis-en-scene of the party scene and going to film our party scene in the main hall in my sixth form. If that is not successful, we are going to change the camera we use to an iPhones camera as the mega pixels and definition of the camera is much more defined.

Feedback:
Hilda: The people look very energetic, which is really good. But, the camera's very blury and some of the characters dancing are spending too much time looking into the camera/noticing the camera which makes the party seem a bit unrealistic.Esther: The footage is really blurry although it did look realistic! Looked semi unorganised.
Chantelle: It's good as the camera wasn't shakey, it looks like a party scene as it's quite dark. Cut out the parts where people are looking into the camera, and when the girl in the black and white stripes turns around.
Alice: The camera work is extremely good, it's not shakey, and when turning around and filming other sides you can tell that the person filming it had stable hands. However, the party itself doesn't look very good as people are focusing on the camera quite a lot.


Weaknesses of this footage/How they are going to be resolved:
The footage was very shaky and blurry and did not really look like how it looked on the camera when transferred to the computer (it looked worse compared to how it looked on the camera). This made it difficult as my group and I had to film the party scene again and to avoid getting the spacious mise en scene in the footage we decided it should be filmed in our schools hall with the camera moving around the people enjoying the environment instead of just filming one section. People in this scene were not directed properly in terms of the amount of space they took up in the scene and how they were moving their body therefore in the other party scene that was filmed I directed them not to use up so much space, not to lip sing the words of the song (because the song we made was going to be edited over it) and for some people to speak to the people around them to create a fun, realistic mise en scene. I also suggested that we play music that the people in the party scene know and enjoy, just to create a positive atmosphere also so that they can actually enjoy themselves instead of having to pretend.