EYE

This short eye animation shows what we hope to achieve in a part of our opening sequence. We want to zoom in on our main characters eye and then something significant and noticeable happening to it. This video shows we we hope to achieve, although our sequence will not directly rip it off.

Feedback for our pitch

Today we presented our idea to the rest of the class. The teacher was...disappointed that we were slightly behind. We didn't have much of an idea as to what we were going to actually film in our opening sequence, but we are currently coming up with the idea of what to film in our opening sequence.

Opening Sequence Analysis

What Lies Beneath, Robert Zemeckis, 2000

What Lies Beneath is a supernatural thriller film which stars Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer as the lead actor and actress.

The soundtrack and backing noise in this sequence is made to sound creepy and eerie. This gives us an idea of the genre being supernatural. The soft drum beat at the start overlapping the music depicts a heartbeat making us feel that maybe at some point in the film there is loss of life.

We see Michelle Pfeiffer’s character emerge from the back tub seemingly gasping for air like she had been held under the water, next we see her pick up the hairdryer and it doesn’t work and when she switches it on at the plug it explodes this shows that the character is going to have the main event in the film happen to her, it also shows the characters lack of control.

Hopefully we can be influenced by the soundtrack in this piece when we come to put together our opening sequence, something spooky and eerie and so we can establish the genre of the sequence. We also want to create the feeling that the audience hasn’t got a clear idea of what’s going on much like this opening sequence. We want it so vague ideas are given to us about what’s going on but not give it away completely. We want to keep it surreal.

Full Synopsis

Finally come up with a mildly interesting plot:

The main character woman, lets call her Chris just for reference, starts having dreams that predict the future. They start off with small things like seeing things on TV or going to places, but then they start getting worse. Then Chris dreams of someone cutting off their finger accidentally, and when she stops it from happening, something worse happens, such as that person she saved falling over and breaking both their legs. She then eventually dreams about her husband/boyfriend dying, and then she tries to stop it, but keeps making things worse.

Super Natural Thriller Ideas

Today the skivers actually decided to show up, so we began discussing ideas for what our storyline for our supernatural thriller will be.

• Blindness
• Seeing the future
• Visions
• Chain letters
• Phone calls
• Email that kills you

We can't think of a full synopsis yet, but hopefully we will soon.

All Alone (Also update)

Well today I was all by myself. Jenna came in for a while, but then she went partway though the lesson. The other two are skiving I guess.

So alone I had to decide which genre to do. I decided to choose supernatural thriller. This might not be the most adventurous genre choice, but it will do.

One of the main problems with choosing supernatural thriller as the genre is that it requires a female lead, and we are not sure whether or not Jenna will be able to come in and film. If she can't, we may have to get a random girl to let us film her. But hopefully it won't come to that.

That is all.

Conventions of the five genres

Supernatural Thriller:

Involves things like ghosts/psychic phenomenon. Often involves the main characters battling a paranormal force or trapped in a situation controlled by an other worldly entity.

Social Realist Drama:

This involves someone fighting to improve their life, usually focuses on current events(political/social). It is meant to be about 'real life' issues, but the issues are often exaggerated. Often set in domestic space- neighborhoods, houses, community. Focus is mainly on working class people.

Crime Caper:

Usually a group with a leader, based around a crime involving money or drugs. The crime is often well planned and shows crime as sophisticated. Mostly set in big city's. The consequences of the criminal actions are not usually seen in the film.

Adventure:

Adventure films are often based on books (eg Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings), often aimed at younger audience so the plot often involves a simple battle between good and evil. Films like these are often very merchandised. The setting is often big open spaces rather than cities, and the setting is often unfamiliar.

Teenage Romantic Comedy:

These films involve a lot of humorous scenes that you can relate to but are often far fetched. They often include a lot of stereotypes, such as 'the geek', 'the cheerleader','the jock' etc.

Opening Sequence Ident

This is our ident that will be used at the beginning of our opening sequence. We made this by first making the image in photoshop, and then we imported it into final cut to animate it. We got the sound effect from a sound effects CD. We are very happy how our ident turned out. We all came up with the idea as a group, although Jack was the one actually at the computer. Jenna hasn't been here for the past few lessons, so she didn't contribute to this at all.

That is all.

Donnie Darko Opening Sequence Analysis

Donnie Darko is a supernatural thriller film based around a teenage boy called Donnie Darko, who has disturbing visions. The opening sequence sets the film up very well, by first showing a figure laying in the road. The first thing we assume by this is that he may have been hit by a car. The camera then begins to move forward towards the figure, and low eerie music begins to play. As the camera gets closer, the figure begins to move and we see a bike laying not so far from him. It becomes apparent that he was just sleeping. This sets up the overall ‘weird’ feeling of the film, because we don’t know why the boy has cycled to here just to go to sleep. There is then a pan of the landscape surrounding the road, which is broken by the boy, who then proceeds to turn around and smirk to himself, knowing something that we don’t. The titles then come up saying the name of the film, ‘Donnie Darko’, along with a very bright light behind it, which flashes up on the whole screen, momentarily making it white. The next shot we see is Donnie riding his bike back down the road. The music also changes to something faster and upbeat. The camera follows the character along the road, and we see him rub sleep from his eyes. The next main show we see is a close up of a sign telling us that its nearly Halloween. The camera still follows Donnie, and we see him ride up to his house. This also introduces the other characters, his dad playfully blowing a leaf blower in his older sisters face, his younger sister jumping on a trampoline, a his mother looking disappointed as he walks by. The final shot we see is Donnie opening his fridge with a note saying ‘Where is Donnie?’ on it. This entire sequence has no spoken words in, other than the ones in the non-diegetic music. The whole opening has a slightly strange feel to it, and the audience isn’t quite sure what has happened. Overall the opening sequence does a very good job of setting the scene, telling us the location, the date, and briefly introducing the other main characters. It also sets up the atmosphere and leaves the audience feeling slightly uneasy.

Written by Jack Warden

That is all.

First post

This is our first post on our new blog. We are happy. Our group is good. Yay.

Our group is made up of:
Chris Readman
Jack Warden
Jenna Simmons (but she hasn't been here yet so she goes uncredited for all our work until we say so)
Pav Williams



This project is similar to the last one, except we get to choose our genre. Except we don't really. We have to choose one of 5 specific genres. These are:

Adventure
British social realist drama
Crime caper
Supernatural thriller
Teenage romantic comedy

We have not yet chosen a genre for our project, but we have made a ident for our production company, which will be uploaded shortly.

That is all.