Persistent Paranoid Final Cut
Thursday, 25 April 2013
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Over the course of making our thriller opening sequence we encountered quite a few problems and ended up making lots of changes to our sequence, so that by the end result it was completely different to our initial idea.
At first we based our idea around the title "Rush". We wanted a fast-paced sequence similar to the clips from films that we had viewed like Cloverfield. We also looked at Paranormal Activity because like Cloverfield, there was a lot of shots with the camera handheld. We felt that this would add some realism to the sequence and make the audience feel like they are there in the action and really involved. We also thought that the handheld camera would add to the fast pace.
However when it came to making our own handheld shots they really didn't work because the camera couldn't cope with that amount of movement. After cutting these from our thriller so far, the pace was a lot slower, and the title "Rush" didn't seem to fit anymore, so we had to change it.
Next we needed to work on the plot of our opening sequence. We had an initial idea of a male antagonist stalking two female protagonists, with clips building up to a confrontation at the end. However in feedback members of our target audience said that they found it hard to follow, and we realised we had crammed too much plot into such a short amount of time. We looked again at other thriller openings like Se7en and decided that we should focus on using some techniques from that for our own thriller, keeping elements from the plot or certain character more hidden from the audience, whilst drawing attention to certain close up shots of various objects instead. I also feel that the end result of our thriller is similar in a way to the opening sequence of The Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code opening cuts between action shots of unknown characters, and close ups of paintings which are significant.
We also edited all of our shots, adjusting the saturation, contrast, and adding vignettes to make the shots darker, emphasising shadows and creating a tense and mysterious atmosphere.
At first we based our idea around the title "Rush". We wanted a fast-paced sequence similar to the clips from films that we had viewed like Cloverfield. We also looked at Paranormal Activity because like Cloverfield, there was a lot of shots with the camera handheld. We felt that this would add some realism to the sequence and make the audience feel like they are there in the action and really involved. We also thought that the handheld camera would add to the fast pace.
However when it came to making our own handheld shots they really didn't work because the camera couldn't cope with that amount of movement. After cutting these from our thriller so far, the pace was a lot slower, and the title "Rush" didn't seem to fit anymore, so we had to change it.
Next we needed to work on the plot of our opening sequence. We had an initial idea of a male antagonist stalking two female protagonists, with clips building up to a confrontation at the end. However in feedback members of our target audience said that they found it hard to follow, and we realised we had crammed too much plot into such a short amount of time. We looked again at other thriller openings like Se7en and decided that we should focus on using some techniques from that for our own thriller, keeping elements from the plot or certain character more hidden from the audience, whilst drawing attention to certain close up shots of various objects instead. I also feel that the end result of our thriller is similar in a way to the opening sequence of The Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code opening cuts between action shots of unknown characters, and close ups of paintings which are significant.
We also edited all of our shots, adjusting the saturation, contrast, and adding vignettes to make the shots darker, emphasising shadows and creating a tense and mysterious atmosphere.
Monday, 8 April 2013
Inspiration - Se7en
AS Media Studies: Inspirational film openings: We've been inspired by this opening sequence because it manages to build tension and creat mystery by not actually introducing any of the main characters. We really like the idea of filming lots of different objects that are significant to the plot yet not showing the audience why they are important. The use of shadow and darkness also works well to add to the tension and this is something we would like to try to use in our opening sequence.
Inspiration - Cloverfield
AS Media Studies: Inspirational film openings: Another inspiration is Cloverfield which is partly filmed using a hand held camera which we are using in our opening sequence. We think this will give a sense of realism to our thriller, and make the audience feel that they are actually involved in the action (as we will also be using POV shots). This will also help to quicken the pace of our opening sequence.
Inspiration - Paranormal Activity 3
AS Media Studies: Inspirational film openings: We were also inspired by Paranormal Activity. We liked the combination of the sinister scratching soundtrack and the eery flickering text, and also took inspiration from the home video style, as we felt that using this might make our thriller seem real.
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