Opening sequence inspiration.

Recently i have watched varouis opening sequence's to varouis films that follow a similar storyline to the one that me and britney have come up with, and therefore thought i would share them with you and outline what we could take from these opening sequence and how we can adapt certian aspects into our own opening sequence. These are the two which particualry stood out to me due to the contect of what we are trying to potray being almost identical.

1) Safe Haven. (2013)

The film starts with a female character running out of a house, she is clearly distressed ( you can tell this through her body langauge & facial expressions) The character is clearly running away from something.

The character is dressed quite formal - allowing the audiene to infer that her escaping was not planned ( we can also infer this from the lack of footwear) I think what i'm going to take inspiration from this opeing sequence is the sound effects of her running away ( Her beig out of breath) to help reinforce the fact the character is escaping. I also think the use of shooting in the evening and after its just rained is a good idea to help create a dramatic atmosphere and to reinforce typical codes and conventions of the thiller genre.

2) Thirteen. (2016)

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMyhNphGpRk

 This series starts showing a young girl escaping from captive in a normal looking british street. The character slowly walks out of the house before the non-diegetic music picks up and she is shown running carelessly towards a phone to report her where-abouts.

The character when she first exits the house.

An Establishing shot of the street where the character escapes from.

Theese two shots help the audience slowly establish a possible storyline and the tension can also be bulit gradually. 

This shot shows the character running away from the camera.

This opening seqence also includes the use of non-diegetic music with added sound effects of the character being out of breath, helping to reinforece the fact the character is running away. I like the everyday, typical, british street setting also, which helps to show the social class of place where the character is being kept captive. 

How are we going to incorparte some of these idea's into our own opening sequence:

I really would like to use the idea of setting our opening sequence in a everyday, normal looking street as this will be easy to shoot and find within our area. I also like the use of music to help set the tone of the sequence and to help build tension and suspense, as well as using sound effects to show our character is out of breath and stressed by the siutation, helping to bulid further suspense for our audience. I think we are going to have our character dressed in dirty looking clothes and have them looking although they havent been looked after well to the audience to infer the type of place the character would have been kept in.

First Initial planning and idea's

The prezi above lays out a clear outline of our current idea for our opening sequence and how we plan to execute our idea in the way we would like to. Although we still have a long way to go planing wise, this gives us a rough idea on how we are going to move foward from our current stage and put our idea into action.

What we need to do next is...
1) Create a mood board which displays possible costume, makeup, and location idea's
2) Create a story board
3) Create a shot list
4)Audition \ take pictures for our character profile(s)

Skyfall opening sequence analysis

Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Analysis.

Narrative Theory

Narrative theory - Media Studies from Abbiblundell

Memento - Poster analysis.

This film poster contrasts significantly to both the  'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' poster and the 'Mamma Mia' film posdue to a variety of factors such as; the use of dark colours \ themes,  the different font which is being used and the different associations of the iconography and many more.

Mamma Mia - Poster anaysis.

I analysed the 'Mamma Mia' film poster in order to see what a typical posters for a 'musical' would entail compared to a typical 'thriller' poster and how they therefore contrast; I did this because thriller is my chosen genre for my opening sequence.

Film Noir

iconography & characterisation

ICONOGRAPHY:

Iconography is used within media to describe the language used, particularly when certain objects are used to help reinforce the genre by playing on people’s association with the particular object. For example; when watching a film which belongs to a specific genre, certain objects are incorporated to help reinforce the typical stereotype of the genre; just like in the ‘western genre’ you would expect it to be set in the middle of a dessert, or a small isolated town, you would then expect to see items such as cowboy hats, guns, sheriff badges, etc. 

These items have an association with the genre which allows the audience to identify the genre from very early on. These ‘genre indicators’ are called iconography of the mise en scene elements, the scene, or genre. 


CHARACTERISATION: 

Characterisation is the art of making characters for a narrative purpose. Characters are presented through their actions ,speech, and thoughts throughout the text. Characterisation helps portray information about the character which can then help the audience have a better and clearer understanding of what's going on. Characterisation is very important as it is useful when analysing a character and having a clear understanding of what is actually going on throughout the type of media which is being presented to the audience.


Depending on what genre you watch you will come across a range of different characters and without clear characterisation as an audience we would become confused and we might not believe the storyline and the character. For example within fairy tails we are often comforted with the 'princess' who is innocent and a 'damsel in distress' and its very rare that this isn't the case as films such as fairy tails often follow a certain  and very particular narrative. There then is someone who tries to destroy a relationship ( Such as the step mother is Cinderella) and without this character having very strong and clear characterisation as an audience member we may not believe them which will overall ruin the whole effect of the film or opening sequence.

The history, Codes & conventions of my chosen genre ( Thriller)

Photographic compositional elements

Textual analysis - Forgetting Sarah Marshall film poster.

Within this blog post i will be explaining how textual analysis is used in media and how this helps us to pick out certain aspects and the possible connotations the text could have.

Textual analysis is done by looking at the piece of text,then looking in more detail on how the meaning is conveyed within the text. This can be done through analyzing both micro and macro elements, for example; the mise-en-scene elements, the proximity between characters, the use of sound effects \ music, the setting, etc. And then looking further at macro elements such as: Characterization, genre, narrative, representation and ideology. However; different individuals will have different interpretations of texts and what they could signify \ represent but all of these should be talked about when analyzing because certain aspects as different aspects can mean different things to different people. Textual analysis is a three step process, step one being analyzing micro elements, step two being concluding whats been said using the macro elements, and lastly considering other people interpretations and incorporating them.   

The poster above shows mine and Britney's analysis of 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'.

Preliminary task - Evaluation

Preliminary task shot list.

Preliminary task

Preliminary task script.

Mediation (the Marxist theory)

Mediation (the marxist theory) from Abbiblundell

What is verisimilitude?

Verisimilitude means being believable and overall having the correct appearance in order to be seen as true. Verisimilitude is essential when creating any type of media as it prevents any confusion and makes it much easier for the audience to interact and watch. In order for verisimilitude is very important when trying to create a sense of realism. 

 As an audience member we use these types of logic:
Internal logic: As an audience we believe \ accept what isn't real to be real.
Reality logic: As an audience we believe \ accept what is based around reality.
Authentic reality to hyper reality: As an audience member we understand how the director is manipulating what we see.

For example: 
marketing for the original superman film..
The marketing of the plot and images the audience were presented with make the audience believe the story line.

The marketing for the film suggests "you'll believe a man can fly" - which as an audience member we do believe. Due to the editing and the special effects that he can fly.
 
Another example is: 
Soap opera's such as EastEnders and Corination street.
These programs are plausible due to:
- The reflection of everyday life
-Typical \ relate-able English characters.
- And the settings \ scenes.

Soap opera's are unplausible due to:
- The over exaggerated story lines
-The over exaggerated emotions.
- and unrealistic use of bad luck \ too extreme.

Camera Movements.

Camera Angles