Introduce the audience to the setting, showing us where and when the film was set, so that we can begin to build up an idea of what might take place in the film.
Introduce the audience to a main character so that it is clear that the story will centre around this character.
Provide information about the production company, director, and leading actors, which may give us an idea of genre. For example, a Jim Carey film is likely to be funny, and an Arnold Schwarzenegger film is likely to be violent.
Offer hints as to the what the narrative of the film may be. This may be a spy recieving their assignment, or someone being captured, or the hero told about events in the past that must be put right, etc.
Narrative functions
There is always some form of equilibrium at the very start
The protagonist is always introduced
There is an obstruction which the protagonist must resolve
It never has any closure as it is just to set the scene, leading on to the main part of the film.
Benefits for audiences
They are immediately informed of character, setting, and narrative
They can get an immediate idea as to whether or not they will like the film
If they dont already know, they can get an idea of the genre of the film almost immediately.
A film has to start somehow; the audience will not understand the film without an opening sequence.
Benefits for institutions
The film makers need to appeal to the audience in order to make money, so they included for the reasons above.
The film makers must make the opening sequence reveal some basic information to the audience, but not reveal too much so to keep the audience's interest, so they want to watch on.
The titles allow the film-makers to show the audience who made the film, which in a way advertises the film
This is the opening sequence of 2008 snowboarding film 'Thats It, Thats All'. While it may not seem very relevant to our sequence at all, it demonstrates many of the techniques that I, and the rest of the group wish to use ourselves, such as the use of camera movement, mise-en-scene, music, and titles.
While we don't have a huge budget, mountains and a helicopter, we can still create effective and interesting camera movement, dramatic music, and we have access to the technology to create almost any title effect we want.
I took some shots around the area behind my house and all around my house, where we are planning to shoot shot sequence. Here are some, but you can see all of them on the main group blog, linked below.
Before we begin shooting, we are going to need to clear the house of anything we don't want in shot, and add anything we do, but otherwise I think it willl be a good location to film in as it has a mix of large rooms, tight corridors and good places to get interesting shots from.
As a group we have decided that we will do an action thriller sequence, and we have all been coming up with some intial ideas. Here are my initial thoughts.
1. A chase sequence
A man comes running through these gates, closely followed by a car (which can be driven by a parent), climbs quickly over a garden fence and runs through the garden towards the house. He picks the lock and runs into the house, and the man climbs out of the car and follows him, but more slowly. The first man runs upstairs and climbs from an upstairs window (very easy to do safely from my house), but falls awkwardly. While attempting to crawl away, the other man appears at the window and shoots him, before leaving via the back of the house.
2. A cop thriller
An American detective returning from work, and discussing a case with his wife, who is in the kitchen (like the one above) from the bedroom (like the one above) while taking off his jacket, putting away his equipment etc. After a while, his wife stops replying to him, but he carries on talking, until he realises something is wrong. He walks back into the kitchen, but she is not there, with signs of a struggle. He hears a tire screech and runs outside, to see a car tearing away down the road.
Entry 1 in our film blog 2010 for our coursework proper!
I will be working with Tom Aston and Tom Poffley. Here we are.
We are all very excited to finally begin this project, and have loads of great ideas.
I was thinking comedy, but the Toms seem to be fixed in doing an action-thriller, which I am quite happy with.
We have a group meeting planned for Friday, and are all getting on with coming up with ideas for storylines/actors/locations etc. I took some photos of a possible location (my house) today, but I cant find the camera leads just for the moment so I'll post them shortly.
Levi Strauss Theorystates that the narrative of a story can be explained in a series binary opposites. Many of these are clear from just wastching the opening sequence, such as in 'Pale Rider' and 'Die Hard'.
'Pale Rider'
Safety/Danger: The start of the opening sequence show a happy, calm mining village, but the calm is interupted by a group villainous horsemen who come and destroy the town.
Horsemen/Village People: The village people are quietly going about their daily lives but the horsemen are violently galloping with malice and purpose.
Quiet/Noisy: The tranquility of the town is partially depicted by very quiet, mellow sounds, while the horses are galloping very loudly towards the town.
White Horse/Dark Horses: The horsemen all ride dark brown or black horses, while Clint Eastwood, the 'Pale Rider', riders a white horse.
Group/Lone Man: The bad guys always appear in a group, while the 'Pale Rider' always appears on his own.
Faith/Doubt: The girl is praying over her dogs grave, but asks questions of the existence of god, as she cannot understand why the people are suffering so much.
'Die Hard'
California/New York: He has just flown over to California from New York, and upon arrival complains about the noticable difference, for example he laughs to himself when he sees a young, scantily clad young blonde woman run pat him to embrace her boyfriend at the airport.
Intruders/Partygoers: The people are at a party on the top floor of the building, and the intruders come into the building from the very bottom, trapping everybody on the top floor.
Life/Death: The intruders kill the security guards on the ground floor, letting the audience know that the partygoers' lives are now in danger.
Safety/Danger: Everyone is upstairs in the safety of the party, but the intruders come in, putting everyone in danger.
Together/Apart: Bruce Willis and his wife have been driven apart by her desire to move to California and his desire to stay in New York, but now he has come over to California for Cristmas, they are together again.
Prepared/Non-Prepared: The people at the party are completely unprepared for the attack, while the intruders have planned the attack and are very prepared
Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?
My group was a group of 3, Patricia, James, and myself. We did not have group leader, but we all shared our ideas and agreed on every decision that was made. The script was written by James and me, and the storyboard was drawn by Patricia. We decided that during the shooting process we would need to allocate roles, such as directing, acting, camera, sound and production assistant, but as we were a small group, James and Patricia acted in the sequence while I was director, camera, and sound, as the group felt I was most skilled on the camera and the James and Patricia are good actors. We shared the editing duties equally amongst us, all getting an equal chance to use the editing software, and we would continue discussions while editing until we were all agreed on the final sequence.
How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take into account?
Firstly we had a group meeting which lasted about 30 minutes to decide on a basic plan for the sequence and draft a script. We then drew our storyboard and finalised the script based on a combination of all of our ideas, and then wrote a shot schedule in order to make our shoot as quick and efficient as possible by reducing the number of set ups we needed to do. When planning the sequence we tried to take the continuity theories into account, such as the match on action and 180 degree rules. For example when the boy sits down on the chair and rolls towards the girl, there is a cut while he is moving, and he must be in the same place just after the cut as he was just before the cut so it appears that no time has passed between the shots, and during the conversation, the two characters must only be shot from one side so it doesn’t look like they have switched sides during the sequence.
Here is the storyboard, shot list and script we produced while planning the sequence:
What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?
The camera we used to shoot the sequence was a Canon HV-30, which was mounted with a shotgun microphone and headphones to get improved sound quality, although we did not use the boom mic as we did not have any dialogue shot from far away. We used a tripod to keep the camera steady, and to get smooth camera movement. We used a clapper board so that we could clearly see each shot when editing. To edit, we used Adobe Premiere Pro, mainly because it is very simple to use, and to improve our skills on the program for future projects. We mainly used the razor tool to chop up the sequence, and used dual tracks so we could clearly see each shot. We also used the program’s title tool to create titles and the fade function at the start and end of the sequence.
What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting, and editing?
Throughout the process, we had to take into account the laws of continuity so that we wouldn’t break any rules, breaking the flow of the sequence. When shooting we had to be aware that other groups were using the same space as us to film their sequences, so we were not able to shoot every shot as scheduled, for example we could not shoot the opening shot until the end. We also had noise interference from other groups, which meant that we had to have more takes because you can hear voices in the background. When editing, not everyone in the group was as confident with the program as others, so we made sure that everyone had an equal share on the program so that everybody could improve their skills. We also had to take into account time, working as efficiently as possible, while still shooting enough material so that we could easily edit it together later, for example, we shot the conversation twice, once from one side and once from the other, and cut it up and put it together on the edit suite.
How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improved/ do differently?
Our sequence begins with a boy walking through the doors from outside and into a foyer area. He walks across the foyer, glancing into a room. He stops and walks through the door, having seen a girl sitting at a computer. He walks across the room, pulls up a chair, and tries to chat her up with a chat up line. She is not to pleased, turns off the computer and leaves, leaving him sat on his own in the room. I think our sequence has worked very well, and follows the continuity rules very well. We have 3 examples of match on action; when he walks through the door, when he slides on the chair and when she gets up to leave. All of them are in time and means that the sequence flows from shot to shot. The shot-reverse-shot works well, and we show the 180 degree rule well, shooting everything from one side on the action, so James is always facing to the left of frame, and Patricia is always facing to the left of frame. The reaction shot of Patricia as James walks in works well, as it introduces her and shows the relationship between the two characters, and allows us to demonstrate a match on action with another shot in the middle; he opens the door, she looks up, and it cuts back to him, slightly inside the room, as if half a second has passed, in which time, Patricia has looked up at him. I think the only problem with our sequence is when Patricia says ‘get away from me you freak’, the shot cuts to a reaction shot of James, and you cannot see Patricia begin to get up. She only gets up in the next shot, which doesn’t seem right, as she has waited for James’s reaction until she starts to get up. If I could shoot the sequence again, the shot of he conversation needs to include Patricia getting up to leave, and we could cut in James’s reaction and the cut back to Patricia walking away. What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be signified when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?
From this task I have learned:
• The importance of planning a sequence to increase efficiency and the general process of filming a sequence that we will use when it comes to filming our opening sequences.
• I have improved my skills on the editing software that we will be using for the real sequence and I now feel completely confident when editing whereas I was unsure using the software in previous projects.
• To think about the rules of continuity all the way throughout the process, when planning, shooting, and editing.
Hi my name is Hugh and I love films. I love funny films, serious films, scary films, exciting films, old films and new films. My favourite film is Always Outnumbered (starring Laurence Fishburne as Socrates Fortlow), but I'm always up for a quick Ace Ventura or Dukes of Hazard. When I'm not watching films you'll usually find me playing, watching, arguing about, or travelling to football. Enjoy my blog.
