Film Opening Planning

Today we met up to continue with the work we did the other day, my team mate (George) went back to work with the landscape/ background, on the other hand I moved on to doing an animation of our "Studio" name and left that as my friends job.

With what I have learnt from the previous day I was able to use Photoshop with no trouble although, there are still some little things that I still don't know about. Therefore, I use Photoshop to paint a "white room" painting on shadows and highlights then blurring it to create a lens blur focus effect where the title will be the focus of the shot. After the background was made, I open up After Effects and import the background in,adding the title and the "shatter" effect, making multiple new compositions as things are being added so that I have different layers I can work with, therefore, if I made any mistake or forgot to add something.

After the blank white background was imported I create a new composition adjusting the size of the canvas to my liking and then I added a text on top of it however, it is a different layer and is not merged with the first layer so then I can use this "shatter effect" onto the text. After it has been applied I create another composition to make my shatter effect reverse. Instead of having the text explode in the beginning the text will float from behind the screen and merge together into words.

Over the holidays 1 Film opening planning

During the Christmas break my team mate and I went into school to start the project, since what we choose to do was pretty "ambitious" I wanted to start as fast as possible so if we have some technical problems we would have time to fix it, because I'm sure we'll take longer to do this than other people. Nearly all scene will be make on the computer.

George and I were messing around in Photoshop, we tried to make a futuristic landscape buy using normal landscape of big cities as a base and then we paint on top of it. cutting part and drawing extra buildings ourself so that the "base' photo will be completely covered once we are done.

I have to say that this process for me was challenging because I rarely uses Photoshop because I have this special app on my phone which have the same features as it but in a easier form. Therefore, the tools and short cuts in Photoshop was new to me and seems complicated. However, I was lucky that my team mate (George) uses this program quiet often so I had help when I didn't know what tools to use for certain things. As time passed by it got easier, although I was particularly frustrated with the Laso tool (the tool that cuts the object from the picture so you can move them to a different template) because I had to click every 1-2 seconds to be able to get around the object smoothly and since I was using a mouse moving just a little bit would effect quiet a lot. That is when I went to get a computer sketch pad so I can control the mouse painting pen from this electronic sketch pad instead of using a mouse. It got some adjusting to do but at this point anything is better than using a mouse.

Lesson 1 (Brain storming ideas)

For this thriller opening sequence project my two other group member however was in another class and since we were in different class it was decided that in the first 1-2 lesson we came up with different ideas then analyse to see which was a better concept/plot.

My mind was blocked on that day and so I thought back to our lessons before where we watch Se7en and Dexter opening sequence and so I think close ups should definately be included in our opening. It looks simple although very interesting since what the audience was giving was just a certain angle on a 'main object/subject' so it is a mystery to them, on the other hand it will also be very good if we are trying to hide the age of our actors because they don't see the whole face to be able to judge how old the characters are.



Concept

The aim of the opening is to create this image of a protagonist that is running away. The audience is left without the knowledge of what exactly she is running from, however it is revealed in the end that what she is running away from is a replica on herself. The audience would presume that because of the sci-fi style, the replica is a clone of the protagonist.
After the scene of being caught
We wanted to explore the theme of identity, and so by showing the audience 'clones' of the protagonist, we intended to suggest that they are representations of the protagonist's identity.

Thriller Opening IDEAS 1st/2nd LESSON / STORYBOARDS

Media Thriller ideas

For this thriller opening sequence project my two other group member however was in another class and since we were in different class it was decided that in the first 1-2 lesson we came up with different ideas then analyze to see which was a better concept/plot.

We came up with 3 ideas in general, which was

1. Spy/ Detective

Various close ups inspired by Dexter and Se7en

My mind was blocked on that day and so I thought back to our lessons before where we watch Se7en and Dexter opening sequence and so I think close ups should definately be included in our opening. It looks simple although very interesting since what the audience was giving was just a certain angle on a 'main object/subject' so it is a mystery to them, on the other hand it will also be very good if we are trying to hide the age of our actors because they don't see the whole face to be able to judge how old the characters are.

However, we did not manage to form a solid plan with this, since personally I didn't find it as interesting and fun to shoot compared to the other ideas.

2. Murder (a man wake up going to an anniversary)

Little does the audience know it's his anniversary of killing his girlfriend/wife

The beginning of the opening everything seems normal until at the last moment his dark secret will be revealed

A small section in image above is a plot summary of what happens. It will start off as a very positive and bubbly atmosphere and scenes of the protagonist going through his daily routine (e.g brushing teeth, shower, shaving etc). He then puts on suit and grabs a bouquet of flowers. Preparing for what seems like a date with his girlfriend. The first shot, which is not shown in the story board, will be just be black with the words "it has been a year."

 He then puts on suit and grabs a bouquet of flowers.

My team member (George) haven't included this story board, but we could add a picture of him and a girl - looking like a normal couple.

The purpose of these shots are to convince the audience that the 'one year' is a one year anniversary, or a year of being a couple.

The twist happens in the second page of the storyboards. Instead of walking up to a house, as the audience would expect, he goes to an empty field, lays flowers down, and says " Its been a year since I killed you".

We decided that this idea would become a flashback, and we joined it with another idea that I had.

3. The last and the most ambitious idea that we came up with, include a "Cyborg"

Inspired by game trailers and movies such as:

Cyberpunk

Kara (heavy rain quantic dream)

Ex Machina

Duex

The main focus was on 'Identity' it will make the audience question how did it came to this and fear (robot/machines that rebels against the world(human))

This is the final idea we came up with

Sub Genre/ Psychological Thriller-Film Noir

End result: