Textual Analysis - Opening credit Sequence of Watchmen

In this essay I will be analyzing the opening sequence of Zack Snyder’s box office hit and
Feature film recreation of the highly successful Graphic novel ‘The Watchmen’.
The sequence begins with a non-diegtic song playing over the top of the shot that’s slowly being revealed. The song ‘The times they are a changin’ By Bob Dylan is this particular track that we can hear.
The slow fade in reveals a mid shot of a masked vigilante punching an armed crook in the face, the setting is a 1950’s esque setting with bystanders in suites and glamorous dresses stand watching as the paparazzi snaps the shot as the brawl ensues. The shot is shot in extremely high slow motion as the characters on screen’s action eventually become visible as the camera continues to track backwards. This use of camera work and editing style flow perfectly together as it enables the audience to capture every last detail of what is going on in the shot, completely immersing them in the action and setting in which this particular event is happening. In the background of the set you can see very early posters of the Batman comics, this being an intended reference or tribute as it were, to another great graphic novel turned movie, additionally in this shot the films title and main colour ‘theme’ is yellow, which is apparent throughout the opening sequence as the credits appearing are displayed in a classic comic book style and in bright yellow, creating a continuous theme for the movie and making it essentially the dominant colour.
The next 2 shots follow similar traits with paparazzi being on scene with the extremely smooth flow of mid-shots and slow motion revealing the full troop of vigilantes from the that era, these vigilantes being known as ‘The minutemen’.
As the opening sequence progresses, the timeline moves forwards through the ages until present day, showing key events in world history, such as the Kennedy assassination and the Hiroshima bombing, although a slight twist being put on these events as 2 different members of the ‘Minutemen’ are shown to be the people responsible.
Bob Dylan’s track continues to play over the shots as they change through the times, creating an atmosphere of a ironic peace and tranquility as the shots displayed mainly show the dramatic fall of the minute men and then re-creating the iconic shot of the old vigilante cast the new team, ‘The watchmen’, pose for their group photo but without paparazzi attention and the glamour of being a crime fighting hero lost to the ages.
The editing style that is used is an editorial trait used by Director Zack Snyder in which he uses extremely high definition super-slow motion shots to build a bridge between a still photo and a moving image, a photo can be analyzed forever, but a moving image only lasts for that brief moment in time and when it goes faster it becomes less immersive, if it is played so slowly then it can be fully admired for the masterpiece it is, whether that being the detail and authenticity of the set or the moment the camera is capturing.

Media Evaluation

Media Evaluation

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Analysis of Mise-en-Scene

Analysis Of Final Mise En Scene

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Evaluation

Question 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing thriller film openings?
Question 2. How does your film opening represent particular social groups?
Question 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your film and why?
Question 4. Who would be the audience for your film?
Question 5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Question 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Question 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Evaluation

1)In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The title of the film, font and style.
The chosen style for the title has been kept simple, as shown in the first frame above and in the middle. It has been kept on a plain black background as found in most adaptations of graphic novels or films in similar styles which inspired this film, such as shown in the example thumbnails:

Although there is a trend following red titles on black, we have decided to keep out titles white with a grey background to resemble white chalk. The font used also relates to the title 'Chalkboard' as the style is very 'crumbly' yet solid like the material chalk.

Setting/Location
The second frame shows the location for our opening which is the main characters dining area in her 'house' in the film. The choice for location was simple; we wanted to make it seem more realistic to the audience so we thought to use a place that everyone is familiar with such as the dining room rather then somewhere such as a Field, football pitch or any particular environment that we would not commonly come across in day to day life. This was inspired by the likes of the famous shower scene from the film 'Psycho' (click here for a reminder of the scene). The thought of being attacked in a place of comfort is more of a chilling thought for many as its least expected.

Costumes and props
There is a relevantly common use of particular props and costumes in thriller films, making it a typical media convention. The next frame shows the chalkboard, one of the most significant props out of the many we used. In thriller films, especially if there is some form of enigma, props play a big part in creating this atmosphere and mystery. We used various props that can be commonly associated with a horror/thriller such as fake blood, knives, gloves and so on. Our character is dressed in smart business wear (suit, shirt and trousers) as her costume which connotes power and authority. As with many thriller films its not uncommon to see the pro/antagonist dressed in formal wear as this sets the more 'serious tone' of the genre. A good example, as found out from my research is the main characters from Se7en. Click here to see image.


Special effects used
Originally we were going to create a similar effect that Frank Miller uses in his films (click here for screenshot of sin city), where everything is in high contrast and a certain colour has been picked to stay throughout the film (usually red). However, due to the nature of the actress's hair colours and furniture being tinted red, this proved to be difficult to achieve on the software Final Cut Pro. Some contrast has been added to our final product but it was limited as we decided to keep details clear, which turning the contrast up would have taken away. Our final product has been presented in black and white to keep the old fashioned yet classic thriller feel.

Genre and how its suggested
The bottom left frame shows a knife lying on blood stained material; this has been chosen as it represents the 'horror' aspect from our thriller as it suggests murder, harm and stirs up emotions of fear and terror which a typical horror should. The 'thriller' genre is suggested through the voice-overs of our detective, who speaks in a very gritty confident tone that is common with detectives in thriller films.

How characters are introduced/established
The main character is introduced by first only just concentrating on her eyes which are closed until the very end of the opening. By this, suspense is created and the audience are left wondering about our main character until a bit more is revealed after the title. As seen in the bottom middle frame, her eyes open and the camera zooms out to show her sitting in smart attire, drinking wine next to a corpse covered in blood. This connotes to our audience that she is calm yet powerful. The cut-aways show various clues to our character and her personality (as shown in the middle right frame) as words are presented to our audience such as jealousy. We took inspiration from the opening credits of Se7en;

Story and how the opening sets it up
As show in the last frame and mentioned above, our opening was inspired by Se7en, in which a serious of 'clues' about the story are presented in short shots. Blood stained notes, documents on handling issues such as jealousy, weapons, stories where 'i win, you loose' have been highlighted and of course the writing on the chalkbaord itself help create enigma as well as slowly unravelling the story without giving too much away. Like a typical thriller, the voice overs suggest that she is being questioned and the role of a detective is introduced.

2)How Does your Media product represent particular social groups?

In our opening sequence, we decided to contradict the stereotypical roles of antagonist’s/protagonist’s within thriller films by casting a middle aged female as the main character and also the villain, (a slight cross between the role of Anthony Hopkins role as ‘Dr. Hannibal Lecter’ and Catherine Zeta-Jones’ role in ‘Chicago’), thus we challenged the stereotypical conventions of both a male and female role’s within the media and more specifically a thriller film.
The male is generally displayed as the dominant, heroic and powerful character within thriller films and the female being the Damsel in distress, but we decided to create a complex and intriguing combination of a thriller that focuses on a middle aged female villain. As stated in our proposal, the main character is a powerful businesswoman living a content life with her husband and she’s at the top of her game in terms of her success at work. Until, that is, she discovers her husbands cheating secrets, which causes her to lose her mind and go on a merciless, murderous rampage, killing her husband and his lovers, but in doing so it leads to her killing all those who have caused her pain in her life.
Therefore furthering a contradiction of the stereotypical female role within thriller movies, by turning the gender roles upside down, we can display women as strong independent women, for example in Movies such as Quentin Tarantinos ‘Deathproof’ And Russ Meyers ‘Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!’
But both of these films have both shown females vulnerabilities and these being their emotions and sensitivity; though appearing strong, a female’s actions tend to be far more emotionally driven and in our thriller, our character follow this given stereotype and is driven by pure emotion, pure misery and distress which leads to her breakdown and psychopathic rampage.

3)What kind of media institution might distribute your film and why?

The media institution I would chose to distribute my media project would be Film4, the reason being that they have an outstanding track record for funding and distributing a number of low budget independent British movies within the UK and now internationally thanks to the success of the production behind US director Kevin Smiths indie classic ‘Dogma’ and the hugely successful ‘slumdog Millionaire’
The idea of using a huge well established American production company such as Universal would not cross my mind as it would be a very bold move to ask them to help distribute a short, low budget, British film.

4)Who would be the audience for your film?

This Beverley Lang, 31 year old single mother of two living in the city. She runs her own business selling herbal remedies and other organic produce in a small store. On a daily basis she dresses smart in business wear and keeps up her professional appearance. She enjoys the occasional shopping trip or dinner date with her female friends in town. She is confident and assertive. Her taste in films consist of action, adventure and thriller as she enjoys suspense and upbeat paces similar to the people we interviewed and carried out our surveys with. As our film is a suspense thriller, it would appeal to her. Her typical favourite films include the likes of se7en, Goodfella's, American psycho, sin city, watchmen and silence of the lambs. As well as enjoying big movie titles distributed by well known companies, she also enjoys independent film labels such as the ones typically shown on movie channel 'Film 4'. It may be to her convenience being busy business woman with a family to watch films in the evening after work and when her children are asleep to watch films on the television or on DVD.
I believe this is a typical audience member in which our film would appeal to, a middle-aged woman who has had time to experience the ups and downs of life with issues to do with a partner, work, health and daily life as she will be able to empathise and understand our main character better then, for example, a young man.

5)How did you attract/address the audience?

6)What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The camera which we have used is the following:

The camera we used was a Canon XM2, which features:
• ¼” 470K pixel 3CCD with pixel shift
• Canon Professional L-Series Fluorite Lens
• 20x optical zoom/100x digital zoom F1.6
• Optical image stabiliser with VAP
• Direction accurate stereo microphone
• Two-channel audio level manual control
• 2.5” 200K colour LCD/0.44’ 180K colour VF
• Three shooting modes: normal, photo, frame movie

(Information taken from a search on the cannons official website)
As we did not use any sound recorded, we did not have the worry of capturing any unwanted sound however if we wanted to achieve the effect of creating background noise for our footage as apposed to having a soundtrack play over the footage it would not have been the best of quality.

We used various software on Windows and Mac computers as well as websites to help us with this project. Below is a mood board to demonstrate.

Google - Search engine we used for finding websites

Microsoft powerpoint - Used to create powerpoints mainly for visual demonstrations

Microsoft word - Drafts of written work created here such as questionnaire

Final Cut Pro - Used to edit our footage for the film such as cutting clips, slow motion, transitions of frames, adding sound and etc

Compressor - Was used to compress our final piece and took care of the encoding

Bing - Was used as a search engine for any images needed as it provided a better visual search

Youtube - Was used to research soundtrack and view any tutorial videos as well as upload our own movie

Hotmail - This was our means of communication and sending any documents etc

Adobe Photoshop - Used to create/edit any images

7)Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel that our preliminary task helped us become more comfortable with the new equipment as none of our group members have used them before and we had practice filming various angles and shot sizes to give us a basic idea of what we can achieve using the equipment available. We has discovered that although our task was simple, to film a character walking down a corridor into a room, we had learnt that there are many creative ways in which this could be done and the numerous shots that could be used to create this. I feel that this really helped as our final product as we concentrated more on the angles, shots, frame sizes and composition which we had learnt from this first exercise and helped us create something interesting to watch. I feel that although it was an advantage to be comfortable with the camera and create these shots, we had the disadvantage of not concertrating on other aspects such as sound so we did not explore this in our final piece as we kept it simple.

Audience Feedback

The following is a review from an audience member of our Opening Sequence.

The opening sequence of 'Chalkboard' Held my interest thoroughly throughout as it maintained a simple and satisfying flow of non-digetic audio and simplistic editing styles. the jump cuts back and forth as the sequence continues allowed the pace of the credits to become that more effective as they jump onto screen shaking violently against a black background. I felt it worked well and kept me interested throughout, especially with several shots of particular documents with words such as 'jealous' appearing on the screen.
I also enjoyed the use of extreme close ups of the female's eyes as they brought a real sense of enigma and mystery to the sequence.
The only real fault i could pick out was the lack of a buzz track for the voice over, when the voice over cuts in you can hear the static of the recording also.
but other than that it was well shot, well casted and edited.

- Eddie Mitchell

Rating for our film

"Works which feature the following
are likely to receive more restrictive
classifications: portrayal of violence
as a normal solution to problems,
heroes who inflict pain and injury,
callousness towards victims, the
encouragement of aggressive
attitudes, and content which depicts
characters taking pleasure in pain
or humiliation."

The above extract has been taken from the BBFC website (click here to view) while searching for the approriate rating to give our film.
Our film has themes of violence right from the very start due to 'weapons' such as knives and 'blood' covered surfaces. The BBFC guidlines state that any film or video game containing strong scenes of violence is given the rating of '18' as it is only suitable for adults.

Costume research

Here i have created a slide demonstrating common costumes for main characters in thriller films to give an idea and inspire the attire for our main character.

Costumes For Main Characters

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Camera Work

Camera Demonstration

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Our Finished Thriller Opening

Media Evaluation

Evaluation

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Location Shots

I uploaded a few pictures taken during the process of our filming...


This is where our storyline takes place in, Maricas Avenue, Harrow.

Siobhan Devine plays the psychotic middle aged woman who finds out about her cheating husband.


Our actress, Stephanie Devine plays the young dead mistress. In this picture she is putting vaseline on her face, before laying on a pool of blood, erm, fake blood.


Stephanie and the actual pool of blood.



Diana, our director and camera woman filming the 'creepy smile' scene.


Diana adjusting the tripod.

Location No1

This is my desk where I filmed a few sequences for the opening montage - the highlighting of the help sheets, the letters and the miscellaneous photographs.



Ignore the sheep. It has no relevance. Or does it?



I filmed shots with just the computer screen on to give the shots an eerie feel and I think it looks quite effective, especially with the letters as the blood really stands out against the white paper.

Miscellaneous Pictures.

For the montage, I thought we could have photographs of some of Riley's victims, like the photographs seen in the opening to Se7en, with their faces crossed out with what seems to be blood....

Before.


I found random pictures on the Internet for the 'photographs'. Kerry Katona is in there somewhere, but who cares? I've made sure to cross over her face with enough blood so you can't tell it's her.

After.


Et voila. Riley's victims smeared with nail varnish. On film, it looks quite sinister and effective.

Editing

SORRY!!! IT'S HARD POSTING ON HERE SINCE I DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE INTERNET AT HOME!!

But Either Way:

Seeing as me and all my partners for media are quite new to editing especially on Finish Cut Pro on the apple mac, I have decided to look up a tutorial and found a rather interesting video that may help with editing.

Link to site
>> http://library.creativecow.net/articles/caggegi_paul/coremelt_montage/video-tutorial.php

Further more I have also looked up on Pleasantville [sp?] Effects for our intro.

Bloodstained Letters

I've made two bloodstained letters from the husband's mistress. The 'blood' is 'Bronzeberry' No7 Ultimate Nail Colour and it actually works quite well as dried blood. I tried to make the messages seductive, which is kind of hard as I've never been a seductive mistress before in my life. But, hey, I think I did a good job with writing letters from her and no names are given which creates enigma because the audience doesn't know who they're from, who they're to and why they're covered in blood.

Now I've made three copies of the letters. I tore up the first copies when recording for the first time in my room. Then, we got ketchup on the second copies when Jasmine, Leticia and I were filming at Jasmine's house and threw them away. This evening, I made another two for my part of the montage filming, which again takes place in my room, with a proper camera this time and now everything smells like nail varnish but I'm happy with the result.

Props for Filming.

List of things we'll need for filming on Sunday.

- Red eyeliner for Riley’s eyes.
- Grey make up for sleepy eyes
- Lipstick – red for smudging
- Comb for backcombing Riley’s hair to make it wild and scruffy.
- Handwritten letters on the table - blood stained
- Red wine and glass
- Mobile phone – someone set under name 'LIAR'
- Fake blood
- Television –grey, flickering screen on.
- Knife
- Self help website papers – depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, etc

For the self help papers, I printed off these web pages as I felt the topics that they covered were relevant to the film that we are making.

One Two Three

Here are some extracts which highlight why I picked these pages to print out for our film, as they cover the topics that she goes through:

Adulterers (males) usually have one affair, typically during a crisis--when passed over for a promotion or when his wife is very busy--and then feels guilty. Womanizers compulsively seduce women as a full-time avocation and hide this from their wives.

Most of us have experienced Shakespeare's "green-eyed monster"--jealousy. In its intense forms, it is a horrible, tormenting obsession. Often in a crisis we'd like to kill the person who tries to take our lover away. It is estimated that 20% to 35% of all murders involve a jealous lover

Freudians see these symptoms differently; they believe compulsions and obsessions have an underlying driving force which is unconscious. Example: if a highly moral person were in a very unhappy marriage, a primitive, angry part of him/her (the id or the "child") may want to do away with the partner.

Also, I thought we could have some close up shots of the papers with a woman's hand highlighting key words and sentences, such as 'envy', 'adulterers and womanizers' and '20% to 35% of all murders involve a jealous lover'

Fake Blood

As I have a joke shop near where I live, I checked there first for some ready made fake blood, simply because it works and looks better than homemade blood. But they had virtually nothing there, only one type of blood that didn't look particularly good and it was £3 per small tube, which wouldn't have got us very far.

So I bought Golden Syrup and red food colouring (which for some reason was a nightmare to find. They had every colour it seemed, except for red. Only one bottle left.) which didn't end up dark enough, so I added soy sauce and coffee to make it more of a brownish red. Smelly and a little too watery but when I make more blood, adding more golden syrup, it should thicken up. But it probably won't smell any better.

Edit: I've made more blood by just adding more golden syrup to the mixture I already had and it's thicker and a bit sticky, with a more transparent layer like the haemoglobin found in real blood.

Storyboard.

This is the storyboard I drew for the opening sequence with Riley and the dead body.

Also, I had a go at drawing Riley in the style of Frank Miller since we are using his style as an influence.

Make Up - Tired Eyes.

Using a red Barry M Kohl Pencil, I worked on trying to make eyes look tired and bloodshot, as the main character in our film will have bloodshot eyes. If it was blended a little more, it might work better.


Before:

After:

Optional cut-aways

If the above opening scene is too short then below is the optional addition to the script, starting after the movie title instead of the opening credits. Below are a series of various flashbacks which can be used in addition to the opening credits, either all or some of them. The opening credits will appear on a black screen, a flashback will show, then the credits again and so on or the credits appearing during these shots. Two sets of shots; one for Riley showing parts of her path to madness and one for Detective Lax showing clues and an insight to his life

SHOTS FOR RILEY

MEDIUM SHOT
shows an open window with voila blowing in from the wind then the camera tilts slowly down to the floor to show a knife and string tangled around it

MEDIUM SHOT
we see the edge of a modern television, running centre of the frame, showing a blank wall and a fuzzy screen

MEDIUM-SHOT
outdoor wall surface that gets splattered with blood

VERY LONG SHOT
showing a pathway in a park/open area with a couple in the distance walking, tall man with arm around the shoulder of a shorter female companion, camera tilting up towards the sky

MEDIUM CLOSE-UP
very shallow depth of field showing a dusty surface and very blurred dark background as shadows flicker over it

MEDIUM CLOSE-UP
slow pan of a surface covered in lots of printed out papers from self-help websites from left to right and fade out

CLOSE-UP
showing a pile of handwritten letters covered in little vibrant red drops of blood

LONGSHOT
we see a shadow cast upon a wall showing a male figure sitting down with her head in her hands

Screenplay

UNTITLTED
Screenplay by Diana Patharai
09/02/10

FADE IN

INT. RILEYS KITCHEN – TABLE

EXTREME CLOSE-UP
of Riley with her eyes closed

Riley opens eyes to reveal a pair of blue eyes, bloodshot and tired looking staring straight ahead
’Moonlight Sonata’ by Beethoven (soundtrack) starts to play faintly

CAMERA VERY SLOWLY ZOOMS OUT

As the camera zooms out to reveal more of her expressionless face, we see slightly smudged lipstick and several day old make-up then un-brushed hair as it turns into a close-up

DETECTIVE LAX ( V.O)
How long ago did you find out

MEDIUM CLOSE-UP CA
Hands in elegant red leather gloves searching through papers on top of a desk which stop when finds and picks up a folded up piece of paper which is unfolded to reveal handwritten letter which is then slowly crushed with the hands

BACK TO RILEY

As the camera continues to zoom out, we see Riley putting a glass of red wine to her lips and hold it there a few seconds before taking a sip and removing it out of the frame

RILEY (V.O)
When it was too late

Riley is now in a medium-close up by this point, showing her creased formal clothes and the elegant necklace around her neck as she picks her glass of wine up again and takes another sip

DETECTIVE LAX ( V.O)
Why didn’t you talk to someone

MEDIUM CLOSE-UP CA
Phone flashing on the table, caller ID comes up as ‘LIAR’, with the background out of focus until it stops ringing and we have a deep depth of field showing a shadow standing looking away from the phone which is not in focus anymore

BACK TO RILEY

By this point Riley in a medium long shot with the camera still very slowly zooming out , showing her sitting at a table with the top of what appears to be a mysterious object on the table to her left and a bottle of wine in her hand to her right as she takes another sip

RILEY (V.O)
I wanted to play along with their game…

Riley is now in a proper long shot, revealing the mysterious object next to her is another body sitting at the table with its head down in a pool of glistening red blood – her blank face suddenly shows a smile as her eyes widen

CUT TO BLACK SCREEN

RILEY (V.O)
…and I won.

Soundtrack volume increases and becomes dominant (volume increase from 2:10 time of soundtrack)

MOVIE TITLE
OPENING CREDITS

Proposal

Riley Dawson, a 30-something year old powerful business woman lives a content modern life with her husband. Her success at her job soars sky-high and things seem to be going well until one day she discovers her partner’s dark cheating secrets. Her mind becomes filled with madness and her heart fills with murderous rage which causes her to go on her rampage to seek revenge. First killing off her husband and his lover, she uncontrollably goes on a spree seeking out all those who have caused her pain to return the gesture.

Aging Detective Lax is fed up with his job, his love life is non-existent since his girlfriend died in a tragic accident over 15 years ago and his life seems to be routine while his job takes over. His recent drug addiction causes his mind to become impaired and think differently, which may be just the thing needed when he is asked to investigate the series of murders by a mysterious client.

Ideas for Soundtrack - Part 3

I also have been thinking of different songs to use in our opening sequence.



The Killing Moon by Echo and The Bunnymen. I thought this song would be good because it has an eerie feel to it, as well as being about murder and lovers, the themes of our film. It is quite an old song but I thought it could be playing on a radio or a CD player, as our main character was alive when the song was released, as she is a middle aged woman.

Other songs that I thought would be good, for the title sequence montage, are Infra-Red and Summer's Gone by Placebo.





I think both fit the tone of the film quite well, the first perhaps more than the second. Summer's Gone would be good for following a car traveling down a deserted motorway, whereas Infra-red sounds more psychotic and menacing and has a heavy beat to it.

Audience Research - Questionnaire Results

These were the results I received for the questionnaire I posted on Livejournal and gave to a few members on Mibba.com.

Questionnaire Results

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Unfortunately, all of the people that responded are female so we don't have the views of male audience members. However, this genre of film is aimed more at males than females, so we can assume that males would be interested in watching our thriller film, particularly since it is more in the style of a typical Hollywood movie and involves women, violence and gore. Also, since we want to film it in a Frank Miller style, males are more likely to find that appealing than females as a large amount of comic book fans are male rather than the majority being female.

The response has been helpful and from the results, I have found that the title sequence is important to the audience, as it helps them decide whether the film is worth pursuing and they think that use of enigma is an effective part in gaining interest. Also, the majority of them think that using a soundtrack that is contrapuntal to what is happening on the screen is an effective technique that makes them think and gains their interest and also that music is an important part of establishing the mood in a film.

Ideas for Soundtrack pt 2

Here is the list of the classical, jolly, 'feel good' songs, in case we decide to have a contrapuntal scene in our thriller. These are the ones I thought were worthy to be on our list

Colbie Caillat - Bubbly
Colbie Caillat - Falling for you
Dean Martin and Helen O'Connell's - How Do You Like Your Eggs In The Morning ?
Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
Corinne Bailey Rae - Just Like a Star
Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On
S Club 7 - Have You Ever
Foreigner - I Want To Know What Love Is
Faith No More - Easy
The Carpenters - Close To You
Bee Gees - Staying Alive
Shanice - Loving You

I embedded the videos from the songs selected above. These are jolly and also quite cheesy. I reckon they would make a brilliant contrapuntal scene !


Colbie Caillat - Bubbly


Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On


Bee Gees - Staying Alive

Shanice - Loving You

Ideas for Soundtrack

I have done some research on Youtube and other websites in order to find songs for our opening sequence. Even though our film's genre is thriller, I have also looked for jolly, 'feel good' songs, to make possible the idea of a contrapuntal scene, if desired so.

Here is the list of the up beat songs, that could be used in our film to match scenes of violence.

Bullet For My Valentine - Tears Don't Fall
Cannibal Corpse - Make Them Suffer
Deftones - Change
Disturbed - Inside the Fire
Disturbed - Prayer
Killswitch Engage - The End Of Heartache
Three Days Grace - I Hate Everything About You
Rammstein - Sonne
Rammstein - Du hast
Renholder - The List
Sunna - Power Struggle
Slipknot - Duality
Slipknot - Wait and Bleed

The ones that are standing out of the list are the ones I have chosen, I uploaded below videos from Youtube where you can listen to the selected ones. I chose them because I loved the sound of them and thought they were the most appropriate to our film, they would match the disturbing images. Slipknot - Wait and Bleed, I picked particularly because of the lyrics, since it can be applied to the main character. I will be discussing with the rest of the group, we will decide which of these will actually play on our film.

Sunna - Power Struggle



Renholder - The List


Slipknot - Wait and Bleed


Rammstein - Sonne

Title Ideas

We decided to think about different titles for our project only when we finally got the story and the script done. Then we started to think of nouns and adjectives that could somehow match our story. So we searched for synonyms on Thesaurus, to broaden our vocabulary and invite more ideas in. We looked for 'Insane' synonyms, we quite liked the idea of 'Moonstruck' as it is not common, and it sounded interesting, like a Thriller title. Then we found another website, http://watchout4snakes.com/creativitytools/RandomWord/RandomWordPlus.aspx , which was really useful, since it helped us to finally decide the title for our film. We searched for random words, when the word 'Blackboard' appeared on the screen, we really liked the idea of 'Blackboard' as our title, but then we searched for synonyms to 'Blackboard', and decided to stick to 'Chalkboard'. The reason to why we really liked the idea of 'Blackboard' or 'Chalkboard' as our title, was because our main character snaps, goes insane and goes on a killing spree, and she coldly keeps the records to everyone she's killed on a chalkboard, tally mode.
We then got excited about the idea of the title 'Chalkboard' and decided to write the credits on our opening with a chalk, we will either use actual chalk or graphics, so it will look something like this. Below, there are a few examples of the 'experiments' I have done with our chosen title on a graphics generator, with different fonts and effects.



We will discuss as a group whether to use graphics or to actually write down on a chalkboard the titles needed for our project.

Mood Board

I placed together in a mood board potential props and ideas for our thriller opening !

Preliminary Exercise

This is our Preliminary Exercise, we done this in order to practise our filming and editing skills.

Initial Ideas for the Mise-en-Scene

Media analysis mise en scene

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Audience Research - Initial Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire that I came up with for our audience research, which I will post on to Livejournal and give to people over MSN so that they can fill it in. Also, other members of the group that have access to Facebook can post it on to their profile for their friends to access and complete for our research. We decided to use the internet as a means of investigating our audience and their views on thriller films because we can reach people who are outside of the college. This way, we can find out a larger amount of opinions, from people of more varied age groups.

• Are you male or female?
Male [ ] Female [ ]

• How old are you?
Under 15 [ ] 15 – 17 [ ] 18 – 21 [ ] 22 – 25 [ ] Over 25 [ ]

• What kind of films do you enjoy watching? (Put an x in all the boxes that apply)
Romantic [ ] Thriller [ ] Comedy [ ] Crime [ ] War [ ] Fantasy and Sci-Fi [ ] Action [ ]
Drama [ ] Historical [ ] Horror [ ] Musical [ ] Westerns [ ]

• How much violence can you tolerate in a film?
None [ ] Very little [ ] Moderate [ ] A lot [ ] Excessive [ ]

• Which sub-genre of thriller, if any, are you most interested in? (Put an x in all the boxes that apply)
Action [ ] Crime [ ] Disaster [ ] Drama [ ] Erotic [ ] Legal [ ] Medical [ ] Political [ ] Psychological [ ]
Spy [ ] Technological [ ] Religious [ ] None [ ] Other [ ]

• What are your reasons for this choice?

• Does the opening sequence of a film affect your interest in the film itself?
Yes [ ] No [ ]

• Can you give an example of a memorable opening sequence and explain why it appeals to you?

• Do you think that retaining a sense of enigma, i.e. questions left unanswered, in the title sequence is an important part in keeping the audience interested?
Yes [ ] No [ ]

• How do you find out about new film releases? (Put an x in all the boxes that apply)
Internet [ ] Trailers on TV [ ] Trailers at the cinema [ ] Billboards and posters [ ] Magazine reviews (such as Empire) [ ]

• For our project, we are looking to create the opening title sequence to a thriller film in a style typical of graphic novel adaptations. Out of these films, which do you think has the most effective opening?

Sin City [ ] The Spirit [ ] Watchmen [ ] 300 [ ] Blade II [ ]

• Why does it appeal to you?

• In films such as Se7en and the remake of Dawn of The Dead, montages of different shots are used in the title sequence to give the viewer an insight into what they can expect in the rest of the film. Do you think that this makes for an interesting opening sequence, as it shows enough to give the audience a feel of what is to come but doesn't give them the whole story?
Yes [ ] No [ ]

• Do you agree that music is important in changing and establishing the mood of a film?
Yes [ ] No [ ]

• Do you think it's effective to have music playing over a title sequence that doesn't relate to or fit with what is happening on the screen? For example, gentle, classical music playing whilst someone is being murdered.
Yes [ ] No [ ]

Other ways of carrying out audience research would be to hand out the questionnaires to members of the college and have them put them anonymously into a collection box or to carry out one-to-one interviews with students where we ask them the questions and fill in the form ourselves. By using the internet, the process is less time-consuming and easier for both parties. We can collect the data received quickly and the participants can fill it out quickly, without forgetting to hand it in or disrupting lesson times.

another sam comment

I am disappointed that you have not posted anything new to your blog this week. You are all potential A students - and through this coursework you have the opportunity to achieve that A. But, at present, the evidence on your blog of research & planning is at level 1, E grade. Are you having problems working as a group? Are you not feeling motivated with this project?

sams comment

Make sure that you meet as a group – come and find me if you need to discuss anything, or need a room/computers to work on before Fridays lesson. You must be prepared to film by the end of the week, this will mean having a script & storyboard – if you want to film before, or need to use the drama studio, make sure you come and talk to me!
You are now being marked on your organisational skills and planning

Fight Club (1999) – Directed by David Fincher.

Use of Camera:

As soon as the scene begins, the director uses a extreme close up to introduce us to a important prop on the action, but as it is a XCU, it is not clear for the audience to understand straight away what the prop is, so depth of field is used therefore the image of the gun in the foreground goes out of focus, it becomes blurred and the image of the man with the gun inside his mouth is suddenly sharp. So the audience’s focus is on the man, and by this one shot the viewer immediately knows that his life is at risk.

The protagonist is sitting down, whereas the antagonist is standing up, so the camera is filming the protagonist from a high angle, which makes him look more vulnerable, smaller.The little of the villain which is being filmed, is filmed from a low angle which makes him look taller, stronger, more threatening to the protagonist.

Special Effects:

The graphics at beginning of this film are meant to be impulses purely based on fear, it is the fear center in the nameless narrator’s brain. This was beautifully used in order to entertain and engage the audience, since it gives the feeling of what kind of film they will be watching, it shows that there will be action and that it will be thrilling.

Editing:

The very beginning of this opening sequence it is indeed very interesting to look at, it’s in a way abstract and surreal, the viewer can’t comprehend what is being shown straight away, particularly because of the fast pace which was used in this, which creates tension and therefore helps to build to the climax, also creates an enigma which makes the audience curious, consequently grabbing their attention, engaging them to carry on watching the film.

Mise-en-scene:

The protagonist tied up on the chair is sweating, this can connote that he is nervous, scared and this helps to build up the tension in the audience. The narrator is not wearing trousers, he is only wearing a shirt and a underwear, this connotes that he is even more vulnerable. He also has under eye bags which implies that he hasn’t been sleeping properly as he has probably being held in hostage for days or that he simply has insomnia, which we find out later it is indeed his case. There is a contrast between the mise-en-scene of the protagonist and the antagonist, the narrator looks restless, skinny, weak, tied up on a chair, he is helpless and vulnerable whereas the antagonist is tall, strong, he looks like a body builder as he is wearing a vest which makes his muscles stand out, he is a free man as he is not tied up on a chair, he has a gun therefore he is under control.

Sound:

Non-diegetic sound: Up beat song playing at the very beginning, the genre of the song is rock, the song matches the image, it is not contrapuntal at all, it fascinates the audience and sets an atmosphere for the film, the upbeat song can imply that the film will definetly be thrilling, and that there will be a lot of things going on, and it will be interesting. Diegetic sound : “(...)And I wondered how clean that gun was.” The narrator is disgusted about the dirtiness of the gun inside his mouth, which ain’t a stereotypical reaction at all, this suggests that he is not normal, that he is not sane, for he is worrying about the wrong things, that’s what makes him a unique and amusing character.

Conclusion:

Lastly, David Fincher uses a brilliant technique in Fight Club, also used by Quentin Tarantino in Reservoir Dogs, he edited the sequence of the film so it would begin with it’s last scene. The film opens with the climax, confusing the audience but at the same time engaging them, creating mistery and enigma, making them curious, therefore grabbing their attention and keeping them watching so then, they can understand what is going on. An example of enigma, which was used in this opening sequence, was the fact that the antagonist’s face was hidden, and so was his identity as he doesn’t mention his name. This evokes curiosity and interest in the viewer.

This opening scene also introduces themes, such as Violence and Crime, props such as fake blood and guns are used as they are iconic symbols of Crime and Violence in thriller films.

This opening title establishes characters through the use of dialogue.When the nameless narrator says: “(...)And I wondered how clean that gun was.” This suggests that he is not normal, he is not an average guy, otherwise he wouldn’t be wondering about how clean the gun was, but about his life. His reaction to the situation is not stereotypical, that helps to make him the intriguing and interesting character that he is.

BrainStorm

I tried to put together all aspects and conventions of thriller films, in order to get some ideas for our own opening title.

BrainStorm Thriller Films

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Film analysis - Sin City

The first shot that the film opens with is an establishing shot of a city. Although the film is in black and white, it is distinctive that it is set in the night as the lights of rooms in buildings appear to be on through this opening scene. Connotations that this is a busy urban city are suggested through diegetic sound as cars aggressively sound their horns and police sirens are heard. The first character known as ‘The Customer’ is introduced as she sways into shot while several slow and seductive blows of a saxophone in the soundtrack emphasize her status as what appears to be as a sex symbol. Her vibrant red dress and lipstick appear to be the only color on screen, connoting ideas of love, power and passion while further emphasizing her sexual status.

The first bit of dialogue is introduced which beings to narrate and pick up on subtle emotions and body language which the viewer may have missed. ‘She shivers in the wind, like the last leaf on a dying tree’ is the first bit of narrative and is contrasting to the first impression the audience would have received regarding The Customer being a powerful sex symbol. This portrays a fragile side to the character and references to loneliness and death connotes unhappiness. The shallow depth of field in the next shot adds a moment of enigma as we see the figure of another character slowly walking towards the camera and creating a two shot as the audience is introduced to the character known as ‘The Man’ who we later discover is also the narrator. A series of shot reverse shot’s are used to display the unusually relaxed interaction between these two characters and to establish their relationship as people who have just met. The instrumental soundtrack is far in the background yet it subtly creates an atmosphere firstly through the same seductive saxophone in sync when The Man’s dialogue turns lustful. Sounds of elegant piano can then be heard in harmony with the saxophone turning the mood from one suggesting sexual motivations to an atmosphere reflecting classic Hollywood film noir when the conversation turns more deep and meaningful. This idea is further reinforced with the black and white style of the film itself and in the two shot showing the two characters dressed in formal eveningwear. Additionally, it can be argued that the soundtrack is like a rhythm for words creating the idea that the narrations are poetic.

As the entire film is in black and white, the director plays about with the use of color in order to emphasize and draw any focal points of certain motifs in editing. This is displayed again in the scene when The Man talks about The Customer’s eyes whilst lighting her cigarette in a close-up and her eyes flash a vibrant green. The Customer turns away and it is then cut to two shot in which The Man appears to reach for his jacket pocket but suddenly stops when asked a deep and personal question to which he hesitates to continue and drops his hand, further engaging the audience. The Man’s character is established slightly in a subtle way when he stops what he is doing, as later on we discover he may have had intention to kill her that that precise moment, and answers very meaningfully. The shot slowly zooms into a close-up in which the audience can see the frightened and sorrowful expressions on The Customer’s face when he talks about her being sick of running and not wanting to face ‘it’ alone connoting possible themes of crime and action as well as adding to enigma.

The next part of the opening shots a scene created in editing with special effects as everything appears in silhouette form, including the two characters in a long shot. This shows The Customer and The Man embrace, another unexpected event, but more importantly the audience can see that she is falling into his arms which could connote her character as easily wooed and displays fragility as he is holding her. The next shot focus’s on The Man as he narrates his final thoughts whilst The Customer is still being held in his arms. The Piano soundtrack stops to play after a sinister-like sounding note is played. The diegetic sound of rain falling is heard adding gloominess to the atmosphere before, adding a colossal twist, he shoots The Customer. A second after this, the sound of thunder is heard once again adding gloom. The Man’s character is revealed further here, as his narrative remains gentle and poetic after he commits murder, ‘The silencer makes it whisper with a gunshot’. His tender gentleman-like qualities are displayed as a high angle shows him laying The Customer down and cradles her in his arms as she dies. By this point, the audience would be fully engaged as there are many unanswered questions left. The two characters and their meeting was unusual and mysterious as not much information was given away but the final twist is thrown before the opening titles when The Man casually says ‘Ill cash her check in the morning’ causing even more confusion and enigma more the audience.

The final shot, a high angle, is zoomed out of rapidly and the camera seemingly circles around the city as the soundtrack being to play the theme song consisting of sleazy sounding saxophone music, bass guitar and offbeat noises of broken instruments which continues playing through the opening credits. The effect of zooming out and the music playing connotes how this is just one insignificant thing that’s happened tonight in this sleazy city and there is more going on. Here the themes of sex, violence and crime appear apparent as the film title can be cleverly seen made out of lit up buildings of the city before turning blood red, again, reinforcing the themes.

Analysis of Se7en

Somerset’s apartment is very neat and tidy, showing that he’s organised to the point of borderline obsessive compulsive. He picks the fluff off of his jacket before putting it on, showing that everything has to be exactly how he wants it, as a way of rooting himself back to reality since he doesn’t know what kinds of horrific murders he will have to deal with every day.

Blood is used at the crime scene to show the audience what has happened there, since we don’t see the dead body in great detail. We can imagine what has happened due to the blood being splattered on the windows and therefore we can sympathise with Somerset as he’s a fairly normal person that has to cope with the horrors of murder and he seems to be coping quite well.

He’s dressed neatly, unlike Detective Mills who is wearing a black leather jacket and is unshaven, which connotes a rebellious lifestyle. The city itself is dark and dingy, rain is falling and it looks quite seedy and stereotypically somewhere where a lot of crime would take place.

The title sequence starts of with a book and the shadow of hand turning pages, which feels ominous and sinister. The grungy letters for the credits add atmosphere and a feeling of disorder. Disturbing images are used to create an idea of the genre and the topics that will be covered in the audience’s mind. We see masculine hands, showing that this enigmatic and slightly disturbed person is a man. Bandaged fingers make the viewer question what caused the injuries and then a few seconds later, it is answered, which leads to the question of why he’s shaving his fingertips off.

Clearly he does not want to be identified, so the audience assumes these are the hands of an antagonist, a criminal who is perhaps the person behind the horrible images seen in the opening sequence. Also, we see his hands preparing tea, which is an everyday occurrence and nothing out of the ordinary, suggesting he is not disturbed by the images he is looking at and that it’s part of his every day routine.

During the title sequence, creepy, disconcerting music is playing which provides the audience with a sense of foreboding. The music has a heavy pulse through it making it dramatic and building up suspense. At the end of the title sequence the singer sings about being ‘closer to God’, suggesting religion will be an important aspect of the film. Also, it sounds like a radio is being tuned, which is a sound that sets the viewer on edge, as it is quite disconcerting and unappealing to the ear. Without the soundtrack, the title sequence doesn’t have quite the same effect. It is still intriguing and slightly confusing but not as creepy and scary as when the music is playing over the top.

The unnamed officer’s dialogue shows that Somerset is not respected in the workplace and that they see him as a nuisance, as he says that he can’t wait for him to retire, when all he did was ask whether the murder victims child saw the murder. There is no music in the scene, so we can hear the sounds of the city, where he lives. Somerset tries to block out the sounds with a metronome, the steady rhythm something that keeps him in touch with reality, but we can still hear the sirens over the top so we know there’s no getting away from the terrors outside for Detective Somerset.

The film starts off slowly, as we watch Somerset get ready for the day ahead of him, shot with elliptical editing, showing he is in no rush to get to work but also focusing on every little detail of what he does, just like he would do. Then, we cut to him being at the crime scene, showing there’s not much else to his life other than work and it also keeps him mysterious, as we’re not introduced to every aspect of his life right away.

The title sequence uses jumpcuts to add a jerky, unsettling feel to the movie, as the short shots of the dissecting of books and pictures jump from one part to the other, such as when the camera focuses on the pen drawing a black line across the eyes of a boy in a picture. It then cuts to the shot of the whole face with lines all over it, suggesting this person had been eradicated.

The camera focuses solely on the objects the antagonist is looking at and not on anything around it, which makes the audience really look and take in what is being shown in the title sequence.

Scratches and scratchy letters are placed over the title sequence in random places to give it a grungy, grimy feel, reflecting urban society. But the letters are quite difficult to really spot when watching the clip all the way through and the audience doesn’t quite realise they’re seeing it, even though they still register it in their minds, like subliminal messaging.

As we are introduced to Detective Somerset, we learn that he has a routine and is very organized. We also learn that he is an outsider, as another Detective mentions how he is looking forward to when he leaves the force. He seems sensitive as he asks whether or not the child witnessed the murder, obviously caring about the child’s state of mind. This question angers the other detective and shows that they don’t fit well together. We feel sympathy for Somerset as he is a seemingly sensitive and well-mannered person, but is also an underdog in the workplace and has to deal with seeing death every day.

Then, we meet Detective Mills, who is the binary opposite of Somerset, as he is cocky and short-tempered and a little bit naïve as he’s come from a small town and hasn’t really experienced life in the big city.

Themes are introduced in the opening sequence, such as murder and villainy, but also how relationships between people that wouldn’t chose to work together work out and religion since there is a focus on the word ‘God’ being removed from a dollar note.

Enigma is established in different ways in the opening sequence. The audience doesn’t know where this is taking place, the city they live in is undefined and we only know that it is an urban area in America. We see blood in the murder scene but we don’t know what exactly has happened. For the duration of the title sequence, we just see a man’s bandaged hands cutting bits out of books, scribbling over the faces and sticking highly macabre and disturbing photos down while doing something as mundane as making himself a cup of tea, which somehow makes it slightly more disturbing because it seems that this is what he does everyday. So it makes the audience intrigued as to what this person does with their life and who they are.