Our Pitch

This is our initial idea for our movie opening:

However after talking it through and thinking about the plot for our 'movie' we thought that it would be more effective if we had a mental girl in the room by herself, this way it is more mysterious and we can raise suspense because the audience will be wondering why she is in there alone.

In order to build a plot we will start with the girl in the room alone being watched by the CCTV cameras then someone will open the door and leave a box on the floor, as she starts to go through this box of memorabilia she breaks down and starts to cry, then at the bottom of the box she will find a toy or a doll which will cause her to scream in agony and go crazy. The thought behind this is that she has committed a crime or done something terrible to someone which caused her to lose her mind and be locked up in a mental asylum, and the box that she is going through brings back all the memories of her past actions consequently causing her to break down.  

Art Of The Title

I found the following movie openings on 'Art of the Title' which is a website that has thousands of openings for both movies and TV series. When i browsed through the various clips i was searching for unique and innovative methods to display the titles in our movie opening as our initial idea is simple with little movement and action. Here are a few that i admired:  

Les Bleus De Ramville

The titles in this opening were extraordinary; they effortlessly blended into their surroundings, moving with the props and changing colours accordingly. The use of flash lights was very effective as it blurred the image an made the titles stand out more. 

Fargo

This opening is so effective because everything about it is very minimal, the setting is lovely and plain, the lettering of the titles is simple but against the plain background they stand out so much more than they would have against a busy scenery.

Hard Rock Medical

The contrast between nature and medicine was very interesting in this clip and the positioning of the titles was extraordinary, especially when it would overlap onto another object and the colours of the font would change to enhance the difference. The camera transitions were very impressive as well, as one scene would dissolve into another or when the words would  fade into a picture or landscape.  

Ovarian Psychos

The beginning starts with shaky lettering for the tiles which creates a edgy tone for the rest of the opening. It would be great if we could replicate this for our project as it would really add to the effects. 

Cargo - Innocence lost
The text in this opening was really eye catching and edgy which is why we liked it. it was also very interesting how they position the titles to become apart of their surroundings.

Inspiration for Movie Opening

After coming up with an idea for our movie opening we started to look into editing techniques that we could use and we came across this music video from a previous media student. In this video they showed a mental girl and used some sort of duplicating, high speed effect which definitely added to the illusion of the girl being crazy. Personally i really liked they way they incorporated different colours when they sped it up, this way all the separate copies of the same girl were a different colour  which added to the effect. The glitching in this shot was extremely impressive together with the colour transformations and hopefully my group can take inspiration from this to put in our work.  Also the black background was great as it highlighted her further. 

The Preliminary - Final Product

Due to meticulously planning our prelim we were able to film with ease because we knew where the camera had to be and what shots and movements were required, this made it so much easier for the camera woman and it reduced the time taken to film. Although the camera shots were planned the acting was something we forgot to take into consideration. 

This is the final product that we uploaded:      

Of course there is room for improvement but overall i think we did a good job in our preliminary task, and i hope to develop my camera shots, editing skills and acting throughout the year.  

The Preliminary- Planning

Our idea:

For our preliminary we decided to have a short dialogue of about a girl that watched the horror movie 'Chucky' that is recommended to her by a friend, however she gets very shaken up and comes back to blame her friend for recommending it; while reporting back to her the lights mysteriously turn off and both girls scream.

Our storyboard:

Shot 1- I walk into the room through a door shot with a mid shot at eye level. The camera pans to follow me as i walked across the room saying 'I cant believe i...'.

Shot 2-  Match on action from previous shot as the camera switches to long shot from the point of view of  Nimra who's sitting down and I complete my sentence '...listened to you'.

Shot 3- Over the shoulder shot from behind me to a mid shot of Nimra saying 'Why whats wrong?'

Shot 4- Long shot with both of us in frame. I say 'I watched Chucky and it was so scary!'

Shot 5- Point of view from me with a close up of Nimra saying 'Stop exaggerating its not that bad'.

Shot 6- Point of view from Nimra with a close up of me saying 'No, i'm serious!' then the light mysteriously switch off and i scream.

Story Boarding

In all productions it is really important that before filming starts, a story board has been produced so the whole camera crew know what angles and shots they will be doing on set. A story board consists of rough drawings to outline what the actors will be doing along with some of the dialogue that will be said, however the purpose of the storyboard is to establish the camera angles and shots that will be used in the scene as well as the duration and movements of these camera's. 

In order to storyboard an establishing shot you would draw the shot you would be taking in the planned location and from the correct angle into one of the boxes and then write briefly that it would be a long shot and any movement the camera would be doing, for example panning or a slow zoom to indicate to the cameraman on the day of the shoot exactly what he will be doing. To add extra detail to the plan you can add what kind of lighting will be used and any audio that will be playing in the background. This process will be repeated for every different shot that will be used in a production, whether it is an over the shoulder close up of a conversation or a quick action shot where the camera is free hand and following the actor from afar, ALL camera angles must be planned before hand to prevent any possible confusion. 

Here is an example of a storyboard:

This story board is effective because it shows clearly what the actors will be doing in this scene. The shots are noticeably displayed both in words and the accurate drawings, together with a brief description of the location and context of each shot. Despite such clear sketches this story board does lack the details of the camera movements and the duration of each shot. 

Camera angles

Camera angles are an effective way to show the perspective of a character or object, commonly used in movies and shows to take a child's viewpoint or the view from a balcony, directors are becoming more and more inventive with their camera angles, in shows like breaking bad the camera is positioned in the most random places to capture the best shots and angles as shown below...

  

 Here are the four main camera angles used in cinematography:

1.  The eye level shot is directly in line with the persons face, this angle is usually used when there is a face to face dialogue between characters as it can can look like the viewpoint of the opposite person. 
   
   
   
2. The low angle is positioned to be slightly below the persons eye level looking up towards their face, this angle can be used to show the view of a shorter person or it could emphasise a characters power, strength and height to make present them in an intimidating way. 
   
   
   
3.  The high angle is shot from above the persons eye level looking don on them. this angle can show the perspective of a tall person or, on the contrary to the low angle, make a person look smaller, timid and powerless therefore presenting them as inferior to the opposing person. 
   
   
   
4. The overhead shot is taken from directly above the object so you can see them from a birds-eye view. The overhead shot shot captures everything that is going on below so can be used to show a busy party scene or simply the view from a tall building. 
   
   
   
5. The undershot takes the viewpoint from beneath the object or person so the audience views them from directly below.