Font Research For Thriller Opening 1

For our Thriller Opening, i think that the font we use should be quirky, bold ( fits into the whole party scenes) but also slightly spooky and chilling; which fits into the bath scenes.

To help me get a better idea of what sort of font we should consider using, i firstly thought of a film/programme which links to our opening, found the font, then typed the URL i found it on the website 'WhatTheFont'.
Below are a few screen shots of how i went though with this process:
                                                                        

Above is the first step of what i had to do. As you can see, the font which is used in 'Skins' is shown above. The whole idea is for this website to find out what the font is called.

Above is the second step. The website needs to identify each letter to be able to find out the what the font is called. 

Finally, this is last step. As you can see, the website has successfully identified the font.

So for example, this font's correct name is 'Neo Sans Bold'. Also, other fonts are shown which are similar to your chosen font; gives you a large variety.

Test Shots On Final Cut 2

we needed to make sure that the videos filmed on the phone could render in final cut, so we filmed a few scences and uploaded them on the the computer, we then went to final cut and put the clips on. the videos managed to render, but i need to film using the phone the other way round becuase the video went on its side,

Possible Locations For Thriller Opening

Above is the location where Emily will film the 'bath scenes'. This scenes will involve a teenage girl attempting to commit suicide by drowning in the bath. These scenes will only be short clips, cutting from the party scene back to the bath scene as they are happening at the same time.

this is where yasz will be filming the party/rave scenes, these will include clips of people dancing around, these people are all from the drama group and college, these clips will be small and will intersect with the bath scenes 

Test Shots (Mobile Phone)

For our first scene in our thriller opening, it is a party/rave scene.  Here is our first test shoot of Emily walking in a drunk manor. To make this scene more realistic and effective, we are viewing the scene through yasz's point of view. To do this, yasz walked behind me also in a drunk manor to make a realistic 'party' atmosphere.

 Here is another test shoot, to see how the phone camera works when there is a lot of movement. To test this, Emily danced as if she would at a party ( as our first scene is a party). We like the way, using a phone camera come across more realistic and seems more like you are actually there.

finally, here is our last test shoot ( similar to our second test shoot above) . This is just to see if the phone camera quality can work with fast movement without blurring.


The reason why we are using a phone camera for our party/rave scenes is due to the fact we want the scene as realistic as possible. We want the audience to feel as if they are actually there at the party. The atmosphere we want to produce is very energetic and lively. 

Permission Request Email To Knife Party

in this email we wrote,
hi our names are  yasz webb and emily huelin, and we go to long road village college in cambridgeshire, for our a-alevel media we have to create a thriller opening and would like your permission to use knife partys song "internet friends" this song really fits in with the genre of our opening scene and would love to incorperate the song into our piece so we could hopefully reach the level of our full potential. please get back to us as soon as possible, thank you

Researching Thriller Openings

This is an already made AS Thriller opening, this is the sort of thriller we would like to finally end up with and have a grade just like this 

Pitch Evaluation

as a group we decided to film our pitch because it would be easier to explain our ideas, we explained our idea to the class and then our teacher dave asked questions about our idea and then the class asked some questin such as:

nick asked "where will our credits come into it"

we replied " when everyone is partying it will flash across the screen"

i believe that our pitch went really smoothly we managed to explain our idea and clear up and questions or worries the class or dave had.

the class in  thought our idea was good and we got given a green light, i think the class were really understanding of our idea 

institutional research

a film distributor is a company that releases films to the public such as via cinema or on dvd.

paramount pictures 


they have had famous movies such as

transformers
paranormal activity
the godfather

the godfather has the same genre as us and the same audience but not the same budget, as this was a big production and cost a lot.

i dont think they would be best to distribute our film, because they are much more interested in higher budget films and having got many in our genre of film with younger teenage actors.

momentum pictures 


they have had famous films such as

dear john
the women in black
the kings speech

the women in black is the same genre and i think this film distributor would be much more our area and i think would be better suited for us to have our film distributed by. 

Class Pitch (Video)

we decided to film it because it was easier to explain our ideas in person then typing them onto the blog 

Creative Planning and Ideas

this is our creative planning including location, costume, props and casting 

Thriller Opening Script

this is the script idea we have, putting all our ideas into a final script 

Questionaire (Yasz)

What would you expect to see in a Psychological thriller film?

Edmond male 16- a clever pyschopath
joe male 17- lot of suspense, cliffhangers between scenes
marc male 16 - a psycho going round killing people

What other films, TV shows would you associate with this genre?

Edmond male 16- saw, sherlock holmes
 joe male 17- jack the ripper, white chapel
marc male 16 - whitechapel

Are you fan of Psychological films and explain your reasons?

Edmond male 16- yes, because i fine them interesting to follow
joe male 17- no because they really mess with my head
marc male 16 - no because they are to scary 

What do you think films need at the beginning to keep you watching?

Edmond male 16- a cliff hanger before the credits to keep me interested
 joe male 17- a psycho killer
marc male 16 - tense music keeping you hanging on the edge 

What is your favourite movie opening and why?


Edmond male 16- seven, because the way it draws me in
joe male 17- enemy of the state, because the way they mess with that man leaves me wondering what he did
marc male 16 - paranormal activity because you are always waiting for something to happen

Questionaire (Emily)

What would you expect to see in a Psychological thriller film?
Reece male 17 - dark and intense scenes also involving death.
Aubany female 16 - dark atmosphere, not knowing what is going to happen next.
Matt male 17 - A villain/ bad guy involved.


What other films, TV shows would you associate with this genre?
Reece male 17 -  limitless as it keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Aubany female 17 - Black swan as you don't know what is going to happen next; makes you jump.
Matt male 17 -  seven as i was constantly scared; a lot of tension.

Are you fan of Psychological films and explain your reasons?
Reece male 17 - Yes this is my favourite type of genre as i'm always interested never bored.
Aubany female 16-  Personally i prefer other types of genres. However this genre is good as you never know what is going to happen.
Matt male 17-  I really enjoy this genre as i'm always on the edge of my seat.

What do you films need at the beginning to keep you watching?
Reece male 17 - I like a lot of detail at the beginning of films because then you know what the film involves.
Aubany female 16-  I find it interesting when the last scene is shown at the beginning. This is because then it makes me what to know how this happened and why.
Matt male 17- I like finding out about the characters at the beginning of films.

What is your favourite movie opening and why?
Reece male 17- 300 because straight away a lot is going on which made me want to watch more to find out what will happen next.
Aubany female 16-  4321 as it shows the very last scene of a girl looking like she is about to jump off a bridge. Then it rewinds back to the beginning. This made me want to find out why the girl wanted to jump off the bridge.
Matt male 17-  Adulthood as the opening has a lot of energy to it; a rave scene.

Questionaire (Eloise)

What would you expect to see in a Psychological thriller film?
Jake male 16 - suspense, withheld information and a villain. 
Kimberley female 18 - Death and tension. 
Connor male 16 - Scary scenes and a villain.
Nick male 16 - A dark tense creepy eerie atmosphere. 
Max male 16 - Murder and something that keeps you on the edge off your seat.

What other films, TV shows would you associate with this genre?
Jake male 16 - Sherlock Holmes because it intrigues the audience and has alot of suspense.
Kimberley female 18- limitless because it has lots of twists.
Connor male 16 - Seven because its scary and keeps you on the edge off your seat, also there is murder.
Nick male 16 - Psycho, because there is a big twist and not alot is revealed until the end and the music has alot of suspense.
Max male 16 - Panic Room, Because there alot off suspense and events that you are on the edge off your seat.


Are you fan of Psychological films and explain your reasons?
Jake male 16 - Yes I am because, they fascinate and intrigue as you have to try and work things out and it plays with your mind and imagination.
KImberly female 18 - Yeah because they are intriguing and you have to try and work out the plot.
Connor male 16 - Yes I am because i find them interesting and clever.
Nick male 16 - Not really, because they really scare me.
Max male 16 - Yeah i love them because i find them really entertaining and they always have me on the edge off my seat as they are normally full of suspense. 

What do you think films need at the beginning to keep you watching?
Jake male 16 - They need character set up and  a brief outline of the story maybe a question to keep you watching wanting to know the answer.
Kimberley female 18 - A cliffhanger or a question to make you want to carry on watching.
Connor male 16 - Alot off action something happening to start film spinning.
Nick male 16 - Something basic that reveals hardly anything apart from the main characters.
Max male 16 - A murder or a big event to intrigue you on when why and how something has happened.

What is your favourite movie opening and why?
Jake male 16 - The Dark Knight, it holds a lot off mystery and you don't know what is going on alot of suspense it just hooks you straight away.
Kimberley female 18 - The safe house, because it is obviously not safe and puts you on the edge of your seat. 
Connor male 16 - I am legend because its showing a disaster and you want to see what has happened. 


What have I gathered from this research?
I have found that most people expect something that keeps you on the edge of your seat and that has alot of twists where you have to use your imagination, I have also find that people prefer different openings some prefer basic revealing nothing but others prefer for the film to get started straight away. 
Our target audience are older teens 16 plus as these seem the most interested in our genre.

Thriller Opening Analysis (Cape Fear)

Above is the opening for the film Cape Fear. The music played in the background straight away sets an extremely eerie atmosphere. The music being played is produced by an orchestra. The volume is gradually increasing( this slowly builds tension as the audience know something is about to happen) until 56 seconds in. Here the volume is at it's greatest and very dramatic, also the tempo increases. The atmosphere completely changes when this takes place, as it is a lot more powerful and electric. However, the music's volume and tempo goes back to how it was at the start at 1.09.
I find it very effective how the mise en scene is mostly just calm flowing water. By having a very simple opening with basically one image (water) i find that this widens the audiences imagination. The water could link to anything, i.e. blood? Also at 0.40 seconds a black eagle flies across the screen slowly. The eagle represents the bad guy as he is searching for his next pray; like an eagle would. Also using a black eagle also works well as it's black is the color of death and helps make the atmosphere spooky and chilling.

Thriller Opening Analysis

The opening scene has some really effective micro element of sound with a high pitch orchestra the sound of calm water is played in the background also showing the involvement of water in a build up off suspense. The narrative centers around a dark lake this gives the impression that maybe a corpse has been dumped here. A vulture flies in from a dark sky, with the bird being a vulture it is signifying murder as these are big birds that prey on others. The credits in this opening are a small white font keeping the opening very simple. When the movie title is shown the sounds volume increases dramatically and the pitch does also. At 2 minutes 13 seconds a figure appears, themes off identity are commonly mistaken but I perceived the figure to be a man in dark clothing looking over the water. At 2 minutes 32 seconds the water turns red this then looks like a lake off blood giving the impression to the audience off murder. The figure that appears in this opening clip gives the impression of the villain as he is tall and dark, it also betrays that he may off placed a body in the water as why would he be stood by a lake on his own in darkness.

Music Influences

The videos below are all representing the genre of music we are hoping to use for our Thriller opening. These are all modern and have a storyline to them.

Thriller Influence and Ideas

For our thriller opening we have many different influences. We decided to mainly focus on modern, english made films when looking for influences. A specific director we are looking at it Noel Clarke. Noel Clarke is an actor, director and writer from England who has made films such as: Kidulthood and 4321. The reason we have had such an interest in his work is because he focuses on specific the gang culture in England which is what we would like to focus our thriller opening scene around. The video below is showing the opening scene from a film by Noel Clarke called Adulthood. We chose this opening scene as an example because we think that it represents the sort of scene that we want to be showing in our opening scene of a thriller.
The main part of this video that we are focusing on is from 1 minute 20 secs to 1 minute 45 secs. Even though this is only a small section, the party scene is quite busy, flashy, loud and seems to be a good atmosphere.This is what one half of our opening scene is going to consist of in contrast to the murder aspect which we are also including in it.