The Credits for our thriller

These are the credits, each lines is what will appear on a new shot:
Frank Waterman

Amanda Trough

John Keroscene
Benjamin Dover

With Teresa Richardson

Casting Designer
Nick Potamitis

Costume Designer
Clair MacKenzie

Original Score
Chris Hulme

Editor
Louise Housden

Director of Photography
Alice Walker

Story by
Mark Patterson

Written by
Philip Smithson

Produced by
Nigel Parker-Loose

Directed by
Terri Vineall

Life Films Present

Arcanum

Font Styles

Here are some examples of font styles I thought might be good to use for our titles:

Some more thriller intros

I thought I'd post some more thriller intros which I was inspired by, unfortunately the embedding wasn't working, so I've just given the links to you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/v/h5lbZCGrt4Y&rel=1

This is the intro to a movie called "Ginger Snaps". I think it's very effective because it immediately confronts the audience with some rather unsettling images of teenage girls pretending to kill themselves. The music mixes classical violins with a contemporary beat which underlays the mix of new and old which is continued throughout the sequence. During the sequence, we are introduced to two girls, although it their faces are not always clear until the end of the sequence when we see them in a classroom. The sequence consists mainly of pictures which are zoomed in or out of, or sometimes panned. These are spliced with small clips of the pictures being taken. It's set in a suburban looking house for parts, and a more traditional, sometimes Carrie-Esq house for other parts. Not much about the story is given away, all we find out is that there are two teenage girls who seem to have odd hobbies.





http://www.youtube.com/v/NG-Z6-nFQBo&rel=1

This is the start to a movie called "Swordfish". It's quite interesting because there are no titles or writing throughout the whole intro. We are introduced to a character, although we don't find out his name, we only hear and see him talk about Hollywood and films. He's the only person we see fully in the entire sequence. Mostly the sequence looks as though it's being shot through a hand held camera, however, it switches between this and more professional looking shots, for example the cigar being lit. We don't learn anything about the story or setting, because all we see is a gray wall, which doesn't give anything away. We don't really hear music, but there is a small, quiet classic sounding song in the background.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxgeH8InR9g

"The butterfly effect" is a psychological thriller, in which a man revisits his past through diaries he wrote at different times in his life. In the title sequence, the first thing we see it the chaos theory about how even a flap of a butterfly's wing can cause a tsunami half way across the world, we then see the main character rushing into a room, and writing a note. The room looks like an office, and the note he writes entices the viewer and makes them want to keep watching because they want to know who the "her" he's writing about is, and why he could be dead if someone finds the note. This then leads on to butterfly's flying around and scans of brains during which the title of the movie appears. This is all accompanied by some classical string and woodwind music, which builds suspense.




I chose these examples because they show how varied the thriller genre is, they are all very different movies, which would be put under the thriller genre.

Some locations which may be used

These are just some places near my village I thought might be good for our final piece. For example, empty train station, main road, shops, centre of my village, train line etc. I thought it might be a good idea because it will help us visualise the places more easily. I also made a video of a cul-de-sac which might be good.

Feedback

-Be careful on roads and while frying egg, these could be dangerous
-Make sure it's not horror
- Check there are no people in the shots on location
-Good that we have no actors
-May have to do a lot of filters in final cut to keep it interesting
-Not clear name (good and bad)
-Make sure we know what location means in comparison to shots and props.

Pitch

Title : Arcanum

Plot: People are missing. Empty streets will fade slowly in, soft eerie music playing in the background to show the dead silence that has infected the world. we will then have loud, screeching, screaming music and flashes of disturbing and distorted. then cutting once more to the soft eerie scene.

Locations:

1: Empty road
2: post office
3: abandoned car (in road)
4: Eye
5: Cul-de-sac
6: Open door/lawn mower
7: hall way
8: Hand/arm
9: Bathroom tap
10: Frying egg
11: flower on table

Examples of text in a film title sequence - Rudeboy

This is an example of the kind and amount of text found in the opening title sequence of a film. The film is Rudeboy.

Micheal White
presents
A Buzzy Enterprises Production

Ray Gange In

RUDEBOY

Starring
THE CLASH
Joe Strummer
Mick Jones
Paul Simonon
Nicky Headon

Written By
David Mingay
Ray Gange
Jack Hazan

Music By
Joe Strummer
Mick Jones

Produced And Directed By
Jack Hazan
David Mingay

From this i have learnt that there is a lot more names in an opening title sequence than i had previously thought. Also it has become aware to me that it is not in alphabetical order but instead in order of , i pressume, 'importance'.
I also looked at a variety of different title sequences to films. And they used the same layout. Starting with the company and then actors and the through to writers and producers. The music does not normally appear in most but it is an important part of this film. I have also noticed that the more famous people may have a shot to them selves where as with less famous people there may be a few names on at once.

Test shots

I been been walking around Cambridge looking for abandoned places. I found a couple of locations which are a church yard, cross roads, a housing estate and a road over looking a railway track. These are all different locations which we might add through out the sequence.

Plot & music idea

Plot
The plot it is of a plague that has ripped through the city of Cambridge. The plague has killed millions of people and continuing to do so. The streets are emptying and the city is grounding to a halt. This was a sudden thing and household activities has been abandoned.

Music
We are going for the simple one noted sound at the start where the pictures of empty streets are showing. Then half way through that a heart beat sound starts over lapping that sound. This will create tension and uneasiness. Then a loud dramatic sound to end on the titles.

Fleshed out idea

These are some of the locations we're going to use for our thriller:
-A 10/ other main road
-Cemetery/Church
-Village/town center
-Cull-de-sac/Suburban housing estate
- Empty rooms in a house
-Knocked over news stand
-Car abandoned in middle of street
- Bathroom with running tap/half used tooth brush
-Half Hung Out Washing
-Lawn mower tipped over
- Half cooked food

The idea is that these places have been recently abandoned, like people have been vaporised, or run away instantly, or stuff like that. These images will be inter cut with flashing sort of weird images. Then we might have the name of the producer etc coming up over paintings. All the flashing images are gonna be like, barbies heads being squashed, and like guns to peoples heads and stuff like that.

!ideas!

These pictures are just some ideas that I thought could improve the shots like lighting. Strobe lighting in the first picture gives the effect of slow motion and gives you an uneasy feel. The third pictures is Lazar lighting and can give a dramatic coloured effect. The graveyard picture is an idea for a scene in our sequence and the shadowed figure illistrates the idea of the single person in the background.

Art

These pictures from artists Picasso, Nick Blinko and Dali all have imagery that is similar to that in thrillers. The twisted forms and skulls are all surreal. Pictures like these could be used in our thriller project or themes from these pictures could be used.

Real Pictures

These images are all showing the worst in humanity. The pictures, like a thriller, bring out strong negative emotions.
Images like these could be considered to be used respectively in our thriller project either in backgrounds or as blurred obstructed flashes etc.
The pictures are very real yet they have an almost surreal feel as they are not like anything we have seen in first person. A lot of thrillers play on this real yet surreal feeling and these pictures help to get that feeling across.

The Grudge Trailer

This film creates tension throughout and makes you feel uncomfortable. It does this by making a real life incident a nightmare that won't go away. The eerie music and changing of speed and volume makes you on edge. Also the weird sounds used like the cat also creates a weird and uncomfortable scene.

Initial ideas

We have each had ideas for the opening sequene of our thriller;

Louise's idea:

'Death at a graveyard', Shadowy figure standing in a graveyard and slowly moving up to the camera, then he disappears and comes back in a jump to a extreme close-up. Then he appears in a bus stop with blood on his hands.

Chris's idea;

Footage of empty streets and other places you would expect to see people, for example a play park etc.with mellow slow and basic music. Shots cut up with very distorted, fast blurred imagery that is not recognizable as anything in particular with high pitched racket in background. Titles appear over the calm, mellow shots and film name at very end.

Terri's Idea;

A man fussing around his house, fast chilling music following him as he goes about obsessively moving and cleaning before switching to fast moving disturbing scenes of violence.

Alice's Idea;
Through the eyes of a mysterious man, the camera follows a route to a play park, where a little girl is playing, the man advances, and when the girl turns around, she stabs him.

Suface -Student video

We all liked this opening because of the short quiet clips along with the loud distorted clips, the music ties this all in well together. You can tell straight away that this is a thriller because of the music and blood in water.

The structure of the opening is interesting as the short and long clips of action tied in together to give it a creepy disturbing look.

There isnt a lot of mise-en-scene but the use of the 'blood' in the water gives it a very disturbing look and also makes the overall sequence more creepy. the camera work in this is interesting as we get a range of shots along with various action sequences.

The use of sound is very important, in this opening, as it ties together the action scenes, also gives it a jumpy and very creepy feel. Editing techniques are used for this sequence to make it fast and distorted, giving it a thriller feel.

The only SFX used is the 'blood in water' which gives it a slow and surreal atmosphere as it shows the names of the people involved, which i think is very effective at making it scary.

Fight club

This opening is very intriguing because you cannot quite tell what it is about, as it zooms out, although when fully zoomed out you can see it is a frightened looking man with a gun in his mouth, which leaves a lot of questions open about the movie.

Battle Royal

Battle Royal is a great film, and I chose it because it has a sense of childlike fear that you only find in japanese cinema. It's surreal the way the woman on the video is so cheery when she's instructing a class of kids to kill each other. It's a really great film full of suspense, especially at the start of the movie when all you see is a little girl covered in blood smiling with reporters going "She did it, she won! She killed them all!". I think the way the whole class and the room their in is mainly greyish, it creates a contrast to the video, in which, although the colours are still quite dark, the colour stands out, making it seem all the more spooky, and when the teacher kills the student for wispering, without blinking an eye, it makes the whole thing more surreal and disturbing. I would like to get this sense of disturbence across because I think it's what makes a thriller good.

Introduction to the group

Hello, we're going to be making a thriller, and we're in a group! Heres a little more about us.....

Alice - I will be helping with making outfits and music, as well as thinking about location

Chris - I cant do anything really well but i know how to do most of it adequately

Louise - I will be making props, as well as doing camera and editing work

Terri - I will be doing the majority of the camera work, and will work on the story line

There you go! Thats us! Yeah.....

Haunted mansion!

I choose this opening because normally all openings are just of the titles but this one tells us the story so we get a fell about it, without giving it all away. It has dramatic music to carry the horror setting to it. Also as it gets to the death of Elizabeth the music gets faster and louder. Then with the hanging of the main character the camera angles show it in a scary way as it is pointing upwards so you see it all. The thunder and lightning effects also adds terror to the sequence and makes you want to watch more.

The costumes in this film are both modern and medieval to show the difference between the two time genres that are included in the film, also shows how the past is merging into the present.

Welcome