Sound - Speed

The second opening we looked at was the film Speed. This is also a thriller film, and the music is based on creating the right atmosphere to the audience. The opening starts with the 20th Century Fox sequence, which is there to let the audience know and recognise the institution that was behind the film. Firstly the only sound we hear is a sound of an elevator, this is diegetic sound as the sound would have already been there. It also could of been non-diegetic if they had decided to add in the sound of the elevator. Secondly you hear an eerie sort of music that is quite orchestral, this creates an atmosphere for the audience and helps them to work out what sort of movie they are watching. You then hear a sound as the movie title 'Speed' exits the screen, this is parallel music as the visuals match the sound. The music seems to be getting quite fast but then going slower, this is confusion to the audience as they are not sure to whether it is ment to be rushed or not. It is also suspicious to the audience that the music keeps changing how fast it is going. There is no speech in the whole opening sequence and you only see one character who appears to be opening a door.

Sound Research - A Mothers Son

While we were waiting for the new mac computers to arrive Me and Rianna spent some time doing some more research in lessons. We firstly watched some clips and analysed the sound, here is the first one:

'A Mother's Son' is a thriller TV programme, based on 2 episodes. At the opening of the first episode we firstly hear a lot of nature sounds. This helps us to imagine whereabouts the programme is set, the main noise we can hear at first is the sound of seagulls, this could suggest that the programme is set by the beach. Next we hear a non-diegetic sound of an instrument like a violin, music which you would hear at places like funerals, or mourning a death. You are also able to hear the sounds of walking on stones on pebbles, the walking is quite fast which makes you think you that this person is trying to get away from something. The pebbles also indicate the audience to some sort of beach. The non-diegetic music is slowly getting faster paced and more frantic and this creates tension and suspense to viewers, who are wondering what has happened. You then hear a faint noise from this girl, which is sort of like a cry, this is diegetic and is helping to create a sense that something is wrong with her. The only speech throughout the whole clip is the girl saying 'I'm Sorry' which adds to her cries of pain. This speech is diegetic. Throughout the whole opening all the sound is helping create the atmosphere of this programme and helping you figure out what sort of programme it is that you are watching. This relates to our opening sequence as we are also doing a thriller genre, and it helps me to see how much the sound is needed to create the right atmosphere for viewers.

Feedback

In this lesson we all showed our opening sequences to everybody else and got their feedback on it. Personally i found this very helpful as it helped our group to see if people would enjoy it, and anything we needed to change about it, here is the feedback from other groups:

Planning - Script and Synopsis

We were told at the beginning of filming that using speech in our opening sequence would make things trickier as you would have to make sure the speaking was correctly positioned with the visuals, therefore we decided to only use one line for one of the characters, and nothing for the other character. Throughout the day we decided it would be easier if we didn't have any speaking and it also looked better without speaking. Here is a picture of our script and synopsis:

Planning - Shooting Schedule

In order for our day to go smoothly, and make sure that we didn't run out of time or get confused we put together a shooting schedule. On the actual filming day we managed to stick to this schedule throughout, apart from some bits where we had to change bits around to make it easier for ourselves and to help make sure we didn't waste any time in the day. Here are the copies of our original shooting schedule:

Personal Opinion On Opening Sequence

I think that our idea will work well as hopefully the ending will create suspense and will make the audience want to watch more. The fact that the genre of our film is thriller is good because we are able to choose between a lot of different ideas and change it wherever or whenever we need to. Our storyline at the moment is quite interesting but we will need to check with other people to check if they will be interested in the film or not. I think there are a couple of weaknesses though, but if we can film it right then they will be solved. For example we do not want to confuse the audience with the storyline and we need to make sure that they understand the role of the man and the girl. We also need to make the audience realise what the man has to do with the girl and what he is doing. I think our opening sequence will create enigma and make the audience want to watch the rest of the film. 

Opening Sequence Idea

After brainstorming many different ideas for our opening sequence we came up with a final one:
The genre of it will be a thriller. It starts off with a young teenage girl who is in a friends house babysitting. The next scene is a man sitting in his car, but you cannot see what he looks like or what he is doing in the car. You then find out that the man is stalking this young girl, and his car/van is full of photos of her in different places doing different things. The man has installed cameras into the girls garden like CCTV which will be shown using black and white effect. You will be shown him watching her through the CCTV cameras in his car. You then go back to the girl sitting at home doing nothing, when you hear the doorbell. She gets up and opens the door and greets the man. It then cuts to the title of film and any credits needed. Hopefully this will create suspense for the audience and make them want to watch even more and find out what happens next.