In class, we had to make a horror story board of a chase scene to practice making story boards so when we come to making our own story boards we have a better understanding of everything we need to include and the amount of detail we need to go into. Me and my partner thought carefully about how we are going to start and finish out chase scene. Even though we knew what kind of scene we were creating it was good to think about how we could present the chase seen. We also had to think about the shot, duration of the shot and the sound/dialogue.
This was our first story board. We had to comment on the type of shot and the duration. In the next box we had to think about the sound a dislouge which would be happening throughout the scene. We wanted to make the scene start of intense as it is the most interesting scene in a film. The first shot is a long shot of the girl running away, already connoting to the audience that she is in some kind of trouble and needs help. The scenery such as the woods also creates ominous signs as it will be dark and dangerous. We then put a close up - conveying the girls facial expression displaying how scared she is. The next scene there is another close up of the man weapon he is chasing her with, making the scene more scary as the tension builds from the props. The next shot goes back to a long shot - a lot of music comes in helping make the scene more sinister and scary.
This was our second sheet of story boarding. We did this exactly the same as the one before as we included drawn images showing what the scene will look like, the duration of the shot and what kind of shot it is and the sound and dialogue. We tried to use as many types of shots as we could, we ended up using a mid shot and close up to display the mans and woman's feelings towards the situation.
Overall, this practice story board exercise has helped me understand the amount of detail I need to put into my real story board so when it comes to making my final opening sequence I will automatically be able to get straight on and know exactly what I'm doing. The drawn diagrams are easier to look at rather than just words, it also gives me a more advanced insight on how the scene will actually look like, highlighting if the shot will be effective or not. If I was to improve the way I approached this task I will make sure I go into more detail about the type of shot and the duration of it. However, now I have found out this could be a problem in my final storyboard I can make sure I do not make this mistake again.
As a group we've realised how we are still not familiar with the Bollywood genre and we may struggle to produce a Bollywood inspired film without knowing the full details. We have decided to drop the idea of Bollywood and go forward with our original idea of doing a psychological thriller. I am content about this as I feel we need to focus more on the technical areas as it will improve our overall grade. I also think we would have struggled with doing a Bollywood just because even if we did all the research we would still not have a broad understanding of what it really is as we are not familiar with it in our day to day life. We still would like to go ahead and use our original actors which are Asian as we think this shouldn't effect our title sequence.
Today in class we discussed why story boarding was important in our process of making our opening sequences. At first I didn't quite understand the impact a storyboard could have on the coursework. So why is it important to story board? These are some examples we found out in class:
It displays a brief outline of what your finished piece may look like
Links planning to filming process
Pitching an idea
Visualize links between shots, action, graphic matches
Timing
Revise narrative and sequencing
Change to make decisions and revisions
We then went onto looking at a short extract from the person who created the story board for the film The Sixth Sense. Looking at this video improved my understanding of how the story board will help me and my group if we have done our story board well. Things which I have learnt after the video is..
After looking and reviewing your story board you can see mistakes you have made
How the director needs to tell the story
Allows you to think ahead
Overall, I think today's lesson has been successful as I have fully understood why story boarding will help me and my group when it comes to creating our final piece. I think that when I come to make my story board I will understand the amount of detail and effort I need to put in to save things going wrong when filming my opening sequence. I can now start thinking about how my story board may look like and see if what I am creating is effective.
At first, I was confused about this term as I did not fully understand what art was into a title sequence. I then did some research and found out how important it was..
I started off by looking at Six Feet Under, a film that was made into 2001. I watched the title sequence once before I looked at any information about how the title sequence was made. From my point of view, overall the title sequence was very interesting and extraordinary. I did not fully understand what was going on throughout, however I have learned that isn't much of a problem as you should not include too much of the story line in the sequence as it is only the first two minutes.
What did I notice?
The single clips lasted quite a long time to show the significance of each of the parts. This made the editing quite slow and steady at first. Furthermore, as the title sequence got to 1 minute the pace of the editing increased. The transitions helped make the title run smoothly as they faded in and out lasting around 2-3 seconds. This gives my group something to think about, are we going to include any transitions? if so, where are going to put them?. The font which has been used is sans serif, bold and stands out to the viewer. Me and my group have already spoke about the color of the text as from our previous knowledge on title sequences we have noticed that the color white is frequently used and stands out to the audience. I also think using sans serif font will be effective too as again, it is bolder.
Storyboard?
Before we go ahead and start filming, of course we need to make a detailed storyboard on what our title sequence is actually going to look like. To get a more advanced understanding of how the storyboard impacts the real piece I looked at a the designer of Six Feet Under's story board. This is the storyboard and the real piece..
As you can see, not everything from the storyboard was included and there are more stuff added. This tells me that even though I need to make a detailed plan, there is always going to be change throughout.
I then went onto looking at the graphic designer who made this title sequence in more detail..
"Well, I was taught that design is a type of visual communication and storytelling where a single image needs to say something profound immediately, in the simplest form possible. To exercise this type of restraint without being boring is a challenge, but I learned to differentiate smart design from cheap communication — trends that lack substance. And that was my goal for this piece. It’s about death but it doesn’t need to be gross or spooky or horror-driven. Those things have their place but I thought it was more about the bigger picture — that there is a life after death and it is not ugly or morbid but beautiful."
From reading this summary of how the designer moved their idea forward I notice how just because we are making a Thriller it doesn't again, need to much of a story line as it is only the beginning of the film and there is not a lot you can display as a designer in 2 minutes. The designer also went onto saying what type of typography he found interesting and exclusive. Looking into typography is important to me and my group as we need to think carefully into what text we are going to be using throughout the title sequence. I then went onto looking at typography work.. David Carson is an American graphic designer. He is best known for his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography. He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun. Even though we are making a title sequence and not a magazine I thought some of his work may influence and inspire us to create the same kind of effect on the text. When looking at his work I noticed that he created quite a horror effect which will help us as we're going down the physocial route. The editing also reinforces the horror as it is over powered and dominated by words and complication. Examples:
After looking at these examples, I thought it may be a good idea to go back to looking at another title sequence but one that was made on a computer and had no actual people in it. The next one I looked at was a film called 'Catch Me If You Can', a Drama Thriller made in 2002. Even though our Thriller isn't going to be based on drama, it would be good to see how the theme is frequently being reinforced in the opening sequence.
As you can see, the editing of the title sequence is at a very fast pace. This gives me and my group a more advanced insight on what the effect of fast editing actually has on a title sequence. It helps build the tension and suspense in the title sequence. In most of our piece we want to build up the tension by using editing as our main tool and by looking at this title sequence it is clear that the effect can be made with editing. Also, how the text appears on the screen is very interesting as it is unusual. Even though we want our text to be very different to this, it helps us view how varied text can be but still the text is used to create the same impact on any kind of thriller title sequence.
Overall, I feel that I have built on my knowledge and understanding of what the art of title sequences actually is. I did not know that the text has such a big impact on the title sequence. This is something we MUST think about within the group as we need to make sure we are following the basic codes and conventions of the art of a thriller title sequence. Looking at someones personal work and how they developed their ideas into making a successful title sequence has also helped me as I can see all their adjustments and changes they needed to make which shows me that it is okay to change and adjust just as long as it is helping the title sequence. I still think I have more to learn before I start making and adding in any kind of art and effects to my title sequence as I need to make sure everything I include is relevant.
How are we going to make our piece look like a Bollywood film? From analysing a few Bollywood thrillers, it normally conveys the religion and culture through the use of costume and props. This means we will have to make sure our female protagonist is wearing an Indian type dress so that our final piece is effective. However, because it is a thriller we would rather her dress be dark colors helping create a tone and atmosphere in the scene. This means we will have to find an indian style dress in a reasonably dark color. The props is also something we need to consider and think about but the ideas which we have thought about is using certain objects to show the culture. Editing? In our 2 minute opening sequence we wanted to do a lot of close ups of the protagonist and the props. However, the editing was our main fear as there would be so many different shots. To pull it off we have decided to look at the opening sequence of Se7en. As you can see below, there is fast editing of extreme close ups of images, articles, words. This is similar to our idea as we are hoping to create the same effect as this just over a shorter amount of time. To overcome this problem, we will need to think carefully about each shot, the position angle, close up and see if it is or is not effective as we do not want to make this part of the sequence not up to excellent standards. We also need to make sure the images build up tension, along with the music as we need to follow the basic conventions of a thriller. Apart from these problems I think everything we have come up with is realistic and will help make our final piece effective. Even though we are open to changing and developing our idea we still are content with what we already have come up with.
This is a bullet point list of the narrative for our final piece:
Opens with an establishing long shot of the female protagonist, centralised in the frame. Setting - in a dark room, low key lighting.
Close up of her pouring the drink, body language should show signs of anxiety distress
Tilt up from her hands to an extreme close up of her eyes
Cut to white background and a non diagetic sound effect to establish a flashback
In the flash back the audience see's a point of view shot of the protagonist when she was told by a teacher her brother had gone missing. Approximately, this should last up to 3-5 seconds.
The whispering of the word "missing" is then repeated when the audience views a close up of the protagonist back in the room.
Titles will start to appear in different corners of the frame.
The non diagetic sound will start to play other the top of this.
The protagonist starts to act distressed and agitated this is shown through the close ups of her fidgeting with her hair and scratching her head.
The atmosphere in the room builds as she starts to go through old papers and articles of her brothers disappearance.
The pace of the editing will increase through a series of close ups and extreme close ups of the props and the protagonist. She will be circling, underlining and ripping parts of old photos, newspaper and articles.This should last around 35-50 seconds.
The title then will appear on the screen. The sound would have built up throughout the scene until a loud noticeable note. This should last for around 3 seconds.
The male antagonist will be firstly introduced with a medium shot of him stood infront of a mirror, doing up his tie. (Attempting to look "normal").
He will then turn towards and walk out of the front door picking up a brief case and shouting (positively) "Bye!" - 7-10 seconds.
Will then cut to an extreme long shot, of him leaving the house to establish the difference in location. Lighting should be brighter to help the scenes contrast the previous scene.
Me and my group decided that it would be a good idea to make a small survey so that we could ask our target audience about Bollywood thrillers and see if there's anything important we need to make sure we include or things that we shouldn't include. However, from making this survey and looking at the results it is clear that making a Bollywood thriller is good as our target audience are reasonably keen on Bollywood inspired films. We made sure that we got 50 responses at the least as we wanted to have accurate results.
The questions we asked our target audience were all relevant to the idea that we have in mind. The first question we asked was "Would you be interested in watching a Bollywood style thriller?" The reason we asked this question was because we wanted to know if people were interested in watching Bollywood films/Bollywood thrillers. It makes us as group more confident with doing the idea of Bollywood as 61% of the audience said that they would watch a Bollywood thriller, it helps us as a group because we now know that the majority of the audience would enjoy watching the thriller that we are preparing to make.
The next question we asked was: "Have you seen any Bollywood inspired films? (b) If yes, please name the film" The reason why we asked this question is because we wanted to know how popular Bollywood was and to see if the audience have seen any Bollywood films. The most popular film which the audience gave as an example was Slumdog Millionaire. Even though this isn't a thriller it would still be handy to look at how the director pulled off the Bollywood features throughout and within the film.
Carrying on from our last question we then asked "Do you think that typical Bollywood aspects such as music help make a film authentic?" - The reason why we decided to ask this question is because we wanted to see if we needed to include a lot of Bollywood aspects to help make the film realistic. As 71% said that it helps make the film look authentic it shows us that as a group we need to make sure there are several aspects of Bollywood to help make the opening sequence appear like a Bollywood film.
We then wanted to find out things which they would expect to see in a Bollywood film. We asked this question we need to know what we need to include and what we shouldn't include. The question we asked was "What would you expect to see in a Bollywood thriller?" - We gave examples of what the audience may think to help them out. The most popular answer was religion. This tells us we may need to look into the religion and try and include the religion in ways such as the mise-en-scene and props. The second most popular answer was romance. Even though our story line does not consist of any romance, it means we are going against the usual stereotype of a Bollywood film which will make it interesting for the audience.
Before this point we were still unsure of what key theme to choose. Obsession? Romance? These were two themes which we found it hard to choose between. However, we did then decide on Obsession but if the survey told us differently we would have reconsidered the theme and could have changed it. The question we asked was "What key themes would you enjoy to see in a Bollywood thriller?"Obsession overall got 68% of the vote which made us more happy with doing that theme because we now know what the audience would like to see. Overall, this survey has helped me and my group an extreme amount as it has shown us what we should include more of such as religion through the use of costume and props, even dialogue. It has also shown us what films we should look at and try to be inspired from which may help us in our coursework piece. I think me and my group have done well with thinking up and making this survey as we have gathered all the answers we needed.
