News Report

"Earlier today it was reported that Keith Roberts, recently convicted of murdering Sarah Walsh in his north London home, has escaped while being transferred from Coldingley prison in Surrey to Castington in Northumberland. He was last sighted boarding a train heading for London on the 16^th of March. If you think you have any information regarding Roberts’ whereabouts call the London crime stoppers hotline on 0800 555….."
We decided to use a news report instead of music because it meant that we were able to subliminally add messages into the opening sequence in a short amount of time. Although the audience doesn't know anyway in which the criminal and the girl in our sequence are linked, the enigma caused by his mention suggests that she is in danger.

I've put the news report on my individual blog because I wrote it and recorded it with our voice actor.

Final Idea

This is our final idea. We decided to change our original final idea because our group was finding it hard to stay within the genre conventions, and make the footage seem realistic enough.

The full film synopsis:

The film begins with the sudden kidnap of one of our main characters, Dannie, who was at home alone waiting for her boyfriend, Josh. 

Josh's dad recently died in a tragic car accident, meaning that Josh inherited his wealthy fortune. What Josh doesn't know is that the money was won out of a corrupt business deal between his dad's company and a rival firm in Italy. The owners of the rival firm actually murdered Josh's dad, and are hunting Josh down in order to reclaim the money. They help an old business partner out of prison and send him to kidnap Dannie: a trap to lure Josh.

Josh searches for Dannie with the help of Dannie's best friend Charlotte, and they eventually find her after a difficult search. However, after a brutal fight when they try to escape unharmed, Josh is killed. The girls manage to get away unscathed, however the baddies have won back their money.

We feel that writing an opening sequence for this type of film will be more realistically done than our previous idea. I didn't regret that we did that initial footage, because we gain invaluable knowledge about filming outside and experimenting with the manual focus. 

Film Proposal

SYNOPSIS OF FILM

The story focuses on a 16 year old schoolgirl, who appears to be innocent and composed. However, she once accidently killed someone after having an argument with them, and after realising that she enjoys murdering people, now kills anyone who annoys her. She hides her psycho killer personality under her innocent school girl appearance. The opening scene to our film is a flash-forward, and ends with the text ‘two years earlier’ on the screen at the end of the sequence. We then go back in time to when the girl first began killing, and as the film goes on she murders more and more people. The film ends when she frames another girl for the murders. She leaves free, ready for her next conquest.

GENRE AND THEMES

The genre of our film is chick-flick horror, which will appeal to a wide audience.
Everyone in our group enjoys chick flicks and horrors. As a genre hybrid, it is very original; however there are similar films that we can draw from.

Our film will be horror based, and will feature almost all conventions of a horror film, verging on parody to audiences familiar with the genre. However, for people who do not know much about horror films, it will seem quite gruesome. We will also include references to other films of the genre, to develop the element of parody further.

Our idea has been accepted by the media teachers, so we will start to plan our storyboard now.

Creating Effective Suspense

How to create suspense and make an effective opening sequence using Hithcock as an inspiration.

Written text is a prominent narrative device used to pull Hitchcock’s viewers into the story openings through captions on the screen, signs on buildings, and newspaper hea dlines.

Movement of the camera through geographic space is one way that Hitchcock signals to the viewer that a new story is being uncovered.

Probably the most obvious example of a bright opening is in Trouble With Harry (1955), showing beautiful autumn scenery of orange leaves, rolling Vermont hills, and a church. Then an innocent child skips along and stumbles onto a dead body lying on green grass.

a majority of his suspense films opened in the bright daylight accompanied by playful music.

In the early part of Hitchcock’s career he wrote about the need for shifts in tone throughout a film, and that a comic opening is essential to suspense.

If we decided to use the thriller genre, this information would be useful to refer to. 

Websites on Genre

http://boxofficemojo.com/genres/
http://www.imdb.com/stats
http://financialedge.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0410/Movie-Genres-With-The-Best-ROI.aspx
http://therightcombinationbusiness.com/statistics.php

Evaluating the popularity of our chosen genre; Thriller.
In preparation for our final idea, we decided to look on some websites to see what genres were the most popular. The thriller/horror genre was definitely a popular choice. The third link describes it as being in the top 6 genres for ROI, with Paranormal Activity drawing in the most profit. From this research, we have decided that this genre will be a suitable one to make an opening sequence on.