Wednesday, 31 December 2014

Location Scouting

Location 1

This is the first location I have decided on for my title sequence. A bedroom that has the potential to be posh and spotless. In order to increase verisimilitude, I need to take down any family orientated objects such as the photo canvases and children's handmade cards, as my character is not someone who is in contact with their family, never mind having pictures of beloved family members plastered all over the walls.
I will also be cleaning, tidying and polishing the whole room to make sure it looks spotless as my character is very obsessed with materialistic ideas and is quite the perfectionist. I think this will contrast well with the fact that he has dead people and human parts lying casually around the place and create the black comedy element that I hope for.



 Connected to this room is an en suite, which is typical of my character.The decor is plain and grey/white which creates a controlled and dull atmosphere. Again, the element of black comedy should shine through due to that fact that the atmosphere is not dull at all, as there is in fact dead corpses in the most inconvenient of places.



I got inspiration from the protagonists apartment in American Psycho:




Tuesday, 30 December 2014

Moodboard No.2

Back to the mood boards!

Black Comedy Board:

https://www.pinterest.com/09c7stel/black-comedy/

I compiled a few images of screen grabs from black comedies such as American Psycho, Fight Club and Trainspotting. 

This again is just a starting point for my ideas and is displays some of the initial themes I would like to include in my film.  

Call Sheets


Saturday, 27 December 2014

Mood Board No.1

This is the first of many mood boards that I will be creating in order to get a creative outlook on the genres I have chosen and the themes within them.

This one I made on Pinterest, called Thriller Films.
It is a basic starter mood board to get a generalised look at the thriller genre.

Take a look at it here:
https://www.pinterest.com/09c7stel/thriller-films/

Friday, 26 December 2014

Music

I have been contemplating over a few different sound clips and I am yet to find one/ decide on one that is perfect for my title sequence.
I am sure that I am going to use classical music, whether it be Opera or just instrumental.
This means that the music will be contrapuntal to the situation which will make the audience feel uncomfortable and disorientated as this is the effect I am hoping for.

Here are some of the songs I have looked at:

Mozart Symphony no.40                                                                              


Luciano Pavarotti - 'O Sole Mio



Mozart - Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.4 in G major, K41 - II. Andante

Wednesday, 24 December 2014

Title Sequence Outline

Here I will run through the different stages in my title sequence:


The sequence will begin with a shot of a window, which pans slowly to reveal the main protagonist sleeping in bed very neatly, wearing a sleeping mask. An alarm will then go off which causes him to awaken and sit up on the edge of the bed. He will then walk off shot to the left. Then, a shot of him looking out of the same window from the beginning, he will be placed in the left hand corner, he then walks off to the left.
Now, a shot of him walking to the en suite and turning left to the sink. The next shot will be an action match of him turning left. H will then look into the mirror infront of him and admire his face. This reveals his obnoxious attitude. He then reaches for the toothbrush, the camera cuts to a close up of the tooth brush pot to show a bloodied knife in there too, he is then shown the take the toothbrush. Then, a close up of his face, casually brushing his teeth as if he did not just see a bloodied knife in a odd place. This gives the audience the first hint to his psychotic nature. Then, the camera will move to a medium shot of him brushing his teeth. It will then pan around to the right to reveal a dead body hanging out of the shower. The camera then cuts back ti his face, where he will splash his face with water as if to wash it. In the same shot he will then turn around to walk to get a towel to dry his face. The towel will be situated next to the dead body where he will walk past it as if it was not there. He picks up the towel and dries his face, Then an action match shot of him putting down the towel from a long shot. He then walks towards the camera and off to the left.
Now he opens his walk-in wardrobe door and a bloodied arm flops out onto the floor infront of him. He dismisses this, walks over it and into the wardrobe. Then a medium shof of him choosing a shirt and suit from a rack of many, The costume here will reveal his status and wealth. Then the camera moves to a low shot of his legs where the audience can see the dead woman whose arm had fell out of the door. The character will drop his bedclothes onto the body as if it was not there. A over the shoulder shot of him putting on his shirt and blazer. The camera moves further over his shoulder to reveal another dead woman in his wardrobe. He then picks up his wallet and and mobile phone and walks of the shot to the left. Then a long shot of him coming out of the wardrobe shows him walking to the cupboard on the wall. The camera cuts to an over the shoulder shot of him choosing an aftershave. Among the bottles, there is a bloodied tool (saw, scalpel etc), he disregards this. H e closes the door, looks in the mirror, checks his hair and walks off to the right.
He is shown to be walking out of the bathroom via a long shot, he picks up his coat from the right of him and puts it on. The camera moves closer with a low medium shot of him picking up a briefcase, where another dead woman is shown. He walks off shot to the top left.
He walks down the stairs(there may be another dead woman in this shot but I haven't decided), enters the kitchen and goes to the fridge.  medium shot of him opening the fridge doors, picking out some juice which is kept next to a severed human body part. A shot of him pouring the juice into a glass is shown. I intend to find a juice that is red which will resemble blood. This will signify his love and need for murdering. I will sue shot reverse shot here as a close up shot of him drinking the juice shown which then cuts back to the previous shot where he puts the glass down and walks of to the right. A long shot of him walking towards the camera out of the kitchen is shown. Then a shot of him walking to his front door where he unlocks it, steps outside and goes to lock it from the outside. I will then use action match to show a close up shot of him locking the door from the outside, where he will then walk of to the right. Then the screen goes BLACK.

I have not decided where to put each of the titles yet, or the title of the film.

I will be uploading my storyboard shortly!

Tuesday, 23 December 2014

Outline of My Film

I have created a prezzi presntation outlining the plot, title, title sequence, actors and next steps.

http://prezi.com/orydcovl0nro/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Saturday, 20 December 2014

Genre

Within the Thriller genre, it is evident that the social group that is represented is young males who are troubled with psychological instability and/or murderous tendencies.
All of the films that I have analysed have a plot that is based almost completely around a singular male. It represents them to be chaotic and immoral (excluding Edward Scissorhands)
From this, in my project I am going to include a young male protagonist who enjoys murder and experimentation. 
In Fight Club and American Psycho, the protagonists are materialistic and corporate. They both live a consumer lifestyle, and work at office-based jobs. In Fight Club, the narrator is shown to be obsessed with collecting furniture from IKEA, this is mocked by another character. In American Psycho, the protagonist (Patrick Bateman) is shown the be obsessed with self improvement and comes across as a perfectionist. Despite this, they are then portrayed as mentally unstable, and this provides the main narrative of the film. I want to adopt this idea for my own character in my project.
Regarding all of he films I have analysed (except ES), they all use the theme of murder. This again is something I want to adopt into my own work as I feel I will be able to represent this idea effectively.

American Psycho is considered a black comedy, which is a film that contains a lot of morbid and dark humor. I plan to use this particular sub-genre for my project as it brings the element of a thriller, yet really emphasizes the sick, sadistic nature of the psychological element.

Friday, 19 December 2014

Overview and Institutions

Overview

After completing my analyses, I can see that there is no clear template/style for me to work from. The title sequences do not follow an obvious pattern or stick to the common conventions. This could be due to the fact that one of the title sequences I analysed, Edward Scissorhands, was not a thriller and more a fantasy family film. However the title sequences of the thriller films I analysed do not follow the typical template either. Donnie Darko does not have any title credits, Edward Scissorhands title sequence includes the title of the film before the actors, Seven uses many shots where as Donnie Darko and Dorian Gray use very little, Edward Scissorhands uses a range of different camera angles and shots whereas Seven only uses extreme close up shots.
This means that I have a range of ideas to choose from when planning my own project.
There are however some elements of each of the title sequences that are common through them all. For example they all use incidental music, which creates the dramatic atmosphere and tone to suit the sub-genre of the film. Most of them include the protagonist of the film within the title sequence which reveals the fact that it will be following the life of this character rather intensely.
All of the films I have chosen use Auteur directors, which are actors who have a very distinctive style of directing. For example Tim Burton has a very outlandish directing style and David Fincher uses his title sequences to create a deep insight into the film.

Institutions

There is no obvious institution that stands out in the films I have analysed. The only institution that has appeared more than once is 20th Century Fox. Despite this being the most popular one, I plan to use Lions Gate films as the producer-distributor for my own project. This is because American Psycho was distributed by this company, and my idea that I have come up with is quite similar to that of American Psycho,



Lions Gate is a Canadian-american entertainment company. They distribute/produce films such as The Twilight Saga and The Hunger Games.
American Psycho (2000) was actually their first major box office success. They then began to produce more controversial films as a result, films that other companies considered to controversial. This is the main reason that I am choosing to use them for my own project. My film will contain troubling and morbid ideas and therefore I should use a institution that is known to be more daring and individual.


Saturday, 13 December 2014

An Analysis of Donnie Darko's Title Sequence

Here is the link to the title sequence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ7Fz3m485s


                            Donnie Darko Title Sequence Analysis from elleahmedia

Thursday, 4 December 2014

Researching Title Sequence Convetions

I have started to research into the conventions of a title sequence and begun putting together a power point which also includes examples.

Wednesday, 3 December 2014

A New Beginning

Hello again!

The time has come for me to start thinking about my final video. Our task is to produce a title sequence to a new film. I need to think about what genre I want my film to be, the conventions of title sequences, existing media institutions (e.g. Lionsgate), the audience I will be aiming it at and the social stereotype that I will represent.

To do so I need to look at some existing title sequences so I have to decided to look at the following:

Donnie Darko


American Psycho


Trainspotting


Dorian Gray


Edward Scissorhands


Fight Club

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/fight-club/











Se7en


These are some of my favourite films and I am very excited to start analysing them.
I already have a couple of ideas of what I would like my project to be based around.
It wont be long until I start finalising initial ideas and begin planning!