Animatic

Today we have been editing together our storyboard to produce our animatic. Dan has been working on the soundtrack to make it longer and added some computerised sounds in. It will need to be even longer for when it comes to our actual opening but it saves us a lot of time as we already have the basic sound track. Jon has been editing together the actual animatic in final cut. We then moved over the soundtrack into the animatic and rendered it together. Rob has been helping Dan over the 30 minutes that he has been in the lesson (He was late today).

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Jon, Rob, Dan

Team Meeting

Today we were uploading our storyboard pictures to the computer. Next lesson we should have the story board up.

Dan has also created a nice opening music sequence. This will probably be used for our opening sequence.

Whilst Jon was adding to the storyboard. Robert was listening to static CDs with sounds and effects on for extra addition to the opening music sequence.

Team Meeting - 24/11/08

Today we have explored various videos that have many ideas and what we would like for our thriller.

We also spent some time exploring some fonts from dafont.com to be used. One known as 'hybrid' took our attention and may be used as font in our opening sequence.

But as for our storyboard. So far we have come up with how the titles would appear to the audience. For example we have come up with the idea to use an Ipod, a Mobile Phone and also a computer monitor to show titles. Using technology equipment is related to our movie concept so this would suggest to the audience that it has something to do with technology.

We explored the opening sequence of 'The enemy of the state' starring Will Smith. Below is a full analysis of microelements within the opening regarding Editing.

~ Rob


Notes:

Panic room- sound

Panic room begins with sequence of birds eye view of New York. The soundtrack begins before the actual sequence, however the deep sounds of the orchestral instruments begins when the first credits appear. The sound is non-diegetic (the soundtrack) and diegetic (sound of cars and sirens). The diegetic sound gives us a sense of the atmosphere in the busy city. 

After the title of the film appears the music speeds up, building tension, the diegetic sound of the cars also gets louder again giving you a sense of the atmosphere in the stressful city. The non-diegetic sound then slows down again towards the beginning of the diegetic sound of the two characters speaking. This calms the scene down again as the beginning of the film is not action packed. 

Enemy of the State (Opening Sequence)

For Full clip of what I analysed click here (embedding disabled)

The Title sequence that I looked at was Enemy of the State.

Enemy of the state was released in 1998 and was directed by Tony Scott.
It stars Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight and many more.

Starts off by talking about a law which allows American government officials to spy on whoever they want to so that they can supposedly "increase security". The title sequence appears and shows the audience the law being put into action or getting ready for it.

I was initially looking at editing (my area to specifically look at) but I also took some notes on the other micro-elements like the Sound, Camerawork and Mise-en-scene.

As the film starts we have the beginning titles of the companies who helped make the film. during this we hear tense music which immediately lets the audience know that there is something wrong because of the beats and drone of the music. It also produces a sad atmosphere.

Then the film moves on to show the beginning credits in a computerised font style with strange letters. The references that the film will be about computers and codes. The words fade in and out a well as the sound.

The scene then fades to an early morning or late evening scene at a lake. We see a typewriter style text appear on the screen. The shot used is a long shot showing two cars, one parking up and a man on a bench. This shot makes the audience feel like they are spying on the characters in this scene. This is another reference to the rest of the film and the main theme of it. Also the typewriter effect produces shows that the film will be about computers and technology. This effect is similar to the Borne films. The editing through this first half of the title sequence is continuity because it creates match on action shots and conversation shots. The match on action is where the man opens the door for his dog and the camera cuts to a more zoomed in location so that we can see the dog better. The conversation shots are between the two older male characters who we later find out to be a congressman and a high government official in favour of the surveillance program. The cuts keep switching between close-ups of the characters, midshots of the two of them and long shots as if someone else is watching them. This creates a tenser atmosphere because of the fact that someone is spying on them and also it references the main theme of the film. We also get slightly shorter shot durations as the government official gets angrier at the congressman and grabs his coat.

Once the official says 'if we can't find a common...' solemn music is played which immediately tells the audience that something is wrong. Then we see the congressman walk back to his car and we also see a security officer (one of the other two men) following him. The music gets louder and the audience can almost guess that something is going to happen. This references the film by showing that lots of tension is going to be used. We then have severely reduced shot duration and many different angled shots as the security officer moves towards the congressman and kills him with an injection. The music builds up for this part and then quietens almost instantly as the shot durations increases again. We then see many different shots all match on action as the security officer sets up the death to look like the congressman had a heart attack. The car then rolls into the lake/river.

The film the bursts into the title sequence which has tense music with lots of jumpy beats in it. The film has now gone from continuity editing to non-continuity editing as the audience can tell that there has been a cut because it tends to cut to the same piece of footage again and again. We also see the title of the film in the same coded style text as the beginning of the film. After an aerial view like a helicopter view of a famous Washington dc landmark we see a spiralling view of a street. This makes the audience dizzy and disorientated which is a similar technique to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. We also here computerised sounds over the music which again gives us the reference to the film being about computers. Also the shots are birds-eye views of streets which makes another reference to the fact of a surveillance law as it looks like a satellite. The film then switches to many different overlays on the scene like tracer icons of crosshairs, etc when looking at vehicles and people to coloured shots of surveillance equipment like CCTV cameras. All this makes the audience believe that a surveillance law is in place and that the government are spying on everyone. The music and pace quicken and get louder as the film changes to CCTV footage of crime and disorder. This then can be read as an attempt to make excuses for the surveillance program. The footage is grainy which makes the audience feel like they are spying in on somewhere where they shouldn't be. The music changers to slower, less tense music that is more like war memorial style music. This could be read as a death of freedom and references the main theme of the film.

The final shots have the music completely silence and just static pictures like a TV trying to tune itself in. This makes the audience disorientated once more before going into the main film

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Jon

Team Meeting - 19/11/08

Today we watched a sequence from the horror Switchblade Romance directed by Alexandre Aja produced in 2005. We watched a sequence about 25 mins into the film which has conventional thriller techniques. This includes the Sound, Editing, Mise-En-Scene and Camerawork.

From this we can see many features that we like to include in our thriller opening.

The non-diegetic sound track of the sequence includes tense thudding which we can relate to being a heartbeat and high pitched sounds which are uncomfortable to listen to. The heartbeats create an atmosphere that we feel uneasy in and makes us feel that the woman character is panicking and feeling scared due to the tempo of the beats. Also the high pitched sounds are uncomfortable and the audience know that there is an off balance in the scene.

We also hear heavy fast breathing from the woman indicating desperation and slow deep breathing from the killer showing he is calm and searching for the woman. This makes the audience feel uneasy and makes them aware something is wrong.

The high pitched sounds that were used made the audience very uncomfortable. It made them feel the suspense and tension created within the scene. Plus, because high pitched voices are very uncomfortable to listen to as a audience.


There is not a lot of editing used within the scene, but the use of editing such as how the cuts are used create tension in itself. The cuts at the start of the scene were going at a fast tempo during screaming going on probably down stairs. It then got very slow during when a man opens the door slowly when entering. With longer duration for clips it creates suspense.

Also there was a use of parallel editing. This is when two storys are going on at the same rate of time. The man trying to find the young woman whilst the other story was the women trying to hide from the man.


The lighting and other components of mise en scene also relate to the tension in the sence. Dark lighting is used to make it unclear and dull. It creates a tense atmosphere. The slasher has grubby bloody hands showing his impurity. The size of the rooms also creates tension as they are so small creating a sense of costaphobia.


Rob, John and Dan

Panic Room [CameraWork]

Overview: Extreme Long Shot of a city, still cameras are used with various tilts also panning is used.

The thriller opening of 'Panic Room' has minimal camerawork. But because it uses a minimal use of camerawork it creates an unerving feel of tension whilst giving a nice proffessional piece of camerawork done.

Extreme Long Shot's of a city is used at the start to reveal to the audience the location of where probably certain scenes will be taking place. Most of the camerawork is tilts, the use of tilts to show you the text displaying the creators of the film and those in it. Plus with the use of pans viewing towards the population of this city walking about.

A minimal use of Camerawork but gives off a proffessional feel because of the lack of it.

~ Rob

Initial Ideas

Our Initial idea for a film was based on the idea of a hacker. This hacker would stalk people in a modern day stalker style thriller film, not through conventional stalker methods e.g. following, looking at the protagonist (Victim). Our Hacker would use modern day technology such as Mobile phones, computers, etc.

Our antagonist (the hacker) would not be seen at all during the opening sequence, but by using silhouettes of him and close ups of parts of him e.g. hands and fingers on the keyboard.

Our protagonist (the victim) will be shown doing many everyday tasks with phones and laptops to show that she is completely unaware of being a victim.

Another idea is that we had was the title of our movie. It would be called 'bug' this being framed on the computer word known as bug and of course as the word bug originates for a insect in cases which also some people don't like bugs and like bugs bug you and like you wanna get them off you.

Jon, Dan, Rob