Pitch Sheet for Oblivious

Pitch Sheet

Ideas (and Feedback)

Today I discussed my groups idea of a montage for an opening sequence of our film which we will call Oblivious to my cousin. The montage needs to set the tone for the film so we want it to show fun and happiness at first but the sadness and envy towards the end of the montage. We have a limited space to show these two contrasting emotions as we are also going to have some filming.
I also told my cousin of how we are going to use the a home video to split up the two emotions of our opening sequence.
My cousin liked our ideas and also really liekd the fact of using a home video, however as we don't know what images we are going to use for our montage he said we should concentrate on getting those images as he believes that the contrast that the images show will have a huge effect on the audience.
Our film is going well so far and we are recieveing good feedback that we can hopefully use to make our opening sequence better.

Memento Intro 2000 (Directed by Christopher Nolan)

This is the introduction to the film memento. It is a very unusual opening sequence as we are watching what seems to be the occurrence of the film but it is going backwards. This creates a sort of flashback sequence which confuses the audience a little which I think has been deliberately done to confuse the audience. This idea would be useful if my group decide to do a crime film as we will be able to play the crime backwards which leads to uncertainty and confusion about what is happening in the film with the audience and creates suspense which will make the audience want to watch more.

Ideas and Feedback

Our film is a phycological thriller about a teenaged boy losing his best friend, but the teenaged boy sees the ghost of his friend that has passed away and the ghost is everywhere he goes.We as a group have finalised that we will be shooting our film in different locations. One will be at the Wandsworth Train Station. Another will be in Streatham cemetery. So far we have written some screenplay for these to parts of our film which will be at the end of our film.
The feedback we received from these options is that they were quite good places to film as the 2 scenes help with the tone of the film.


The first part of our film will be a montage of images and old newspaper articles. We also like to include a home video which we will have to make and put into the film.
The feedback we received about this idea is that the newspapers may take some time to make look very professional and realistic so we may have to start on them straight away. Also, our teacher told us that we need to make sure the audience can distinguish between he home video and our actual footage. He proposed we use a cheap phone camera as it will easily show on the film that the quality of the phone is different to our actual camera and so will show a more of a home video effect.

Screenplay draft

This a draft screenplay of the second part of our opening sequence to our film Oblivious.

In this part of the film, the main character called Dhylan is at a cemetary mourning over the lost of his dear friend callde Tyler. From there Dhylan goes to the train station and here we introduce the ghost of Tyler. Dhylan will notice Tyler on the other platform, but Dhylan doesn't believes it's Tyler, we will then use a train to make Tyler dissapear. This should create suspense and help make our opening sequence interesting and make people ask questions about our film.

Law Abiding Citizen 2009 (Directed by F. Gary Gray)

Today I watched the film Law Abiding Citizen and the film struck me straight away. I was struck by the opening scene of the film and also the remainder of the film but the opening sequence struck me more. In the opening sequence of the film, we are introduced to a family off 3. The father of the family is Gerard Butler's character Clyde Shelton and he and his daughter in the film are making a wrist band. Then the audience hear a diegetic sound of constant knocking on the door and Clyde's wife asks him to get that. As soon he opens the door we are put at a point of view shot and a bat is smacked on Clyde's face. The point of view shot is from the perspective of the robbers which makes this frame more intense as it seems as if we as the audience have hit Clyde with a baseball bat. The scene continues and Clyde and his wife get tied up. The robbers then make Clyde watch as they horrifically kill his wife and child and then leave him to lie there. The tying up I think is done by F. Gary Gray to emphasise the fact that Clyde has been left so helpless that all he can do is watch as the robbers kill his wife and child. This dramatic opening sequence could be used in our opening sequence for a crime film again.


Not only did I like the opening sequence of the film, but I also liked the remainder of the film. The part after the opening sequence is the court hearing of this case which involves Clyde. It is hear when we see a bad side to Clyde. We see that the robber doesn't get a sentence and he shakes hands with a lawyer who is played by Jamie Foxx who is called Nick Rice. After the hand shake, we are put in a point of view shot in the perspective of Nick Rice who sees Clyde in the background almost in tears. This is a very emotional part of the film as the audience will feel sorry for Clyde as he has been betrayed by a man who he just asked to help him. This is the turning point of the film and a transition is introduced here.


The transition fades to black and then it reappears 10 years later. This is the part of the film that I enjoy because from this point onwards Clyde has planned ways to kill everyone who has power over the law and who didn't help him in his case over the 10 year transition which we don't see. This film is thrilling and exciting and I would urge everyone to watch it.

Development of Ideas and Feedback

In our groups we brained stormed and finalised our ideas for our opening sequences. In our group, we decided to have a montage of happy images of the two friends hanging around. This was to be then followed by one of our main characters going to the cemetery to put flowers on the grave. We developed the idea of the flower and said we would like to use a Black rose and if we can't find a Black rose then any Black flower will do. We decided this because black symbolises death and so the prop will have a meaning to our film. Also we are going to have a scene at the train station where our character will see his friends ghost. We decided to do this because we can easily make the ghost disappear by a train going by and also to show the audience that the film is going to be a Psychological thriller.

Feedback we received was mainly about why are we going to include one of our characters just putting flowers on the death bed of the dead character. We were asked to maybe introduce a plot or something during this period to make the opening sequence more mysterious and tense.

Ideas

For our opening sequences we could do a parallel edit. To do this we need to people who have different lives or two seperate things happening at the same time but them both come to a climax where the parallei edit finishes. This is a good idea if we had two totally different people who live two different lives meeting for the first time and creating something new. We can't put this sort of edit into our current idea but this sort of filming could be used in another idea if we were to do so.

George of the Jungle

Today, on TV, George of the Jungle was showing. It had been a while since I last watched George of the Jungle so the film was sort of new to me. When I started watching it, I wondered why I liked the film. Other than the slogan 'Watch out for that tree', the plot or storyline of the film wasn't worth watching. However I did like the idea of the narrator in the film. It made this film unique and different and that is something my groups opening sequence needs to be. If we can make an interesting opening sequence with good use of a narrative role for our opening sequence. People may like the film. Although this idea does have it's downfall as it could be seen to be too childish, but it's only an idea.

Thor 2011 (Directed by Kenneth Branagh)

During the opening sequence of Thor, the first thing we see as an audience is the black night sky. This shot indicates the time of day to the audience which is needed to be done so the film isn't made confusing. The camera then pans down to a vechile in the what seems to be a dessert. It is the only vechile that the sudience can see so we can also say the director Kenneth Branagh has purposly done this to create a sense of isolation or loneliness. We are then introduced to some characters, usually when we meet characters in the begging of a film, they are the main characters and so the people we meet at the begginning of Thor are main characters to the film. After meeting the main characters, a strange mist appears in the background and the main characters go check it out. This creates suspense and tension as the sudience don't know what they are going to see. The are in a van and then they suddenly hit someone. This part of the film is very important as this is the point when questions start running through the audiences mind like who is the person they have just hit? Why did he come out of the mist? These questions are what make this opening sequence interesting and so if my grouo could replicate this sort of scenario into our opening sequence, then I think we will have a good opening sequence.

Preliminary Task Video

This is the video that we did in our group for our preliminary task. This video shows that we have mastered the 180 degree rule and the rule of continuity. There is also a shot reverse shot in the short video that we needed to show for our preliminary task.

Things to consider for my opening sequence

For my opening sequence to stand out, I must do something that looks like a real film rather than producing a film that looks like a piece of A-Level coursework. By doing some background research on what critics like to see in films and notes from my teacher, there are certain things that make a film look good. My teacher has given me a list of things that my group should consider to put in our films. He likes the idea of having some footage of big forms of transport like planes and trains as they look good in films. Also my teacher likes the idea of the opening sequence showing a contrast between two things like a bright mood and a dull mood.


In my own research I found that critics are very interested in the background story of a film or the story line of a film. The film could have all the special effects in the world but if the film doesn't have a good story line than people aren't going to enjoy it as much as a film with less special effects but a good story line.


So in my group, we need to establish a story line or a background story that will make our film interesting.

Collateral 2004 (Directed by Micheal Mann)

In the opening 45 seconds of the movie, we are able to establish one of the films main characters.



As you can see, Tom Cruise's character Vincent is the main character. We can tell this because throughout this scene, Vincent is the man in focus. Even in the busy airport, Micheal Mann has used a shallow depth of field to focus on him during this busy time. During this opening scene, we can hear the diegetic sound of Vincents footsteps which makes him seem more bigger or powerful than everyone else. The way Vincent is dressed shows that he is a mysterious man as he is wearing a grey suit with sunglasses on which hide his face a bit creating a sense of mystery.


This part of the scene is completely different to when we get introduced to Jamie Foxx's character Max. When we meet Max, he is doing a crossword puzzle in a busy taxi business. We can tell he is a main character because the camera stays on him for quite a while. It is very noisy during this scene and so Max goes into his cab, when the door closes, the audience hears hardly anything as the sounds all become silent once the door closes. This could symbolise that the character Max feels isolated or the character could prefer being on his own rather in a loud and busy surrounding. We then realise that the character Max has an ambition as he has a picture of a island that he kisses and keeps in his taxi. This could be his home island and so giving him a reason for working.


These two different scenes in the opening sequence of Collateral show great contrast. In one scene we see a powerful mysterious character and on the other hand we have a isolated or peaceful character who feels comfortable when he is behind the wheels of his taxi. I think the director has done this not only to introduce the two main characters but also show how different there lives are to one another. This idea could be used in our opening sequence to help show a great contrast between two characters.

Preliminary Task

On Thursday and Friday, me and my group completed our Preliminary task during our Media Studies periods. Basically our Preliminary task is a video that shows 3 main skills and we have to apply them to our film. The skills are; Continuity (we are going to show this through a door opening and closing again and we have to make the shots match), 180 degree rule (we are going to do this by keeping all the cameras on the same side) and finally we have to show we have mastered the skill shot reverse shot (we will show this skill during our conversation). The remainder of the filming can be as elaborate as we wanted as we were not getting marked on the content of the film but we were getting marked on the 3 skills I listed.
So on Thursday, in our groups, we developed ideas in our groups for the Preliminary task. We had to come up with our idea quickly as the rest of our double lesson was going to be on us shooting all the footage needed to make the film. Our group were quite quick in making up our minds. Our idea was to have a pan of a student walking to lesson late and trying to get in for the lesson in time. At the very beginning we see a short bit of the lesson the student is supposed to be in. After the student gets to his lesson, he has to open a door and it is here where we show our continuity skills. When the student enters he gets told of and gets told to sit down and carry on with the work. Then he has a conversation with a friend and it is here where we show the shot reverse shot needed for our preliminary task. Finally, the 180 degree rule should have been used throughout the film and it was.
Here are our notes.

So the following day we made edited our film. The film will be up on my blog once one off my group members uploads it to You Tube.


There was a slight problem during editing that our teacher picked up upon. We wanted to have a cut from the student walking to lesson and a student in lesson. The student in lesson would be writing a text message and the student late to lesson will received the message and start running to lesson, but during filming we forgot an establishing shot of the student writing the message which our teacher picked up upon. So we couldn't use our phone idea but its a lesson well learnt now.

Ideas and Feedback

In today's lesson, we made more ideas on our films. Today we taught of our main character seeing the ghost of his friend in a classroom. The scenario would be he would be doing work, then he sees the ghost and then he asks his friends if they can see the ghost and they reply with the no.

We talked about this idea in the class and our feedback was mainly about why would our character see the ghost out of the blue. They said there is no connection from the montage which we presented to them a couple of lessons ago, to the sequence we discussed today.

Jaws opening sequence

Jaws opening sequence is considered to one of the best. This is because we are introduced into the film with everything normal, but at the end we find a terrifying beast in the sea. I think this is done very well by Steven Speilberg as the music adds to the effect of the attack as it makes the audience feel tenser. Also the point of view shot used if very effective as it tells the audience that there is something in the water. This is definitely something I can use to help my group create our opening scene based on the music and camera angles used.

Ideas (People)

For our opening sequence, we have decided to have a man or teenager to be the main character that keeps on seeing things that no one else can see. Today, I have seen a man who acted in the way that I think emphasised that the person was a bit crazy. For our opening sequence to work, our character must be a bit awkward or crazy. This man that I saw was walking with a sort of limp, his mouth was slightly open and he never smiled at anyone who walked past him or around him. He wouldn't make eye contact with anyone and he always had his hands in his pockets. This sort of character can strike an audience with many questions about the character and so this is why I think this sort of character should be used in our opening sequence.

Development of Location Ideas

The reason for why we chose the cemetery is because one of our characters is dead and so we would like to have a part of our opening sequence at the cemetery where the other main character will put flowers down for his dead friend.
We chose to film at the train station because we taught we could portray the ghost character dissapearing and appearing on the platform easily and use the train to do this. This will enable us to show the audience the character is a ghost.

Opening Sequence Analysis of THE BONE COLLECTOR 1999 ( Directed by Philip Noyce)

The opening sequence of the bone collector has a short montage. In this montage we see images, Major headlines, phrases and pictures. During the montage, the camera is tracking and panning over these phrases and pictures. During the montage, Philip Noyce had chosen to have a high pitched violin backing track. This made the montage seem very mysterious and made the audience more tense and in suspense.
After the montage, the camera pans across New York city. This could have also been an establishing shot as the pan showed us where the film is set.
After the pan, Denzil Washington's character appears. The camera follows Denzil Washington's character  and focuses on him when he appears which indicates to the audience that he is a main character in the film. We find that he has to go inside what seems to be a cave. His performance when he walks showed some authourity as he walked with no hesitation. Also he is walking in the front which showed leadership. Furthermore, the camera angle on Denzil Washington's character is a low angle shot which makes him seem mighty compared to the others. When Denzil Washington's character gets to the end of the tunnel, something drops from on top of him, the noise of the thing splitting the cord above Denzil Washington's character made that bit seem life like.
Finally, after Denzil Washington's character gets hit, it goes black and then suddenly opens to a birds eye view shot of Denzil Washington's character in a hospital bed. The point of view shot adds to the effect of Denzil Washington's character seeming weak. Also, there isn't any non-diegetic sounds whilst Denzil Washington's character is in the hospital bed, all we can hear is the heart beat monitor that Denzil Washington's character is hooled up to. This is in complete contrast to how Denzil Washington's character was like before he got hurt. I think this contrast was smartly shown by Philip Noyce and I would love to use this idea for my groups opening sequence.

SURVEY

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QMBPY2M

This is my groups survey.

Analysis of IDENTITY 2003 (Dircted by James Mangold)

The opening sequence of Identity is very mysterious as it consist of a montage of newspapers, criminals, crime scene notes and pictures. From this montage we are able to identify the genre of the film as some sort of crime investigation movie. The mystery is added because of the dark setting, the opening sequence has a dark background making it difficult to see things which adds to the mystery.
The opening sequence uses a lot of camera movements. The camera pans across the pictures and crime notes, there are tilted frames of the images and a lot of tracking during the opening sequence of the film.
During  the opening sequence we are focused on the investigator of this crime scene. This shows that this person could be a main character to the film.
Finally this opening sequence had some good diegetic sounds to add to the effect of the film as we could hear thunder in the background of the film. This makes the audience feel more tense and in suspense rather than the scene being in daylight and if it were sunny outside. This mood wouldn't fit with the mysterious montage.