Ideas

During the holidays, I went with my family to Disney World Florida. There I saw how stunts and Disney films are made and saw some very interesting shows on film.

The stunts showed me why we can't do stunts in our opening sequence as firstly we need a professional and secondly you need time to reherse it and make sure the stunt is perfect.

Another thing that I learnt is that with all Disney films, there is always a sequeal, so there is a finale but it could lead on to another film. This gave me the idea of having a cliff hanger in our opening sequence. We could make something spontanious happen and then have our titles. This could be a way we can build suspense also as the cliff hanger can make the audience wonder a lot about what is going to happen next.

Ideas

During today's lesson we watched a previous AS Media coursework done by older students from our school. The one we watched today was called Relapse. In the opening sequence, someone had been tied up to a chair and left in a dark, dull place. This was a very good location for the groups purpose as the boiler room under our school gave a sort of 'something bad is going to happen here' mood. At the end of the sequence, their is a point of view shot of a character looking up at another character who is standing up and punches the guy from point of view shot. This looked really good in camera because the light was in the background and so made the punch stand out.

These two aspects of there opening sequence was good and on a whole they did OK. If we had any sort of violence in our opening sequence then the punch from point of view shot could have been a good addition to our film.

Taken 2008 (Directed by Pierre Morel)

The opening sequence of Taken has a home video of a little girls birthday. She opens a present and then blows out the candle. She is very happy at this point. Once the girl had blown out the candles, the camera cuts to Liam Neeson's character Bryan Mills. This indicates to the audience that he was having the dream and so the girl in the home video whose birthday it was is his daughter. A clever technique I think that Pierre Morel uses is as the video comes to an end, we see flashes of white in the frame. This could indicate that Bryan Mills was waking up. Having this as an opening sequence tells you a lot about the character Bryan Mills. The audience can identify he is going to be a main character, we also can tell that he cares a grate deal about his daughter and finally the audience can identify that the girl is his daughter.

This opening sequence is very unusual and unique, however, this is not the best part of this film. In the film, characters continuously ask what Bryan Mills job is. This then leads to the story about Bryan Mills daughter (Kim played by Maggie Grace) getting kidnapped in France. She is on the phone with her father and she sees her best friend getting kidnapped and so asks her father for. Bryan tells her what to do and his final instruction was to hide under the bed. Kim replied and said now what. Bryan replied with

'The next part is important, they will take you.' This quote arises many questions to the audience as how does Bryan know this is going to happen. This also creates a lot suspense for the audience as they are expecting her to get taken straight away but there is a little dialogue before she actually gets taken.

This is one of the most tense and exhilarating moments of the film and this is the perfect set up to what follows in the film.

These two ideas presented by Pierre Morel I find to very good and very interesting. I hope my group are able to put these ideas in our own opening sequence as this will really get the interest of other viewers.

Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer 2007 (Directed by Tim Story)

The opening of the film is very dramatic. The audience first are looking a a planet, then as the camera zoomas in, the planet starts to darken. This shows the audience a change in moods from evrything is good and happy to very dull. The camera then starts to zoom out and the planet gets destroyed. A silver light then comes from around the plant and is making a sort of fizzing sound as it shoots across the galaxy like a shooting star. The light then heads to earth. This made me think if earth was going to suffer the same fate as the other planet. This is a very dramatic scene because it seems as it is about to be the start of a new day for certain places and the audience know that something bad is going to happen as the new day begins creating tension.

The first part of the film is well taught out by the director I think as it does make me as a veiwer want to watch more.

The remainder of the film is about the silver surfer and his duty to serve the craken and it's up to the fantastic four to try stop him. In the end they join alliance to stop the cracken all together.

Props: Dark Hoody

A dark Hoody. This is what shall be worn by our ghost character. We want him to be wearing a hoody because when he dies in our film, he is a teenager. This isn't only worn for the fact that teenagers where them a lot but we also want our ghost character to where this as a costume because the hood can make our character seem anomolous. This isn't supposed to be a rebelious look for our character.

Ideas

Our opening sequence, Oblivious, is going to have a free flowing montage at the beginning of the film. Through recent research of films like 'The Proposition', I have found that the montage may be a bit boring and so I suggested that we ought to have clips of the film, in between the montage.

This idea wasn't liked due to the fact that the montage may not flow with our scenes and so making the film a bit muddled and so we have decided to make sure our soundtrack emphasises the mood we are trying to portray which is happiness to sadness.

Star Wars IV New Hope - 1977 (Directed By George Lucas)

Star Wars IV is considered to have one of the best opening sequences.



This is because in 1977, people were probably thrilled when a small spaceship in space is getting chased by a much bigger space ship. For people back then, this would have probably been very exciting and most probably new to them. Also, even before the chase part of the film, the phrase 'A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away'. This is a clever phrase to put at a beginning of a new series of films as this phrase does create a sense of excitement. This is then followed by Star Wars and then script setting the scene for the audience. This is so the audience aren't complicated for what is about to come.

As we don't have the technology, we can not do the chase scene with spaceships and so forth. The part I think our group could use from this opening sequence is the script of setting the scene. However for our current idea, we want it to be a bit mysterious for the audeince of what shall happen in the film and so our opening sequence should be confusing and not understood like Star Wars is.

Transformers 3: Dark of the moon 2011 Directed by Micheal Bay

In the beginning of the film, there is a voice over of Optimus Prime and he tells a back story of there planet. This leads to the real story of when America sent up a team to the moon. This was very smartly done by Micheal Bay to come up with a story that links to something that actually happened in the past. If we had enough technology then a story that links to the past could be a great idea for a film.

The rest of the film is just a fight for the planet between the autobots and decepticons which leads to the decepticons dieing and the autobots winning.

Apart from the well taught out opening sequence, the rest of the film is mainly fighting and so doesn't really have a story line apart from two robot army's wanting to kill each other.

Source Code 2011 (Directed by Duncan Jones)

In the opening scene of Source Code, Duncan Jones the director, has decided to include many camera angles and shots of a major city which I believe to be Chicago. The camera cuts many times from the city to a train, indicating to the audience that this train has a part in the film. A final frame of a river leads into a white light and then a close up of Jake Gyllenhaal character Colter Stevens. However, the storyline becomes a bit complicated after the close up. The first complication is that the women opposite him calls him Shaun. The next thing is that Colter Stevens keeps on looking around anxiously, this creates a lot of tension and suspicion around why he acts this way. Furthermore he acts out of character to what the lady across him is saying and then she become suspicious of him. All these sequences lead to an explosion and everyone dies. Then Colters Stevens awakes in a room.

This is very confusing and very complicated but the duration of the film makes everything clear. The plot of the film is that Colter Stevens must stop the train from blowing up and find out who blows it up. But he is dead and so his brain is what does it through a machine which is keeping him alive. The ending of the film is that everyone is safe and Colter Stevens saves everyone. Due to the machine changing the past, people wont know he has saved everyone and so he asks the people controlling his brain to send him back. This time he does everything he has to and more, he sends messages to people in the past and tells them the project was a success so that he could be remembered.

The remainder of the film isn't as good as the beginning of the film as it doesn't create suspense and tension for the audience and it doesn't raise as many questions as the beginning of the film does.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2009 ( Directed by Gavin Hood)

In the opening sequences of this film,a young boy and a older sibling are in a room. Then the boys father enters and there is screaming comin from downstairs. The boy in the bed called Jimmy, anxiously awaits for his fathers return. Then there is a sudden gun shot and Jimmy runs downstairs to find his father dead. Anger surges through him and bone claws come out of his fist. To everyone who has watched X- Men before, they will know that this is Wolverrine when he is younger. He uses his new found power to kill the man who shot his father but, only to find that the man he just killed was his real father. This bit of the film will have the audience in suspense as it is a dramaic scene and also a very informative scene.

Next to come in the film is some credits with clips and images of Jimmy and his Sibling (Victor who is Sabertooth) growing up and there life story. The images and clips show that they are both very old because in the clips and images it shows that they faught in both world wars.

The film is mainly an action packed film, but it is very informative to why Wolverine is the way he is in the X-Men movies and so why I think people need to watch this film.