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.