Our opening sequence is very similar to the film “Saw” as the disruption has already happened. It creates a mood of aloneness and feeling misplaced as the disruption has already taken place and therefore, it helps let the audience know this. Our equilibrium is the party, which was from the night before, we can tell this as it is shown in flashbacks.
There are many enigmas in our opening sequence, for example where there are flashbacks, such as, “Who hit her?”, “Why?”, “What has she done wrong?”, etc. There are also some enigmas in the field scene, for example, “Who dumped her there?”, “Why?”, “Where will she go”, “where is she?”, “will she ever get home?”, etc. These are your typical enigmas in a thriller film, which will help us attract our audience, as they will want to keep watching.
We have introduced ideologies in our opening sequence, such as villains, victims and the way genders are shown. For example, our main character is a victim of abuse and she is also a female, which is very popular to have in films as the female is shown as the weaker sex. Also when we show the flashbacks, we get a slight look at the villain, from the clip we can see that the villain is male which is also popular in films, as males are shown as being the stronger sex and having power over women.
We have created a sense of time by showing the party is late at night by having a character walk from outside of the house to the inside of the house, showing that there is complete darkness outside. This will show the audience that the party is at a very late time. We also shows the party being flashbacks as we have added a lot of transitions and effects such as Wipe in/Wipe out, Ghost trail, Fade in/fade out, Black and White, Brightness increase to make it sound and look slightly faded, show its part of someone’s memory and p.o.v. We have also shown that the field seen where she wakes up is very early in the morning, as there is a lot of light coming onto the character as she lies on the bridge. There is also a lot of natural sound in this scene, such as the river, the main characters breathing and a faint sound of the wind blowing, which is also effective as it shows the audience what time of the day it may be.
We have used media language, the music, editing, sounds, having enigmas and ideologies to help create our opening sequence. We hope to attract our audience to keep watching, therefore by using media language we hopefully have succeeded.
We used effects such as transitions to create a different style to the film (flashbacks), we have also used editing in order to create our film, such as,
· Cutting clips
· Adjusting the volume
· Applying music
· Duplicating the sound from one clip and applying to another
· Having particular shots, such as,
· Canted angle shots – to show the characters p.o.v.
· Point of View shots – to show what the character can see.
· Long shots – to show the location
· Close Ups – to show the state of the character and the expressions.
By using media language, we have attracted an audience and we have kept them watching, made them ask questions (enigmas), understand the ideologies, shots and the way we edited it, which is what we where hoping for. Therefore we can say that it was successful.
Saliah's Evaluation QN 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I hI have learnt how to use iMovie on an Apple Mac, which is very useful, as I didn’t know how to use it at home. Most importantly I have learnt how to edit, find information on the Internet, such as using Google.co.uk to search for sites such as, IMDb.com, YouTube.com, Facebook.com, Wikipedia.com, etc.
I have also learnt how to set up a blog and how to keep updating it, lets the reader get more information. I have uploaded a lot of work onto our blog, such as what we will make as our opening sequence, what we did make, how we made it, etc.
Technology
We used our blog (blogger.com) and a camera to plan our opening sequence. We used e-mail to contact our audience and get the feedback of them. We also used facebook to do this as well. We used a video camera to film our opening sequence, which was very easy to use as we learnt how to use it in previous lessons when planning.
The Internet also helped me find out about thriller movies that have been produced and what popularity rates/ratings they got. It helps me find information about films that have been successful, what genre works best, what companies are popular, the age groups that will enjoy particular genres, etc. It has also helped me find images and helped me upload them onto my blog in order to make it look appealing, along with my film.
Saliah's Evaluation QN.7 - Looking at your prelim task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Our preliminary task was to film and edit a character including:
· Opening a door
· Crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with which she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue.
· Demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and 180-degree rule.
We did everything of the following, however it wasn’t done to the best of our abilities. We didn’t have the knack of using iMovie at that time and so due to this; our prelim task was very incompetent and amateur as we didn’t edit or film it properly. However, by learning from these errors, w created a successful final product for our coursework.
In our final product (opening sequence) we have improved our technique significantly as we have used various shots, angles, editing and transitions. We did this very effectively as our audience enjoyed and realised the concept of what we tried to portray.
We did this by having two different scenes blend into one as we had flashbacks in our film. We used transitions and many other effects which we discovered on iMovie when we were editing it further, in order to make it successful and professional. It proved to be very effective, as our audience knew what was going on and what we were trying to present.
The lighting and sound was extremely effective in our film as it needed to show exactly what time of day it was in order for the story to be told correctly. We did this efficiently and therefore our audience understood what we made and the story. We added an extra clip later on in the week in order to give more effect of the character, and due to the lighting being professional and accurate, it ran smoothly and therefore our final product proved to be very successful.
Our character was a very effective part of the film, as she was the main character, therefore enabling her to be accurate and on point. Our main character had to act parallel in our film as in one scene she was happy and I the other scene lost and terrified. In order for our audience to comprehend the main character and her situation, we had to give her a party costume, which was proved to be clear in the film. We also had to apply her makeup write, not only to show that she had been to a party but that she had been beaten and abused. Again, our audience had told us that they knew this as they wrote it in the feedback, which told us that they knew exactly what our film was about and that they enjoyed it.
Conclusion
Overall I believe that our film was a complete success as our audience feedback showed us that they understood the story line, the main character's situation, location, use of effects and editing, ideologies, enigmas, etc which is what we wanted to portray.
We didn't have many major weaknesses, however, I think if we had more time, we would be able to get more footage of the character at the party, to give more effect to what she was going through and what had happened and how she got and who took her to the field.
I believe our final product is very successful as it has been edited professionally and our audience so far, have told us exactly what we wanted them to believe.
