Examiner Information

Group:

• Ebony Anderson (6004)
• Christian Vaites (6202)
• Matthew Peall (6139 - myself)

Centre Number:

• 28278

Welcome to my AS media blog, all of the posts have been labelled into the correct subject areas this means that it will be a lot easier to find. This means that clicking on the research section will open all of my research work.

Thank you for reading my blog, Matthew

Final Edit

Sound.

All of the sound that we have used is license free we know this because:

• The 'ring a ring a roses' soundtrack was made by our group meaning that it is copyright free.

• All of the other sound effects that we used were taken off the website:freesound.org

This is proof that freesound.org is a completely free music site where the music is copyright free.

Question 1

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventions of the Thriller Genre
When I began to resarch the Thriller genre I found that the main conventions are:

• The unknown
• Narrative Enigma
• Crime, Often Violence
• Complex narrative structure
• Everyday normal setting
• Uses themes of: mirroring, identity and voyeurism
• Being fast-Paced

Above are the conventions that we have thought about and used when planning, filming and editing Sacrament the conventions that have been placed in red have been cleaerly focused on in our film and I have expanded on them below.


Narrative Enigma

This was part of Roland Barthes theory who named it the 'Enigma Code' this was a theory that suggests that any text (E.g. Tv, Film or Poster) that makes the audience question something, to draws the audience in. There are examples of this in our own media text Sacrament as throughout the opening sequence the audience will be asking questions such as:
Why is the girl alone in the woods?
Who is this girl?
Why are we unable to see her face?
Why does she seem to have nowhere to go?
All of these question examples run through the text whenever the girl character is on screen.

The girl has obviously missed the path and skipping through the woodlands, this helps to create narrative enigma for the audience.

An example of a Thriller that uses large amounts of narrative enigma in the opening sequence would be:
X-Men: First Class(Vaughn, 2000). A limited amount of dialogue is used in this opening sequence which  helps the audience to ask questions of what is happening helping to create narrative enigma.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI7SEIKaKwE (embedding was disabled by the uploader)



Identity

We have explored the themes of identity as throughout the opening sequence of Sacrament we are unable to see the character's face, we felt that having a character whose identity stays secret helps to portray the main narrative of our film as this girl is dead, this also helps to create tension for the audience as the eyes tell someone a lot about a character but in our scenes her eyes are never on show.  All of this means that throughout the opening sequence this female character has no identity which links to the basic conventions of a Thriller Product.

We used a variety of different shot types, this allowed the Thriller to still have the interesting shot types and allowed  us to correctly mold the opening sequence allowing us to hide the identity of our character.

This theme is also apparent in the Thriller film Inception (Nolan, 2010)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICig7aW9Tmg

Identity is used in this opening sequence as the frames and shots of the characters are very dark. This allows shadows to be cast on the characters faces meaning that the audience struggle to see what the characters are doing and what they look like. This means that their identity has been hidden from the audience in order to create more tension towards the opening sequence.


Being Fast-Paced

We chose not to use the fast-paced theme in our opening sequence as it would have not fit with the narrative of Sacrament this would meant it would have looked silly.
Our narrative is that the young female girl has been murdered and remains in the between location (reality and heaven) until her murderer has been bought to justice. We felt that if the opening sequence was fast paced it would have taken away the tension from the narrative structure and would have made the actions which took place on screen just look slightly silly.

The theme's of being fast-paced is used in some Thriller films such as  Sherlock Holmes (Ritchie, 2009)




Throughout this opening sequence a variety of fast cuts are used, overall a lot happens in the first minute and a half as it is very fast-paced through the soundtrack, shots, cuts etc

The fast-paced theme has also been chosen not to be used in the film Valkyrie (Singer, 2008) the film is set in the middle of world war two and is based on true events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6n3hRZmgxU (embedding was disabled by the uploader)

As you can see from the video above, the opening sequence to this film is done at a slow-pace this is because there is text on the screen which is giving the audience an understanding of the context of the film. Another reason why the film begins with a slow-pace is because the film company wanted to portray the main theme of the film, if this was done at a fast-pace the theme may not have been registered with the audience meaning that the context and narrative of the play would be confusing to the viewer.

Mirroring

We explore the theme of mirroring in one specific shot and section of our opening sequence, the shot helps to explore the narrative behind our Thriller this is:

We see the character from a reflection this helps with the theme of mirroring, the fact that we see her reflection is used to show that she is trapped between reality and heaven as her murderer hasn't been bought to justice. This is also reflected through the idea that you can see the sky in the shots behind her which has many connotations of heaven and the afterlife.

This is the final shot that we see in the opening sequence, this leaves the audience with a large amount of narrative enigma for when the shot fades to black.

The themes of mirroring is also explored largely in the film The Lovely Bones (Jackson, 2009):

This still was taken from one of the scenes from The Lovely Bones as you can see the theme of mirroring have been used but in this case with a window, in both cases they help to create narrative enigma for the audience as the character's both know something that the audience doesn't, the theme of mirroring also helps to give an interesting shot type as well as creating tension for the audience.

Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 If you are unable to read some of the bottom annotations please play the video in full screen.

Question 3

What kind of Media Institutions might distribute your media product and why?

 

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

To make sure that our Thriller was attractive towards our target audience we ensured that the final set of questions on our questionnaire helped us understand and know what the audience would want and the best thing they'd prefer, these questions were:


Which location would you associate with a Thriller film?

A wood/woodland area: 22

A Shop: 0

A House: 8

Other (Please Specify): 0

What colour would you most associate with danger?

Red: 27

Blue: 0

Black: 3

Green: 0

Other (Please Specify): 0

What character would you find creepier?

A middle-aged man: 8

A middle-aged woman: 1

A young school girl: 19

A young school boy: 2

From these questions we created graphs and then made decisions allowing us to choose what would suit the audiences options best meaning that we could create the best Thriller possible, this allowed is to start creating our narrative as this was the first step which we needed in order to create the Thriller that was connected to the Target Audience as closely as possible.






When creating our opening titles we chose modern fonts and bright vibrant colours in order to make the opening to the film look modern and interesting, We believed that if the opening to the film was interesting and bright this would catch our target audiences attention making sure that they wanted to carry on watching our Thriller and really get sucked into the narrative and action that is happening on the screen.


This is the opening sequences, the background has also been faded in we felt this helped to make the titles more eye catching towards our target audience and it adds a small amount of foreshadowing allowing the audience to stay entertained.

We got the main idea of using an interesting opening title sequence to get the audience watching the film was taken from the film Se7en (Cooper, 1995) this film uses a variety of close ups and interesting fonts, sizes and  positioning with all of the titles.

Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? on Prezi

Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? 

Filming- Re-Shoot

When given our feedback for our first draft we planned to re-shoot the majority of the opening sequence, this was planned to be shot in the same location as the first draft on our inset day. Unfortunately we found that Erin (The Actress) was unavailable to do this time slot. We then decided that the best course of action would be to shoot in a closer location as we choose to do this after college which left us with limited day-light time, this meant that our new location was Chris' back garden as it was a wooded location.

While Chris did Erin's make up (our feedback told us to make the make-up darker and more sinister around the eyes). Myself and Ebony went into our location and recorded two minutes of ambient sound as we found that the ambient sound in our first draft was far too repetitive.

When Erin was ready we began to shoot a variety of different shots, this included: close-ups, high angle shots, mid-shots, low angle shots etc. We found that because the location was in a back garden we had to closely watch what was in the frame of the camera as at some points houses, fences and vehicles could be seen.

Editing - First Draft

When editing the first draft of our Thriller, we took the editing in turns this was so that each of us managed to get the same amount of editing time.

When editing our Thriller we focused on the transitions between shots, this was especially focused on when we looked at the final title (Sacrament) we edited this so that the screen flashed when it came on screen, we wanted to do this so even if the audience were not paying attention the flash would grab their attention in order to allow them to know the name of the film.

We found that when editing the sound into our Thriller we had to focus clearly and each have a turn listening through the headphones this was because we wanted to make sure that the sound was played at the exact right moment. This took a lot of concentration as sometimes the sound was only one or two milliseconds out.

The main editing part was all of the different shot types being strung together to make the opening sequence this took us a long time to do, but the time spent was reflected in the precision and professional feel that the Thriller had.

Editing - First Draft

Feedback


After completing our first draft we received feed back from Mrs Dughan. We received feedback from the rest of our As media class as we sat down and watched everyone's thriller videos and having to write down 4 point of constructive criticism. From the feedback from these two sources we found that the major points which needed to be changed were:

• Not enough variety of shots were used this made it lack tension and narrative enigma
• The initial titles didn't read well or seem  professional enough
• Some of the secondary titles were hard to read
• Some shots were blurry
• Moments lacked precision with the white balance
•  The heart beat sound lost the effect that we wanted

From the feedback that we were given we decided that the best course of action would be to re-shoot and re-edit our Thriller in order to reach the highest grade possible.We planned to re-shoot a larger variety of different shot types and to have the actor doing a bit more than just skipping to add more tension and make the opening sequence less boring.

Filming - Shoot

Over the past weekened myself and the group have been down to our location to film the first draft of our Thriller Film. We made our way up to the location and began to film, we found that problems began to arose when we realised we had not planned as well as we thought. We had no idea the order in which we were going to shoot. We decided where to begin and began to film, we found that the shots that we did take were of a good standard but not of a large variety.

The shots that we filmed consisted of: High angle, Low angle, Close ups, Long Shots, Birds Eye and a variety of pans.

We found that the positive points from filming were: the make-up and costume for our actor created a decent amount of atmoshpere, also location in which we chose to shoot created a good amount of narrative enigma and linked well with out theme and narrative.

Planning - Sound

As a group we discussed what music/sound should be used in our opening sequence, we finally decided on a child singing the song 'Ring a Ring a Roses' we sang the song at different tempos and decided that when the song was sang slowly it sounded very unnatural and intimidating. The song also has connotations of innocence of children as it was originally a nursery rhymes sang by children, this will help to add narrative enigma to our opening sequence as once the nursery rhyme is placed next to the video sequence the audience will also understand that something isn't right with the young girl. Our final reason behind choosing this certain nursery rhyme as the lyrics have connotations linking to the Black Death, this will also help to create tension for the audience as the young girl is depicted to be dead, this will also help to create tension.

Ring a ring o'roses, a pocketful of posies, atishoo, atishoo, all fall down

(Lyrics found on http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/ring-a-ring-of-roses.html)

Throughout the Opening Sequence there will be ambient sound of the location we are shooting in (A woodland area) for example this would be: wind, tree's rustling etc. This will help to make the Opening Sequence look and feel professional. We would also like to have the non-diegetic sound of the young girl character laughing this will juxtapose the clip of the girl on screen and help to create tension and an haunted feel towards the Opening Sequence. 

We are going to add in the diegetic sound of a twig snapping, this will happen when the camera has tilted up the character's body and is about to reach the head. When the sound happens the camera will do a fast pan away from the body into the woods. By doing this it helps to add tension towards the audience they will also be asking a lot of questions about what is happening (narrative enigma).

Planning - Storyboard

This is the Storyboard that we produced between the group, while we did this we planned the different shot types and narrative structure which we would be able to use in order to create the correct amount of tension that is needed for the Opening Sequence. Because of our discussions about this we decided to use a variety of techniques these were:

• Slow moving shots
• Close up (Helping to create a variety of narrative enigma)
• Shots used to give a sense of the unknown
• Facial Expressions (Through the use of make-up)
• Different and creepy music

Once these ideas were discussed between the group I began to draw our main storyboard (See Up) while Chris and Ebony helped to contribute ideas. We then made a short video explaining why we chose certain shots and put all of the images together so that the Storyboard flowed together into one.

Planning - Location

We chose the location of a woodland area as we felt that it will be great to build tension for the audience as it will create narrative enigma, but also the woods create a state of isolation and are intimidating. 


The first location I visited was a woodland area near my house, after walking round and taking images of the location. After showing them to the group we came to the agreement that the trees in that area were too spaced apart in order to create a feeling a seclusion from normal life. Also from some angles within the woods there were houses visible in the background and also a large field. Again this wasn't appropriate in order for us to create tension as the character was isolated. In addition as the woods were located between an industrial site and a recreational ground, it was deemed in appropriate as when filming we needed silence but in this particular location there would have been ambient sound from both of the surroundings.

The second location I went round and and photographed was Bramcote Woods, this location was chosen as it has a thick woodland area given the sense of isolation and also when the we have a high angle shot of our character the woods would be intimidating for her, putting emphasis and her innocence. Furthermore, as the trees within the specific area of Bramcote woods are thin it makes them look haunted and creepy, but in addition to this it enables our character to skip about without too much obstruction.

When I presented the images of the second location to the group they agreed that it was the best location for us to film in as it fit our criteria. As the lighting wasn't the same as it would be at the time of day we plan to film, I returned to our chosen location the next day to see if it would still create the same ambiance. Having doing this it was the right setting for our thriller also, due to the time of day there weren't many members of the public around this is good as it means there shouldn't be too many disruptions when we film our thriller.

Written by Ebony Anderson

Planning - Risk Assessment

Nearest Emergency Phone- Mobile on all 3 of the group

Risks:

• As we are filming in wooded area there is a hazard of tripping on sticks or things left on the floor.

To overcome this we will ensure that the area is clear of twigs and anything hazardous before we start filming the different shots of the scene.

• We are filming in a public area this may mean that strangers may become interested in the filming and try to disrupt us from our work.

To overcome this we will keep a watchful eye on what is happening while we are filming, as there are 3 of us in the group we will always have somebody stood in a close distance to our Actress just in case something happens.

• As we are filming outside there is a risk of bad weather condition.

To overcome this issue we will make sure that we take appropriate clothing in order to keep our actress warm if she gets cold, we will also take the appropriate types of umbrellas and coats in order to keep the camera equipment dry and safe.

Planning - Group Meeting

In todays lessons (20/02/2011)  we finalised plans for our opening sequence and decided on the final shots needed in the story board. We found that we had to discuss and plan throwing around a lot of ideas in order to make sure we use the best shots we can. We decided to use a variety of shots, this is because in the opening thrillers that we have researched a variety of shots have been used in order to create tension. This will be reflected in our opening sequence as we want the work to be as professinal as possible. Overall we found that planning the shots could be slightly tricky at times as the shots had to be thought about clearly and we knew that we needed a specific reason to use each shot.

Planning - Filming Schedule

Filming Schedule

Saturday 25th February:

• Film all of the needed shots exculding the final shot (zoom close up to the face of the character)

All of these shots can be filmed together as there is no need for the actor's face to contain the make-up as it is planned that none of these shots will contain her face. The reasoning behind this is that we are unable to apply the make-up to the actor on this date as the make-up artist we are using is unavaialable.

What will be needed:

• Erin Vaites (Actress)
• The costume for Erin (School Uniform with red jacket)
• Camera Equipment and Tripod

Sunday 26th February:

• Film the final shot (zoom close up to the face of the character)

We have chosen to film this shot the next day as the make-up artist is available to correctly apply the make-up to our actor's face in order to get the best ending we can. We will have to make sure that we film at roughly the same time in order to get the best quality and make all of the opening sequence flow and look professinal.

What will be needed:

• Erin Vaites (Actress)
• The costume for Erin (School Uniform with red jacket)
• Make-Up for Erin's face
• Camera Equipment and Tripod

Planning - Costume/Actors

• Actor: Erin Vaites
• Character: Erin will play the role of a young mysterious child who is skipping through the woods, she will not have any dialogue, and no facial expressions will be needed except for a gloomy, creepy look at the end of the clip
• Make-up and Costume - The young girl will not show her face up until the final shot of the scene were she will have make-up on that makes her look lifeless (e.g. very pale/purple face, possible cuts and she will also have mud on her face). The characters costume choice is shown below.

Box on the left -

• In the box on the left, the actor is shown wearing a red coat with a red hooded top underneath, this is because we could not find a suitable hooded coat which fitted all of our other criteria. we chose to have the character hooded so that it conceals the identity of the character, creating a feeling of the unknown
• Also a hooded character will project the idea that the film is set in the winter, when it is cold, and cold is synonymous with a strange creepy atmosphere.
• We chose the colour red as a focal point in terms of colours partially because red is most commonly associated with danger (This was confirmed by the majority of people in our questionnaire), but also because it contrasts against a woodland background, so the character is distinguishable during the opening scenes
• The general idea is that the girl is in a school uniform, which is why she will be wearing black tights and shoes, as well as a grey or black skirt, this will create a sense of innocence for the audience, which builds up tension

Middle box

• In this box the character is shown again from many different angles with only a red coat on so that we could decide which outfit would be most appropriate
• In this instance, it would be harder to conceal the identity of the character with the different types of camera angles up until the end on the scene when the girls face is finally revealed, but this type of outfit does provide the ability to show the girls hair more, as it moves around whilst she is skipping, really giving a sense of vulnerability and naivety
• We chose the colour red as a focal point in terms of colours partially because red is most commonly associated with danger (This was confirmed by the majority of people in our questionnaire), but also because it contrasts against a woodland background, so the character is distinguishable during the opening scenes
• The general idea is that the girl is in a school uniform, which is why she will be wearing black tights and shoes, as well as a grey or black skirt, this will create a sense of innocence for the audience, which builds up tension

Box in the right

• The final box simply shows the character in a normal school uniform, this is simply for planning, so we get to know what the character looks like in normal clothing

 Costume written by Chris Vaites


As a group we decided against props, this was because we decided that they were irrelevant to help create tension as the costume, location and make-up design would ensure that the tension is adding to the Opening Sequence.

Planning- Titles

Once we had all finally decided on a name for our production company, RedTurtle, I then experimented with different style fonts and colours that complimented one another but where also in keeping and relevant to our theme. I presented a few variations to the group some of which are shown below, we voted on which style we preferred.

We decided on the below title for our production company, which was originally green and red but Christian raised the point that colour blind people wouldn't be able to distinguish the difference, so I then played with the colours and we all decided that we preferred the colours red and black.

                                    

After we made these choices, we then went on to discuss possible names for our thriller, I suggested the name of 'Sacrament' which the others liked so we have chosen this for the name of our thriller.

Written by Ebony Anderson

Planning - Mind Map

Both of these mind maps were made so that we could have a good understanding of the ideas and thoughts about the opening sequence that we are going to make. The first mind map is a basic plan of some locations, characters, shots and some thought about the title sequence. After writing the first mind map and having discussions between the group we made the second mind map this is used so that we have a mind map that contains a lot more detail about the different sections and shots that are going to be used in our opening sequence.

Overall using the mind maps has helped the group to finalise ideas about the narrative of the opening sequence and has helped to give us a bigger insight into planning and ideas about characters, location, costume and the need of props. 

Research- The Industry

Top 20 Rated Thrillers by the IMDB

According to IMDB (Internet Movie DataBase) the Thriller film at the top of the charts is Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994)

This film was directed by Quentin Tarantino, it had a estimated budget of  $8,000,000 and made a worldwide gross of $213,982,762.

Although Pulp Fiction has been voted as the best Thriller title by the IMDB the Thriller which made the highest US gross is the number 2 title The Dark Knight. As well as being the highest gross' film for a Thriller it is also in the top 10 of the highest gross films of all time.


The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008) had an estimated budget of $185,000,000 the worldwide gross (1st December 2010) was stated to be $1,001.921,825, this turned out to be a huge profit for the film.

The Dark Knight was a blanket release, it was released on 4.366 Screens (US) and 502 Screens (UK) the overall opening weekend gross' was $158,411,483 (US) and £11,191,824 (UK)

The companies that helped to create The Dark Knight were:

Production

• Warner Bros. Pictures
• Legendary Pictures
• Syncopy 
• Dc Comics 

Distributors

• Warner Bros. Pictures (USA, Chile, Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan)
• 20th Century Fox (Malaysia)
• Warner Bros. (Argentina, Australia, Germany, UK, Japan, Netherlands and Singapore( 

Research- Audience

In order to understand our audience, (to create the best opening sequence we can), we have created a questionnaire. This will help us when planning to make sure that the opening sequence appeals to our target audience as much as possible. We have published our questionnaire on a social networking site (Facebook) in order to get a wide range of audience ages and gender.

Questionnaire

Are you Male or Female?

Male: 16

Female: 14

How old are you?

12-16: 11

17-25: 12

26-30: 5

31+: 2

Do you like Thrillers?

Yes: 29

No: 1

When did you last watch a Thriller film?

Within the last 7 days: 11


Within the last 2 weeks: 9

Within the last month: 10


Within the 6 months: 0


Within the last year: 0

Which location would you associate with a Thriller film?

A wood/woodland area: 22

A Shop: 0

A House: 8

Other (Please Specify): 0

What colour would you most associate with danger?

Red: 27

Blue: 0

Black: 3

Green: 0

Other (Please Specify): 0

What character would you find creepier?

A middle-aged man: 8

A middle-aged woman: 1

A young school girl: 19

A young school boy: 2




To connect with our questionnaire we were going to do a focus group but we decided not to do a focus group as the available audience we had did not give a clear understanding of the target audience as the age group was between 16-18 and didn't focus on the higher ages in our target audience. This would mean that the information that we would gain would be useless as it would make the opening sequence bias to what people would want to see.

Other (Please Specify):

Research - Fargo

Fargo (Coen Brothers, 1996)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI_4wvBHkrw

Camera

The over the shoulder shot of the two men.

• Shot Reverse Shot is used but without the close up of the two men
• Close ups of the cars headlights as it drives past
• Establishing shot of the bar

All of the camera shots listed above are used to help create narrative enigma for the audience, the shot reverse shot, creates a sense of illusion and a sinister feel towards the two men as we never get to see a close up of their face. The close up makes the audience wonder who the car belongs to making them want to carry on watching to find out their answers. The establishing shot helps to let the audience understand that the opening seems to be quite a normal natural setting.

Editing

• Title sequence, the titles fade in and out of the frame
• Car fades into view (as if it came out of nowhere)



The Car beginning to be seen.

• Small amounts of straight cuts (only when needed)

The use of the titles fading in and out makes them a lot more interesting to watch as it is something different to them just being there. The car fading into view makes the audience suddenly a lot more interested as it seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. The small amount of straight cuts used helps to reinforce the fact that these criminals are casually speaking about kidnapping someone in the middle of a busy bar.

Mise-en Scene

• Opens in a bar location (naturalistic, normal setting)
• Opening background isn't a clean shade of white, it looks almost dirty
• Car drives on and past you, narrative enigma

The naturalistic and normal setting is a convention of a Thriller film, this also makes the audience feel slightly at ease due to what the characters are talking about in such an open area. The opening background's dirty white colour makes the film seem slightly off putting and sinister as the audience can see this dirty white colour. As the car drives past it helps to create a large amount of narrative enigma as everybody is wondering who is in the car and what do they want.

Sound

• Repetitive Melody, played on the strings (creepy atmosphere)
• Basic dialogue between characters
• Ambient Sound in the background (links to the normal setting)

The repetitive melody at the very beginning creates a quite creepy atmosphere, along with the blank screen it helps to create a lot of questions for the audience to answer as they are all wondering what is going to happen next. The basic dialogue between characters helps to give the audience a slight understanding of the beginning of the narrative.

Creating Tension

All of the above link together to create a wide narrative enigma for the audience, this helps to create tension when the audience are watching the opening as the audience don't understand what is going to happen next.

The music that is played when the opening credits are on helps to create tension through the creepy atmosphere that it creates.

The beginning of the dialogue helps to create ideas of violence/violent tendencies which helps to create tension as the audience don't know what is going to happen next.

The Opening Titles

An example of one of the opening titles.

Polygram Filmed Entertainment Presents
In association with Working Titles Films
Frances Mcdormand
William H. Macy
Steve Buscemi
Harve Presnell
Peter Stormare
Fargo



This is all of the names that are named in the opening titles, the titles are:

• Faded in and placed towards the bottom of the screen, this is to allow more of the 'dirty' white skies at the top of the frame to be seen.
• The font's are very close together in the first names, but then the surnames are very spread out, this is used because more people know actors by last names rather than first.
• The size of the font changes, in the first 2 titles it is large, but through the rest of them the font is a lot smaller, this is because it is only actors names and not the large companies. 

Research- Inception

Inception(Nolan, 2010)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICig7aW9Tmg

Camera

The Extreme Zoom

The Camera zooms in to the opening titles, the font that is used looks like a maze the use of the zoom into the text helps to reinforce the theme that the audience are being taken into the maze of the film, this helps to reinforce the fact that Thriller genre films have a complex narrative which is part of the conventions of the genre. After the camera has zoomed in the camera then reverse zooms out of a new title, this helps to reinforce the themes of the maze and being trapped in a certain area.


Sound


The soundtrack throughout the opening sequence contains a drum beat and guitar, this type of music gets louder towards the end of the sequence this adds more tension to the sequence as it puts the audience on edge with anticipation the correct term for this is narrative enigma.


Editing


All of the editing used are straight cuts, this is because most of the clips are shown through the reverse zoom of the title sequence, the fact that no complex editing techniques are used it adds a lot more tension as the whole sequence is simple but the clips and titles used help to connect to the theme of being trapped in the 'maze' making the audience feel on edge with anticipation.

The low key lighting of the clips

Mise-en Scene 

In the opening sequence all of the clips used contain very low key lighting, this makes all of the clips look darker and more menacing, the fact that they are also all in black and white help to create tension for the audience as the audience are on the edge of their chairs wondering what will happen next (narrative enigma).

Opening Titles

Warner Bros. Pictures

The Title to the film

Legendary Pictures
Syncopy
A Christopher Nolan Film
Leonardo Dicaprio
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Ellen Page
Tom Hardy
Cillian Murphy
Marion Cotillard
Production design Guy Hendrix Dyas
Casting John Papsidera
Cinematography Wally Pfistek
Original musice Hanz Zimmer
Directed Christopher Nolan
INCEPTION

The titles always begin as an extreme close up on the screen, its then cuts to different parts of the title, they finally zoom out to show all of the title. The font  of the title sequences are all done in the same font, it is shown to almost look like a maze which helps the give the idea of being lost or the unknowing which links to the characteristics of the Thriller genre. The font is a large size, this is so that all of the audience can see it. The titles are always placed towards the bottom of the screen, this is so that small clips and action can still be shown above the title sequence.

Research- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Fincher, 2011)

An example of the close ups.

The camera angles used are mainly close ups but their is the odd mid-shot shown, these are used so that the screen is filled with these abstract clips, all of the clips fit into the same theme, they do not give a lot away. This means the audience can not see a lot of the shot creating narrative enigma for the audience. Every shot has been chosen carefully and shows something different making the complex narrative structure used in Thriller films apparent.

The editing used are all mainly fast straight cuts, the cuts flow together to allow different parts of the theme to be shown, the cuts almost happen before something which will give away the narrative is revealed this helps to add towards the narrative enigma as the audience have so many questions that they want to be answered. Each clip last no longer than 3 seconds on screen then it cuts to something that is in contrast to this, this is done so that the audience are always on there toes about what is going to happen next allowing the ideas of a complex narrative structure to start being set in place.

This is the bright flame that appears on screen.

The mise-en scene in the opening section is all quite dull, all of the colours are mostly greys and blacks, this then contrasts to when the bright fire of the bird appears on the screen, this helps to make the audience feel at ease as the darkness is suddenly lost for a couple of seconds, while this orange flame is on the screen. The use of this recurring flame helps to create a narrative enigma for the audience, they want to know what this flame is. Also the use of the low-key lighting helps to keep some of the narrative hidden giving the idea that the film will consist of a complex narrative structure.

Throughout the entire opening sequence a metal rock band song is playing, this helps to create a different atmosphere as everything seems to become a little bit more creepy with the drums and singing exploding over the top of it, the music also helps to link into the theme that is trying to be shown as it is a metal band and most of the clips that are shown have something to do with metal in them. This helps to link to the narrative enigma as the audience are wondering what this is all about.

There is NO dialogue.

Creating Tension

When the soundtrack, clips, editing and mise-en scene are all merged together the opening sequence really puts the audience on edge of their seats. The clips are all this dark colour which in a cinema or dark room will make the room incredibly dark adding to the tension outside of the film, this then contrasts to the bright oranges of fire which could spook the audience.

The soundtrack over the top, is loud and heavy this helps to create tension as it helps link everything together over one theme, this then appeals to two of your senses instead of one creating a different approach to how tense and scared the audience will get.

Opening Titles 


Columbia Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Present
A Scott Rudin, Yellow Bird Production
A David Fincher Film
Daniel Craig
Rooney Mara

An example of one of the Titles.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Christopher Plummer
Stellan Skarsgard
Steven Berkoff
Robin Wright
Yorick Van Wageningen
Joely Richardson
Geraldine James
Goran Visnjic
Donald Sumpter
Ulf Friberg
Casting By Laray Mayfield
Costume Designer Trish Summerville
Co-Producers Berna Levin, Eli Bush
Sound design by Ren Klyce
Music By Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
Editors Kirk Baxter.ACE, Angus Wall.ACE.
Production Designer Donald Graham Burt
Director of Photography Jeff Croneweth, asc
Executive Produces, Steven Zaillian, Mikael Walllen, Anni Faubye Fernandez
Produced by Scott Rudin, Olde Sondberg, Soren Stermose, Cean Chaffin
Based on the book by Steg LArsson Originally Punlish by Norstedts
Screenplay by Steven Zallian
Directed by David Fincher


The titles are small in font, and are written in a posh house style like Times New Roman. They are mainly placed towards the left of the screen, but sometimes moved around depending on the clips that are being shown on the screen. The colour of the font is white, this is because it is on a black background and white will be the best colour to be seen. The titles appear with the straight cuts from the clips that have just been, they stay where they are and leave with the same clip at the next straight cut.