Garage Band Music

To go with our Animatic we produced a piece of music through GarageBand. This helped us to get an idea of the sort of music that would suit our thriller opening and the shots that we would be using.We wanted the music to build tension in the opening sequence that also helps to drive on the different shots towards the main title. We realised that whilst making our music we would have too add music with a high tempo, as this would create a great deal of suspense and tension. This making the viewer more eager to continue wathcing it.

We started of by testing beats and rythms that were suited to the piece and that all sounded good together. This took quite a long time but eventually we found pieces that went together and sounded good. once we had ths we could biuld on it and add more pieces in that soundsd good and fited the theme. This part was easier as we had a bass line so all we were doing was making it longer so it would fit the whole thing.

After we finished our music we began to edit the piece to our anamatic so they fitted together well and related to the clip being shown on the anamatic at that time.

Anamatics

To get an overal idea of what our thriller opening would look like we took photos of our storyboard and turned them into an anamatic. We firstly took pictures of the images in our storyboard and then uploaded them to final cut. We put the images in the order that they would appear in the final project, then shortend or extended the length of the shots. This is so that we could get a view of the overall length the final sequence would be as a whole. After we had got the order of the shots we added transitions and fades to selected shots that help the sequence to keep moving on. We also desaturated the colour of the shots to make them plain black and white like normal paper pictures.

We added our soundtrack that we had made in GarageBand to the animatic so we could see the shots with the music incase they needed re-ordering to fit the music.

Analysis Of Student Thriller

The Fugue Student Thriller

We studied a student's Thriller and analyesed there opening. We will compare there thriller opening to the openings of profestional films like se7en and brick that we watched in class.

The Thriller opens with a looking down shot of a bus which as the bus moves the camera starts to pan form right to left. The opening shots are quite long which seems to drag on the opening. The shots are effective and help to capture different views of the character and also the different colours and scenery that is also in the shot.

The thriller is edited well with the transitons helping to making the shtos run smoothly into each other. The length of the shots are mostly at the start quite long but later on in the opening there are quickly cut shots that help to create tension and gets you as the audience thinking about what is going to happen at the end.

The shots edited are in tandem with the music thatagain helps to create a desterbing atmosphere for the audience and makes it misleading in the audience beleiveng that something will jump out.

The lighting in the opening changes in every shot. Having just the sunlight as the light the lighting varies from where the camera is positionsed. This helps to make the character look more mysterious.

The idea of having a person on a bus was misleading also and got the audience trying to work out what the person represents and also what are they doing on a bus.

Making Our Storyboard

As group we struggled at first to come up with a idea that we would be able to film and that wasnt too ambitious, therefore we decided to begin our storyboard which would help us develop our ideas on paper and be able to look at them to see how they would work when it came down to filming.

This helped us create an image in our minds of what we wanted to crete from our thriller opening title. so far we had a black screen that ha titles rolling across with our names and production name, this turned into a darkend room with a man sittng with a picture of a young boy. On the following monday the third member of our group returned; this being Emily. She helped to take our ideas further and point out if there was anything that needed changing as she was effectively looking at the ideas on the story board with a non biased pont of view.

We continued with our storyboard adding in the final ideas, The next storyboard shots were close up's of the man with the picture, a woman/man then enters the room and has a small amount of conversation with the man. The camera then pans over to see news paper cut outs and information of things to do with kid-nap and murder. so far this is as much as we have and we are hoping to complete them storyboard next lesson.

Initial Ideas

As a group we sat down and though about the ideas we could have for a effective thriller opening. We thought about different criteria that would help establish a solid idea for a good thriller....

Setting- Busy place (IE Cambridge city centre), Contrast of busy place to a quite eerie setting. Possible places- train station, dark environment, isolated area, college (but not portraying school-like image)



Music- made on garage band. Solemn music to begin with, but tempo and pitch will rise, to build up tension and attract the audiences attention. The music will have to tie in with the editing and the shots which will help drive on the title sequence.



Storyline- someone is being targeted, a character has important information which someone else wants at any cost. Dark violence,



Characters- We had the idea of having a vulnerable character who doesn't realise the situation they are this is to create tension in the opening with the darker character making a cameo role at the end just show there where abouts.





Lighting- The lighting we will use will be a contrast of dark and light to show two different sides (good v evil). preferably dark for evil etc.




Titles- We will mostly focus on small font which keeps up the eerie side of the thriller.Also as a group we though that if there was to bigger text then it would make the thriller have a big bold fell to that could make it seem comical.



Editing- Many cuts to show different views and shots, for example a quiet and busy places, fast cuts to keep tension throughout the opening sequence. some transitions will be used but mostly for titles.

Getting Ready

We have been watching the openings of a number of different Thriller films to get an idea of how each director has used different techniques to make the opening title sequence of a film dynamic and attract attention from the audience so they are gripped to there seats for the rest of the film.

As a group we closely looked at two Thriller openings in class and then another 2 outside of lesson. "Seven" and "Silence of the Lambs" were the two films we studied. The two films were very different in there techniques they used to portray a good opening but they both were very effective in making the opening gripping.

"Silence of the Lambs" uses a basic titles over a sequence of different shots. The shots are effective and help to engage the audience to think that the women is in a venerable situation but then the opening is twisted and it turns out to be that she is the cop. This at first confuses the viewer making them intrigued to keep on watching the film.

Seven starts off the same with a opening sequence of shots that make up a little "teaser trailer." After the sequence of shots has finished there is a collage of fast moving images that symbolise different action and themes running throughout the film.

FINAL CUT INDUCTION VIDEO