R2-49 : FILM OPENING PROJECT 2008/9

Foundling

2009-03-12T06:35:00.000-07:00

Voice-over

2009-03-03T07:08:00.000-08:00

The voice-over is the main thing that'll give any sense to our opening. The words are going to be whispered. This is a draft of what the voice-over might say:

"As if being an orphan wasn't enough, I've lost my brother as well.

I've always looked after him, even with foster parents, I've always been his carer. But I let him out to play. It was just for a few minutes, is that a mistake?

Is he lost because of me?

I know he's not gone forever... I'm so sure of that. What else would these visions mean? The way I suddenly see him appear out of nowhere, and then see him scream and run away. He looks too real...

And the dreams and voices.

They're driving me insane.

This is my story..."

Mina And Bryony

Roughcut

2009-02-27T02:08:00.000-08:00

Here is the rough cut of our film opening..yay!!:

For our actual final opening, we'll need to add our production logo at the start, edit the soundtrack, and we also need to record a voice over that explains what's going on.

Mina, Bryony, Matt

Target Audience

2009-02-27T01:49:00.000-08:00

We think that the target audience for 'Foundling' would be 15-25 years old. This is because we would rate the film as a 15.

We think our film would be a 15 because, it will contain strong language, scenes of mild horror and shots that might disturb younger viewers. Also the story of our film would not appeal to younger viewers because it is more of a psychological film than an exiting action film that younger viewers tend to prefer to watch. We also thought that our film was mild enough not to be an 18.

Bryony

Filming

2009-02-27T01:35:00.000-08:00

On Monday 23rd February, we shot most of our footage. After re-scheduling the dates, this went really well and we worked productively. We shot all of the shots that we could have with the actors that we had. We used many different shot types, low angles, pan, long shot, close up, extreme close up, medium shot, over the shoulder shot and high angle. We were pleased with most of the shots but thought that a couple of them would look better if we re shot them in a lighter location. We then planned to film on Wednesday 25th February, we went out to film at mid-day ish but we felt that it was too sunny and the weather created a atmosphere that was too happy! If we were to film at that time, we feel this would have ruined the continuity and spoil the mise-en-scene as we already have footage when it is dull and darker, it would spoil the atmosphere and scary feel.

Bryony

Reschedule of filming

2009-02-27T01:17:00.000-08:00

Due to problems with our models and actress we had to reschedule our filming to a later date in the half term.

We planned to film Wednesday 18th February with our older actress. Due to underlying circumstances of transport our actress was really late and by the time we got to our shooting location it was too dark to even see through the camera!

Therefore we rescheduled the filming to Saturday 21st February.

In this shoot we didn't manage to get all of the shots that we wanted therefore we made another date during the weekend and one date during the day when we came back from college, these dates were:

Monday 23rd February and Wednesday the 25th February.

Bryony

Shooting Schedule

2009-02-13T02:05:00.000-08:00

Shot Number Shot Framing Action Info (location, Props, Costumes)
1 Long/Medium Shot. Young brother and sister playing on
swings and running around.
2 Close up/extreme close Two children holding hands, one
up. giving the other a gift.
3 Long/medium shot. Sister (old) walking through the
Graveyard looking sad.
4 Medium shot. Sister puts flowers down on grave.
Looks up and see brothers grave.
5 Close up/extreme close Shocked face, screaming, blood
up. dribbling out of mouth.
6 Medium shot. Shot of all 3 gravestones.

7 Medium/close up shot. Sister (old) looking at photos of
young brother.
8 Close up. Sister putting down photos.

9 Zoom out to medium shot. Show sister crying, looking at pictures.

10 Over shoulder shot. Sister looking at and stroking the pictures.

11 Close up/extreme close up. Candle flickering, matches lighting.

Bryony

Props

2009-02-10T07:31:00.000-08:00

We aren't using many props because our story and theme is shown in the locations we are using bringing across the atmosphere, also the voice over that we are doing will tell the story. But the few props we are using are listed bellow and a small description of how we are going to use them:

To shoot the shots of the brother and sister playing, we chose to use play things in a garden and one shot that we thought would look good was the young boy swinging lone on a swing.

To show the sister missing the brother and to show her longing for him, we will take pictures of him that she fondles and looks at. To get the authentic feel we are going to take the pictures with a polaroid camera.

Another toy we will film the children playing with is a simple children's football.

To show the sister going mad, we plan to use fake blood and have it coming out from her mouth while screaming, this will give a effective scary scene.

Bryony

Film titles and credits.

2009-02-10T07:17:00.001-08:00

We came up with a few names as possible titles for our film, most of the names came from meanings similar to the words; missing, searching and orphan.

Stray
Homeless
Lost
Gone
Seeking
Foundling
Abandoned
The Missing
Troubled

We've decided to go with Foundling as the title of our film because it means orphan, and the name has the word 'found' in it which reflects that she's trying to find her brother.

Opening Credits:

Lookout Cinema presents
A Hidden Giant production
Becky Hargrave
Emily Green
Matthew Patterson
Liam Felt
Harry Bold
Mel Marrow
Casting by Samantha Jean-Smith
Costume Design by Caleb Jackson
Music by Richard Dean
Edited by Mina Shahzad
Director of photography Bryony Craig-Matthews
Written by Tristan Isaac
Produced by Remy Nathaniel
Directed by India Mason

Bryony And Mina

New Filming Locations

2009-02-10T07:04:00.000-08:00

As we have changed our story slightly from the shots of the psychic and the sister talking in the room. we have had to change the location of where were shooting and the story.

Our new variation on the theme is that:
The sister has still lost her brother and we are still using old pictures and footage of the young siblings playing when they were younger, but instead of the sister going to a psychic she goes insane with the stress of looking for him. And believes that supernatural things are happening and so therefore she goes insane.

We thought of the idea of the sister (who is an orphan) goes to a church yard and looks at the graves of her deceased parents and then is shocked and in horror that she sees a new grave nearby that is her brothers. We thought of possible locations for this shot and thought that one of the best and most scary churchyards in the cambridge area is one on Victoria Road that is a very large graveyard with many old graves that we could use to film, this is the location of it:

This Is where we plan to soot the shots of the sister in the church yard. But instead of the sky being blue and the time being mid-day, we plan to shoot at dusk to get the right mise-en-scene and atmosphere for the scary theme we are going for.

Bryony And Mina

Filming

2009-02-10T06:49:00.000-08:00

For our filming, we've decided to change our shots a bit. The idea of the psychic and the sister talking in the room wouldn't work because we'd need an adult to play the role of the psychic, so we'll need adults to play the roles. Also the location we planned to film in isn't available for us to shoot in.

So as an alternative idea, we decided to leave out the shot of the sister and psychic talking and instead we'll focus on images and footage of the missing brother playing. However, if we have enough time remaining, we could add in a shot of the sister talking with someone about her brother. As for now, we've decided that we should focus on effects on the footage to make it interesting. We've also decided to add in an extra shot of the sister in the graveyard, because our storyline has the sister believing her brother might be dead, we could show that in the graveyard shot of her seeing her brother's tombstone. This would make the story of the film more obvious and would reflect the genre of a supernatural thriller.

Locations

2009-02-06T02:13:00.000-08:00

We went location scouting around college to find a location that we could use for the scenes inside with the psychic. We found a good possible room, that is dark and the right size. Unfortunately the room was locked, therefore we will have to seek who's room it is and ask permission to film. Because it was snowing we also found a good possible location for filming the shots of the brother and sister playing:
We tried taking pictures, but because the room was locked we couldn't get a clear shot:

Mina And Bryony

Animatic

2009-02-05T05:56:00.000-08:00

This is the animatic for our opening sequence. It's obviously a very rough idea of what we want our opening sequence to be like. Our production logo still needs some work, hopefully with some animation in it.

Shot List

2009-01-29T05:49:00.000-08:00

After we made a story board, we jotted down the shot list and the props we need for each:

Close up of either match lighting or a flickering candle
Zoom out to show the full candles and part of the table
Zoom out to show a medium range shot of the sister and the psychic sitting opposite each other on a table.
Close up of sisters hands putting down pictures of her brother and herself.
Over the shoulder shot of sister looking at pictures.
Series of flash back shots of young brother and sister being together/playing. (long shots)
Back to medium shot of sister and psychic talking.
Bright reminiscing shots of brother playing.
Shot of sister sitting and crying.
Sister gets up in anger and shouts at psychic.
Close up of sisters angry face with tears running down her cheeks.

To show that our film is a supernatural thriller with a female lead, we plan to shoot the shots of her at a slightly higher angle to show her authority over who else is in the shot.

*NEW SHOT LIST*

Close up of either match lighting or a flickering candle
Zoom out to show sister crying and looking at pictures
Close up of sisters hands putting down pictures of her brother and herself.
Over the shoulder shot of sister looking at pictures.
Series of flash back shots of young brother and sister being together/playing. (long shots)
Sister walking in the graveyard looking at her parent's tombstone.
Quick shot of her staring at her brother's tombstone.
Series of shots showing the sister's growing fear for her brother e.g screaming etc.

The credits will be against a black background in between all the shots. There will also be a voice over of the sister explaining what happened.

Analysis Of Gothika And The Ring

2009-01-29T05:45:00.000-08:00

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Opening sequence of The Ring.

Opening sequence of Gothika

Moodboards

2009-01-29T05:27:00.000-08:00

These are our mood boards showing ideas of our sound, location and, story line ideas.

Main Story

2009-01-27T07:31:00.000-08:00

Our story's a supernatural thriller with a female lead role. The story's inspired by The Others and The Forgotten, our opening sequence is inspired by opening sequences of Gothika and The Others.

Our story is about an orphaned sister who's 4 year old brother has gone missing. Desperate for help and without parents to go to, she goes to a psychic who at first says she can't help, but then suddenly says that her brother's died and that he can't be found. The sister refuses to believe the psychic, and thinking that going to her was a bad idea, returns to seeking help from the police. However, she starts getting visions and there are supernatural occurrences throughout the film The rest of the film looks at her struggle from keeping sane and trying to find out the truth about her missing brother.

2009-01-20T07:31:00.000-08:00

Pitch:
Supernatural Thriller With A Female Lead

The Ring
Gothika
The Exorcism Of Emily Rose
The Forgotten

The opening sequences of these films are quite subtle in the amount of supernatural activity, they just try to set the scene and portray the characters and genre without giving away too much.

Analysis of Gothika Opening Sequence

2009-01-18T15:10:00.000-08:00

Gothika, a 2003 horror/supernatural thriller movie directed by Mathieu Kassovitz and written by Sebastian Gutierrez, is the story of a psychiatrist (played by Halle Berry) in a women's mental hospital who wakes up one day to find herself on the other side of the bars, accused of having murdered her husband.

Genre:
Thriller
Horror
Mystery

Opening credits are set against a black background, black being a 'Gothic' colour, it works well for the title of the film. The font is white and ghostly and zooms out. The music is eerie and slow. All this gives us a good idea of the genre of the film.

Fonts

2009-01-16T01:57:00.000-08:00

These are the fonts we found that would work well for the production title. We thought that the first one will probably be the one we work with.

Bryony,
Matt
and
Mina

Possible Production Names

2009-01-15T05:35:00.000-08:00

Because we are planning to do a Supernatural Thriller with a female lead role, we thought that the production name should reflect that type of genre, these are our first possible name ideas:

Hidden
Superhuman
Uncanny
Curious
Insolvable
Sphinxlike
Eccentric
Eerie
Spooky
Dark
Secret
Chilling

We watched a few production logo animations and realised that quite a few logo's have an adjective and a noun, for example; Black Horse Productions and Stoopid Monkey. We thought that we could use a word from the above list and add a noun to it, the names highlighted in red are our favorite names so far:

Hidden Giant
Eccentric Bee
Eerie Pig
Spooky Shadows
Dark Colours
Secret Box
Chilling Wind
Creepy Crawly
Phantom House
Crazy Hands
Scarred Shadow

Mina And Bryony

Analysis of Walt Disney and Pixar Productions logos

2009-01-15T05:18:00.000-08:00

The Walt Disney logo's famous for all the Disney films it appears in. The main image of the logo, a castle, portrays the production company as a creative company. The font of Walt Disney is cursive and works very well with the castle image making it portrays itself as a company that produces fantasy films for younger audiences. The logo is a good example of one that does not use animation as much as it uses the main image to make itself recognisable.

The Pixar logo also portrays itself as a production company that produces films for younger audiences. The Pixar logo's font is very simple and plain. The main feature of the logo is the little lamp that bounces around and replaces itself as the letter 'i' in Pixar. It's the only feature that makes the logo memorable and east to recognise. Te logo's a good example of how a very plain lettered logo can be made easily recognisable by some animation.

Bryony And Mina

Analysis Of The Golden Compass Opening Sequence

2009-01-09T02:06:00.000-08:00

Based on author Philip Pullman's bestselling and award-winning novel, The Golden Compass tells the first story in Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The Golden Compass is an exciting fantasy adventure, set in an alternative world where people's souls manifest themselves as animals, talking bears fight wars, and Gyptians and witches co-exist. At the center of the story is Lyra (played by newcomer Dakota Blue Richards), a 12-year-old girl who starts out trying to rescue a friend who's been kidnapped by a mysterious organization known as the Gobblers - and winds up on an epic quest to save not only her world, but ours as well. The Golden Compass stars an ensemble cast that includes Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott, and Ian McShane. The film is written and directed by Chris Weitz (About A Boy, Antz) and produced by Deborah Forte and Bill Carraro (Frequency). It is executive produced by Andrew Miano and Paul Weitz (In Good Company)

Genre:
Adventure
Family
Fantasy

Opening credits, floaty and effects like fireflies, giving an immediate feel of magic and fantasy.
After The Golden Compass title has shown up, the shot merges into a starry atmospheric night sky, with a womens voice over talking about the two dimensions and our dimension as being the one that is unusual by having our souls inside our bodies. The first block of voice over tells us how the story is going to plan out, by telling us about the compass and that the fate will depend on it.

We can tell that the film is a children's fantasy from a combination of misce-en-scene, camerawork, sound and editing. From the opening, we can tell who the main character of the film is from the voice-over that says "Only once can read it", the camera then cuts off to the shot of the girl who finds a compass. The camera zooms in on her and that gives us reason to think that she is the main character. This shows that kids can identify with the main character if they see the movie through her eyes.

We can tell that the theme is fantasy based from the title of the film "The Golden Compass". The font is golden and sparkly and seems magical. The voice-over talks about another world which also shows that it's fantasy.

Bryony and Mina

R2-49 FILM OPENING PROJECT

2008-11-28T05:33:00.001-08:00

Welcome