Research for Opening Sequence

After making the preliminary task, it is now time to talk about the final sequence.... "Produce a two minute opening sequence of a film to a genre of your choice"

Originaly we chose to do the genre 'Vampire' however after the all the plotting, filming and editing we felt that it wasnt right and we wanted to make large improvements, therefore we chose to scrap the idea completely and start over fresh with new ideas. Coming up with a new genre was not difficult for us to decide on as we had a few favourites when chosing the final idea. Sticking with the theme horror/thriller, it was like a blank canvas to work on therefore we could go from many directions from there on and work with the different ideas that we came up with, seeing how they fit together and if they are good enough to produce a high quality peice of work. After researching into the different genres such as "torture porn" and "splatter films" we wanted to interpret our own feel to this without being to cliche and using a predictable plot. As a group of girls chosing this genre may seem quite unusual as it is mainly men which tend to make these type of films, however we feel we have some good ideas and we can really get stuck in to what we have planned.

I think its now time to talk about location/props/sound/characters we will use for our opening sequence.

Location
For the locatin we wanted to chose somewhere which was dull,plain, like a non-decorated room, without giving away any sort of information where the victim wakes up and how they have got there. We thought of shooting the scene in somewhere like a shed to fit the earry feel to the story however we felt there wouldnt be enough room to shoot the scenes and a plain room and a bed would follow the theme " torture porn" as it could straight away make the veiwer think of sex. Considering all these things, we chose to use Gemmas dads house and her room, removing all the wall hangings, decorations, covering up furniture like chest of drawers with white sheets and stripping the bed down to the mattress, therefore making the room feel as if it is deserted. Using gemmas dads house is how we came up with the title to our film " 337" as it is simple and effective and we felt that if we made the sequence with a big impact on the veiwer, the short, punchy title would speak for itself.



Actress


The actress we have chosen to use in our film is the beautiful, one and only Amy Thorburn. We chose her as she did amazingly in the preliminary task, we knew she would be able to get right into character with our ideas for the real sequence, and giving 100% per cent.



Characters
For our sequence we will have two characters, the victim and the killer. However the killer will not be revealed in the sequence, leaving it to the veiwers mind. We have chosen to use Amy Thorburn as the victim as she did brilliantly in our preliminary, we knew she would be amazing in this, giving 100% and totally getting into character.
As we are following the theme sex and torture, we wanted Amy to act the vulnerable victim, looking as if she has been abused and abducted. We wanted to use a young, attractive girl as the main character as it appeals to a large audience and goes with the theme 'sex'.

Many films do this such as 'Hostel and Hills have Eyes' as women are seen as the weaker gender therefore a male killer is always seen as the powerful one. It also appeals to the veiwer( mainly men ) as women can be seen as sex objects therefore a woman being tortured or looking as if she has been, can be seen as being sexy.



Costumes/Make-up
For the costumes and make-up, we used a white dress, ripped it up and rubbed dirt and fake blood into it, making it look realistic and fitting the role of her character. We did the same to amys face, using make up and fake blood to create bruises and cuts around her eyes, lips and nose, showing she has been hurt. I think this looked realistic as we didnt over-do it and kept it quite simple, yet effective. We ripped the dress around Amys chest to make it seem as if she was struggling or fighting to get away from her attacker.



Props

We used quite alot of props when filming,

using white sheets to cover the furniture in the room but the main things we focused on was the weapons and tool inside the room. We took hammers, knives, a saw and whatever could get our hands on and covered them in fake blood, rubbing dirt onto them, making them seem as if they have been used on her. We laid these on a white sheet, making the colour of the red blood stand out more on film and make it seems even more scary.

Lighting

The room we filmed in was painted light and because we filmed in the daytime, the natural sunlight was all we used for lighting and i think it made the scene look even more eary as this was happening in the daytime, taking a different approach to the predictable torture films out there, filming at nighttime,(as darkness is seen as being scary). At the beggining of the scene, you can see the sunlight shining through, hitting the victims face, giving an earyness to the scene. This is done having the curtains pulled and when she sets herself free from the ropes, she draws the curtains letting the natural sunlight hit the room, revealing the bloody handprints on the window and the strong colour of red.

Dialogue

For the dialgue we decided to 'go with the flow', trusting amys instincts to act and let her do what she felt was right. We gave her a rough idea, keeping the grittyness we wanted to her to swear and shout " You Fucker!", to make it seem as if she was losing her mind slightly and to shock the veiwer. My favourite speech is towards the end, letting Amy do what she felt was right, dropping her weapon and mentally giving up, directing her speech towards the camera, as if the veiwer was the killer, coming towards its victim.

Risk Assessment

Before we began filming we had to think about all the risks that could possibly happen. For example we didnt need to worry about risks such as fire or electricity however our main focus was the use of sharp objects and handling them.Throughout the scene the victim eratically grabs a weapon from the side therefore we needed to consider her being very careful when touching the ovjects however making it seem relastic aswell without holding back. To be extra safe, we had a first aid kit near us when filming to make sure we were on point if anything were to go wrong and we could of adressed the problem quickly and safely.

Another risk we had to consider when filming was the shot which was filmed from outside of the victim banging on the window on the inside. To get this shot, Gemma had to lean out the window whilst steadily holding the camera and then me and chloe held onto gemmas legs making sure she was safe and was not at risk of falling out the window.