My thriller opening sequence uses the conventions that any
other thriller would use. My opening
sequence shows mysteriousness and adventure with thriller behind it all. It
lets the audience wonder and think about what might happen. The mysteriousness allows
the audience to think about it all, thinking what's going to take place, is
anything dramatic going to happen. My thriller gives of suspense which is what
we need for the audience to want to stay and watch the rest of the film. The mysteriousness develops as the opening
sequence goes on.
The thriller represents a social group of teenagers. We cans
see from the opening sequence that there isn't a specific type of social group,
just 3 teenagers who are on a day out and come across this abandoned building.
The type of media institution that might distribute my
thriller would be a film institution. An film institution that is interested in
thrillers and wants to show a thriller. The best institution to show it would
be those who have already produced thrillers as they know about them and would
already have the target audience. It is important that the right institution
distribute the product the thriller can have the right coverage and have the
right target audience.
The target audience for my thriller opening sequence would
be teenagers around the ages of 15-18 and people who are into thrillers and
like the mysteriousness and suspense. The reason it would be suitable for this
age group is because it wouldn't be a gruesome, over the top scary thriller. It
would just be a normal straight forward thriller so this age range fits the
best.
I have attracted the target audience by the way the opening
sequence is portrayed. The opening
sequence is very catching so it grabs the target audience straight away. The
audience would want to carry on watching at it leaves on somewhat of a
cliff-hanger. The title also grabs the target audience due to the way that is
portrayed too. The title sequence appears and each letters dissolved, linking
to the title name of 'abandoned' as the idea is for the letters to be
abandoned, one by one. The target audience would like it because it catches
their attention and they wonder what is going to happen next. Below is a picture of the title sequence we
made.
From when I did my preliminary task to now, doing my final
thriller opening sequence task, I have learned a lot. I have learned from scratch
on how to use the Adobe Premier Pro editing software, I have learned how to make
titles in adobe after effects and I have learned more about camera angles and
what shots look better. When I did my preliminary task I didn't really know
what I was doing, I had never done anything like it so it gave me a chance to
play around with things and get to know it all. By doing the final task, I have
learned everything to do with Premier Pro and I have learned to keep working with
the clips we have in order to make them better. This task has allowed me to
keep working to make things better and to focus on what we have in front of us
in order to make things work. This task has also shown me that filming and
editing is not an easy task. It takes a lot of concentration and effort in order
to come out with something you are happy with.
In my groups draft edit of the opening sequence, we had a
problem with matching dialogue up with the mouth movement of one of the actors,
we didn't have a production company in the sequence and the music at the end
didn't drag out long enough in order to finish with the very end of the
sequence. With all these issues, for our final edit, we sorted the problems out
to get to where we wanted and where we were happy with the sequence. We sat as
a group and figured out what to do in order to make the sequence good. We sat
down and designed and produced our own
production company in Adobe Fireworks which added to our opening sequence
making is seem more professional. We then sat and changes to dialogue to the
mouth. This was the hardest part for us and we had to split the sound clips we
had in order to make things slower and match. After about 30 minutes, we had
matched our dialogue sound up with the movement of the mouth. The last
improvement was to drag out the sound at the end of the clip; we did this and
now the sound matched the ending to the sequence. Below is the production
company we developed and produced.
When the thriller screenings too place, we got some feedback
on what people thought about it. The feedback we received were good things, bad
things and what we could improve if we had to go back and do it again. The good
things that were said about our thriller opening sequence were that the
location we had was good, it matched the task and build up what we needed in
order to have a good opening sequence. The part that seemed to go down well
with the audience was out title sequence. The feedback we received was that the
way the title took place was really good and looked really good. They liked the
way the letters faded out one by one as it linked to the title of the thriller
'abandoned'. The transitions received good feedback; the audience said that
most of the transitions looked good and matched well with scenes. We were also
told that the way the story build up was good. The audience liked how the story
moved on and developed throughout. The audience are always wondering what is
going to happen next. Another good piece of feedback we received was that we
had a variety of camera shots and sizes in the opening sequence which build up
the story, mysteriousness and tension. The different shots and sizes meant we
had used a variety. The last piece of good feedback we received was that the ending
of the opening sequence was good. The audience liked how it went from the title
sequence to the swaying door at the end as it gave of 'creepiness'.
Although we had a variety of good comments, we also had a
few comments that weren't so good about our opening sequence. The first thing
that was said was that there is one piece of dialogue where a character says
'She's been gone a while, shall I go and find her?' and the mouth didn't match
the sound dialogue. We did have a problem with this so we tried our best to
split the sound up as much as we could to get it to match the mouth. This
problem was initially a big problem and managed to get it somewhat right for
the final edit, however, the audience still noticed the problem. The one jump
cut we have in the thriller looked odd
to the audience as they said it didn't match the rest of the transitions,
however, this was the idea. It was a tense scene, therefore we didn't want a
dissolve transition otherwise it would take away the tension. The audience also
said that the repeated sound throughout the thriller wasn't very good. They
could tell it was repeated, however, we wanted it to sound like it would if you
were in the area, in woods with trees, birds and leaves. The clip where the
girl walks through the overgrown area apparently was too long. The audience
said we should have either cut a section out and sped the scene up. This
particular section, I had noticed it was a little bit longer than what we would
have wanted it, however, if we had sped it up and cut a section out, it wouldn't
have looked right so we decided to keep the scene how it is. We were also told
that we could add a few short takes into the thriller to give that little bit
of extra variety to what we already have. The last thing we were told for as
improvement was rather than having the smaller girls back to the camera while
the boy was saying 'She's been gone a while, do you want me to go and find
her?', we should of had her facing the camera.
I personally, don't agree with the comment about the bad
jump cut. There reason we have a jump cut in our thriller is because we have to
have a variety of shots. We have very similar cuts throughout the thriller so
we have added a jump cut into a specific section where we think it works well.
We added it in to the part that gives tension as the jump cuts allows things to
cut quickly, building the tension as to what is going to happen next.
Overall, this task has been difficult as it is something I
have never done before. Although I found the task difficult, I enjoyed it. I
enjoyed working as a group, filming and editing everything together. The task
has allowed me to get to know the editing software, the filming work and get to know how things work in order to
produce something like an opening sequence.
Here is the link to our final edit of our thriller opening
sequence, Abandoned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RdeCqs_1Is
