Research into Opening Sequences

As well as looking into opening sequences of horror films, since our opening sequence includes a book that will allow us to incorporate and show our titles, I found that clips from Harry Potter also help to show the effect we hope to achieve or have had inspiration from in our own sequence.

At 57 seconds on the clip, the scene changes into a newpaper format, we hope to achieve something like that where the audience is within the book and emerced in what is written, this could hope to connect the audience to the storyline and help to make it more impactful and creepy as the audience is involved. I like this style of filimg as it is inventive but is also effective at getting across emotions to the audience with the pace and sharpness of the camera shots, we hope to use slow shots that get increasingly faster to show a dramatic sense as something is getting closer and coming towards the main character in our opening sequence. 

Time Management

After completing all of our production meetings, before we started to film, we made a time management chart. This helped us to work to indivudal deadlines to ensure that we finished our product on time, but also had some time left over to check over our work and to make improvements if necessary, this will allow us to be completely happy with our finished piece.

As you can see the majority of the time we have planned for is editing, as we anticipate that it will take a long period of time to ensure all of our clips flow effectively, that our story makes sense and also that all appropriate sounds have been included and sound realistic.

We also allowed ourself 5 weeks to plan, this is useful as it means that when it comes to filming we can complete it quickly and effectively as all members of our group have a detailed and precise understanding of our storyline and also what shots and angles we need to get.

Time management is an important factor of our whole production as it means that we will be able to finish everything we need to and can stay organised, this will help us finish our opening sequence to the best of our ability.

Storyboard

As well as our group drawing a storyboard, I researched and decided to look at animated storyboarding as was able to create one myself, this helped to further enhance my understanding of our sequence and see it another visual way.

The website I used to make this animated storyboard was http://www.toondoo.com/

Initial Idea: Shot List

Before setting out to film our opening sequence our group made an initial shot list, which would help us to know what we wanted to get before filming, also because of opening sequence is of a horror genre our camera shots and angles had to be appropriate to suit this genre.

This is the shot list we made:

• 360 around our main character, to give an introduction to our character and to put emphasis on her facial expressions and her isolation
• Close ups, to heighten the abnormal objects within the warehouse
• High angle shot, to give the sense she is being watched
• Pan, to show how jumpy and scared she is as she knows she shouldn't be there
• Point of view
• Over the shoulder
• Medium shots
• Long shot, when she is looking down from the room to show how she isn't alone

Story Board

Before we started filming, our group created a storyboard, this was effective in helping us to gain a better understanding of our story but to also see it visually. This helped us while filming as it meant we knew exactly what we wanted to get, in terms of each clip and gave us a better idea of camera shots and angles to portray emotions within each scene and section of our opening sequence.

This also helped to give us a more detailed plan of a shotlist as we decided to initially use:

• pan/360
• close up
• medium shots
• extreme close ups
• point of view 
• over the shoulder shots
• high angle

We hope that by using these shots it will create an intense, isolated but also confined sense that she is being watched, which will heighten our horror genre sequence. 

Pre Production Meeting Three

As shown in the picture, we have decided on what aspects of our storyline should go into each scene, this helps us to break down filming into more manageable parts and gives us an easier idea of what different things we need to film. This should help to make editing easier as we will have a good idea of how the clips should flow to make an effective horror opening sequence.

From the three pre production meetings, our groups is prepared to film our opening sequence.

Because our initial deadline for our production is the 13th February, our group aim to finish filming by the 13th January which gives us a month to begin editing. From our production meetings we have decided that we will spend 2 days filming, on the first day we will film the reporter walking into the building, up the stairs and looking around. On our second day we will film the reporter finding the book, looking through it and the some unknown being entering the room with her. As we have spent time planning we can now effectively manage our time so that we have enough time to edit.  

Pre Production Meeting Two

In our groups second meeting, we began to think about locations, from our pitch we decided we wanted either a creepy, abandoned house or warehouse or a dark forest. From our first meeting and our new idea, it would be best to find a house or warehouse for our opening sequence, we decided on a workshop as it was accessible for our group but was also dark with empty rooms where we could create a scene that would fit our genre. 

As well as location, we thought about props, as a book is the basis of our idea we needed to find and order or make our own book. The props we thought of fit the horror theme but also with the ideas that will fit into the book, such as the child like toys which can be presented to look scary in a dark and mysterious situation, this is why we thought they would be effective.

We also began to think about sound effects as we could begin to produce some of our own while we were at our filming location, the sound effects link to the props and also to the location, as the warehouse is empty and sound effects should help to heighten the fear within the opening sequence. 

In our third meeting, we will start to determine scenes to break down our filming to make it more manageable and easier to begin when we get to our location. 

Pre Production Meeting One

In our groups first pre production meeting, we began to discuss new ideas for our opening sequence as from our pitch we were asked how we would make our idea more original from other horror films that already exist. 

As a starting point we thought of a list of single ideas and props that would fit a horror genre and then thought how we would connect the ideas in order to make a opening sequence. 

From our first meeting, our group has established a main idea consisting of a femal character walking into an abandoned and old building who finds a book with old newspaper reports and pictures in it, this should create a mysterious and eerie atmosphere as something clearly isn'r right with the situation she is in.

Also, we have answered another question we were given as a result of our pitch, to incorporate our titles we have decided to use the book as the basis of the titles as well as the storyline, with the titles incorporated into the articles and pictures. 

In our next pre production meeting, location, props, costume, actors and sound effects needed will be considered to give a clearer plan for when we go into production and filming.