SCRIPT

Here are the scripts of our opening sequence ENVY, this is done to help us and give us an idea what we need to include in our sequence. Also, how to act them out.

Krina Gohil

How does our Opening Sequence ENVY reflect what our film is about?

WHAT IS OUR FILM ABOUT?

This is the final opening sequence of ENVY. The only disadvantage of our sequence is the quality, as it's uploaded on youtube.

> Click on this image to view the opening sequence of ENVY <

FULL SYNOPSIS OF ENVY.

HOW DOES OUR OPENING SEQUENCE SHOW THIS?

Our opening sequence reveals what happens to Kay when they both Jayde and Kay are both in a canal.

It shows Kay wakes up middle of nowhere and the flashbacks give hints to the audience and even to Kay, what had happened and why she's there. The flashbacks show Jayde getting annoyed and angry as soon as Kay mentioned "I can't believe Daniel tried it on with me". This relates back to where she thought she had a fling with him at the hotel party.

The suspicion grows from the audience when the view of Jayde's face flashing, to indicate that there's something dangerous about this character. It's also shown to illustrate Jayde's unusual eyes, indicating her abnormality. This is to warn the audience as well, that Jayde is not what she seems. This helps for the audience to understand Daniel's behaviour when he sees Jayde.

The effective and most memorable ending of the opening sequence shows Kay getting kidnapped by Jayde, and disappears into the darkness. This is the important part as the tension and actions starts to begin. This relates to where people, Kay's friends, at school get concerned and worried about the absence of Kay, and is aware of Jayde's absence too.

The ending can lead to any directions of what could happen, and this shows that our opening sequence hasn't revealed too much information. It's left with many unanswered questions.

Krina Gohil.

Storyboard

This is the storyboard for our opening sequence, showing our ideas and the story behind our sequence...

Laura Perkins

Distribution Companies

Distribution

Looking for a company which will distribute the film now is the next step and finding a distributor which will does that well is important because our target audience need to be brought in. These are some of the companies which I have looked at, for distributing the film and they are:

Film4
Film4 have distributed films however not that many, to be exact they have distributed 56 films over all and are still distributing films. Film4 have been associated with films which have done well in the past for instance ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ (2009), this was one the films which raised a lot of capital. And it did very well, not just in the UK but internationally it did well and made a lot of money. This shows that Film4 are associated with films which do well.

Pathe Pictures
Pathe Pictures have distributed many films over the past years; about 225 films have been distributed, which shows that they have done a lot of distributing and have a lot experience. It is also a well known company too, which means that there are expectations to deliver to the audience.

‘Adulthood’ (2008) was one of the films which was distributed by Pathe Pictures, this shows that they have catered to the target audience that we are looking to carter for with our film. This is shows that they will know how to target the audience and make the audience aware of the film.

Revolver Entertainment
Revolver has distributed many films as well, about 128 films since the company started; this shows they have a lot experience in distributing films. Two films which they have distributed are: ‘Kidulthood’ (2006) and ‘Shank’ (2010). These films both have the same target audience which is teenagers, there is the same target audience and they have pulled the audiences in to watch those films than they could probably do the same with our film.

‘Kidulthood’ (2006) was popular and the next film which was the sequel to it was ‘Adulthood’ (2008). ‘Adulthood’ (2008) was not distributed by the same company this time; it was distributed by another company, which was Pathe Pictures.

Screen Gems
Screen Gems is a USA company which means that they are less likely to distribute the film because of this; American companies are more well known and are less likely to take a risk to distribute a UK film which is small.

353 films have been distributed by Screen Gems which is many more than other companies which I have looked at, some of the films which they have distributed include:

When a Stranger calls (2006)
Obsessed (2009)
The Cottage (2008)
Cleaner (2007)
Prom Night (2008)
Quarantine (2008)
And there are many more films.

The films which are distributed by Screen Gems are mainly targeted at teenagers; this is an advantage because they will know what ways to target the audience and bring them in. Since they have been doing it for a long period of time and they probably know what is more effective than other companies which may have only targeted teenagers as their audience a few times.

This would be the best company to distribute the film however it is not the company that will be distributing the film since it a American company and our film is a small British film which has been made an independent company.

The company which will distribute the film is going to be Pathe Pictures because that is the best company for the film, they have distributed many films and some of them are thriller films. Therefore they will know how to distribute the film because it is also a thriller film, another reason is that Pathe Pictures seems to be better since the sequel to ‘Kidulthood’ which was ‘Adulthood’ was distributed by Pathe Pictures; this shows that Pathe is clearly the best choice. They have targeted the audience before that we want them to target and they are successful and have also distributed many films.

Pooja Patel

Group Roles

Patrice Doe:
Patrice was one of the two actors in our opening sequence, she played the role of the murderer, Jayde. Patrice helped to come up with the final idea of the opening sequence, edited, and contributed to the group blog. Patrice, along with Krina, had the more interactive roles of the group, being in front of the camera - acting.
Krina Gohil:
Krina was the second actor and she played the role of the victim, Kay. Krina also contributed to the final ideas of the opening sequence, helped to come up with the actual storyline behind the film, and helped to edit some of the final product.
Laura Perkins:
I was the director of the opening sequence, and filmed the actual content. I helped come up with some ideas for the opening sequence outline, and I also edited some of the final outcome. I completed some film research along with the other members of the group, and I decided that we should do a short documentary of the final location.
Pooja Patel:
Pooja looked after the equipment on several occasions and contributed to the blog, and she also came up with some ideas for the seuqence.

Laura Perkins

RESEARCH 2

The Haunting of Connecticut click on this title to view the trailer

This was a clip which was viewed and there were certain aspects of it that we liked however we didn't use any of this in our opening sequence. There were fast cuts in and a lot scary aspects which would make a person jump whlist watching the clip.

The Haunting of Molley Hartley click on this title to view the trailer

This was another clip that we saw and we liked one specific thing in the clip and that was the eye, the way that the whole eye was shown in the shot. This whole shot focuses on the eye which is a close up. We have considered using this idea in our opening sequence because we like this affect, it will be creepy and since we have a prop that will make it even more effective than it is in the actual clip from this film.

By Pooja

Opening Sequence 1st Draft

This is our first attempt in creating our opening sequence of a thriller movie.

Click here to view out first draftExplanation...

We faced a few problems whilst creating the first draft of our opening sequence, which included the time limits and deadlines, however we did manage to overcome these problems which resulted in us being able to present a draft of our opening sequence. This opening sequence shows the beginning of our film, Envy, which is basically about two best friends, Jayde and Kay, and Kay's ex boyfriend, Daniel, has been quite 'forward' with Kay and she likes him back. Jayde finds out and her personality changes, she wants revenge on Kay. The first shot is a rotating shot of Kay lying down on a bench, and she has been badly hurt, but can't remember what happened. As she gets up and starts walking around she has flash backs of the night before, and soon realises that the blame lies with her best friend Jayde. My favourite shot of the opening sequence is when Kay is having her final flashback of the sequence, and the camera is in night vision - inspired by Quarantine, and Kay looks directly at the camera and Jayde is behind her. I think that this shot speaks directly to the audience, and we are able to empathise with Kay as it seems as though she is looking straight at us, and only we know that there is someone behind her.

Good points...

-Even though quite a lot of information has been revealed in the 2minutes 30seconds that is shown, there is still the element of mystery within the opening sequence, and questions can be asked by the audience, e.g. Why is Kay's best friend wanting to cause her harm?, What did Kay do to make Jayde so angry? and What's going to happen to Kay and Jayde further on in the film?

-A major clue in the film is when Kay tells Jayde that Daniel 'tried it on with her', and asks Jayde if it's ok, Jayde looks at the camera mysteriously and this shows that Jayde isn't keen on the idea, even though she said it was ok, it clearly wasn't.

-The flashes of Jayde's face when Kay is spinning around feeling dizzy, help to disorientate the viewers and hold their attention even more because the flashes are really short, and so the first flash makes the audience wonder if they are imagining it, but with the flashes that follow, help to entice the audiences focus.

-Tension is buit with the sound effects of the wind, and the suspense sound track, however there is also a lot of tension when the two characters walk up to the camera in the final shot.

-The flashbacks are quite distinguished from the reality within the opening sequence, and this helps the audience to understand what the film is about.

Things to improve on...

-When Jayde looks straight at the camera, we want to show the audience that her eyes are different (she is wearing cat eye contacts), but when we filmed it, it is unclear to the audience that her eyes are different, and so we need to re film this shot.
-We also need to re film the close ups of feet running in the light because it was too dark when we filmed it first, and so it just looks like a blank screen to the audience.
-The section where it is a point of view shot, where Kay is under the bridge, the shot stays the same for too long, and so we need to vary our shots so we can hold the audiences attention.
-The feedback of our opening sequence also stated that we should place the titles away from the end of the opening sequence because having them at the end makes it look like it's a trailer, rather than an opening sequence.
-Even though the flashes are good, we need to make them slightly shorter, to make them just flash, at the moment they are staying for too long, and we want to make them have the highest effect as possible.

Laura Perkins

Paranormal Activity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UxLEqd074
Click the link to watch the trailer of Paranormal activity.


Paranormal Activity was one of the films we decided to all watch as a group to help us come up with ideas for our own opening sequence. The use of lighting inspired us and also the whole storyline itself.


- Night vision: We used night vision in our opening sequence. It created a freaky effect and indicated that part of the opening sequence was filmed at night. It also linked to the title, "Envy" as it had a green effect which is the colour of jealousy.


- Demon possession: In our opening sequence the murderer seemed to be possessed by some sort of demon as there were changes to her looks (facial expressions) and eye colour. This was an idea from Paranormal Activity that we thought would be good to add into our opening sequence.

Patrice Doe

Props

The props that we decided to use in our opening sequence inlcuded:

- Theatrical blood: This is used on both actors and as it is an opening sequence of a thriller film it really adds effect and makes it seem more real. The blood was used because it follows the codes and conventions of a typical thriller film. It is seen straight away, to capture the audiences attention from the start, and to hold it throughout.

-Face Paints: We also used face paints on the actors. This again added effect to create bruises and scratches. We wanted to use face paints because we thought that it helped create a sense of reality within the sequence making the actors look as though they have really been physically hurt, and shows that action took place.

-Eye contact lenses: Eye contacts were used also in our opening sequence. This created a creepy and scary effect, and it gives the audience a sense of evil in the atmosphere within our film. We wanted to use more obvious contact lenses, rather than just brightly coloured ones, so that the audience were able to understand the change in the character, and were able to identify this as soon as they saw her eyes. In the last scene, the contacts are used again when we are filming in night vision, and we thought that this created enigma, and held the audiences attention right to the last shot.

We thought that using these props would help to make our opening sequence more interesting for the audience and to keep the viewers watching. Researching other thriller films helped us to gain more understanding of what actually goes into a thriller film, and how props can really help the actors portray different charateristics within the film. The props also followed the codes and conventions of a thriller movies, and so the audience were able to identify with these.

Patrice Doe

Film Schedule

Tuesday 5th Jan, 2010 - This will be the first day we will be filming.
Location: Canal, Park Royal
Scene: Where Kay waking up middle of nowhere, and where she will be observing the area
Time: 3:30, we want the atmosphere to be quite dark later on.
Props: make up for the blood etc, jewellery, clothes

Friday 15th Jan, 2010 - Second time we will be filming
Location: Canal, Park Royal
To film the flashbacks
Time: 4:00, we want the flashbacks to lead to night time, for the darkness to arrive.
props: Make up, jewellery, casual pleasant clothes,

Monday 25th Jan, 2010 -
To film the flashbacks again
Location: Canal, Park Royal
To film some more flashbacks for back up
Time: Same time, 4:00, so we can match the setting when editing.
Props: Make up, Jewellery, clothes


Thursday 28th Jan, 2010 - final day.
Scene: to film the ending, where Jayde will kidnap Kay
Location: Canal, Park Royal
Props: Make up i.e. for bruises, Clothes, jewellery
Time: 7:00 in the evening, this is where night will occur.

Patrice Doe and Krina Gohil.

Problems We Have Faced...

-Our group has met up to film a few times now and everytime it has been quite dark, this has posed a problem for us as the quality of the scenes haven't been great. We tried to use torches and other lights around our locations, but this didn't make much of a difference, and so we have now altered some of our plans, and are going to film the majority of our opening sequence during the day time. We will then be able to edit the scenes and make them darker to look as though they haven't been filmed in broad day light, but still have a good quality to them.

-We have also found it hard trying to keep in mind that we are only filming the opening sequence as we have so many good ideas for the rest of the film - especially the ending! We have to keep reminding ourselves that it is only 2mins 30secs and that we cannot reveal too much about the storyline and characters.

-Next to our location is a road and we have tended to film during rush hour which has also affected our filming as the camera that we are using picks up sound quite easily, and so we have to make sure that there are as few cars around as possible when filming, especially the scenes with dialogue and diagetic sound.

-After uploading all of the content that we had filmed, we realised that we couldn't use much of it, and so we decided to re-film everything again. We knew that our deadline was in 5 days, and so we were determined to get all of the filming done in the one afternoon, and then we were going to upload and edit in the next few days. We ended up getting all of the filming done in a few hours, whilst it was still quite light, and we uploaded all of the stuff we filmed the next day. We then edited and managed to get the whole thing put together and finished in time for our deadline which we were quite proud of.

Laura Perkins

Locations: A Block

Another location that we looked at was in a school, this is a building within the school, and we took photos of what it looks like inside; this is the corridor. The building has 4 levels which means that there is a lot of space and on each of the levels there are a classrooms and toilets. There are a lot of stairs in the building because there are 4 levels, which can be seen as a challenge to the characters and it add suspense and tension. There is space in the building which means that we will be able to shoot easily, and there are many classrooms which we can use as well. The corridor seems long and on going which adds to the fact that it can be a challenge for the characters.

We considered this as one of the locations because it is a familiar place and since we will be shooting a thriller film, the building will have an aspect of it being a bit scary and creepy. Because we are planning to shoot when it is dark outside, it will be effective and add an element of thriller to the film.

Pooja Patel.

RESEARCH

QUARANTINE click on this title to review the clip

We researched on a few clips and Quarantine had gave us ideas of how to end our opening sequence. The clip revealed the main character screaming and being dragged across the floor, this had caught our attention because it left the ending as a cliffhanger leaving the audience wanting more. This is how we want our audience to react.

Also, the use of night vision we thought created dramatic effect of thriller and relates to the definition of the title 'Envy.' This is because the connotations of the title links to jealousy and the colour green associates with this very well, consequently, night vision would be appropiate for our opening sequence.

FLASHFORWARD click of this title to review the clip
We looked at this clip of Flashforward that helped us to come up with flashbacks in our opening sequence by the title of the programme, for the audience to understand the storyline of our film Envy or make the audience guess what the film could be about.
The flashforwards in this clip creates good effect of creating the shots unclear and the flash lights which creates more focus for the audience in order for them to see and understand what's happening.

The bottom left hand corner also suggested another idea that we could use a mask for the stalker, to add another ingredient of mystery. The identity is hidden therefore this is one of the investigations that could be solved in the film.

Also, the idea of the main character waking up in the first shot of our opening sequence was developed by this clip as it reveals some individuals waking up middle of nowhere. We thought we should imitate this idea to create suspicion and mystery for the audience adding elements and conventions under the genre Thriller. Here are some pictures from the clip to give examples. Although this is a programme, there are codes and conventions that fits under the category of thriller.

Krina Gohil

Analysis of Results

We conducted a survey with 25 students around school asking them questions about Thrillers, in order to help us create a suitable opening sequence for our target audience. In the questionnaires we asked open and closed questions to gain a variety of quantitative and qualitative data, allowing us to have statistics and opinions in our overall research.

Our target audience are teenagers, fifteen years and over, which will allow us to rate our film 15. The questionnaires were handed out to sixth formers whose ages range from 16-18.

Statistics from questionnaires completed:

AGE:

-16 out of 25 were 16 year olds

-6 out of 25 were 17 year olds
-3 out of 25 were 18 year olds

GENDER:

-7 out of 25 were males
-18 out of 25 were females

PREFERENCES:

-17 out of 25 enjoy Thrillers
-8 out of 25 do not enjoy Thrillers

-The most popular aspect of Thrillers people enjoyed was Mystery, closely followed by Murder, Stalkers/Psychos and revenge
-The least popular aspect was Supernatural

-The most popular type of Thriller was Action, closely followed by Psychological
-The least popular type of Thriller was Horror/Gore

AGE RATINGS:

-Through the questionnaire, it was clear that most people only follow age ratings when at the cinema, otherwise they don’t bother.

Laura Perkins

ACTORS

Name: Patrice Doe
Age: 16
Character: Jayde - The Murderer/Psycho/Kay's Best Friend

We have decided that Patrice, who is also a member of our group, is going to play the character Jayde, who's real role is the psycho turned murderer. We think that Patrice has an advantage of playing the main character as she does Drama A Level, and so she knows how to portray different roles well. I personally think that patrice has quite a sarcastic personality which will help her to get into her character easily. I don't think Patrice looks like a typical ppsycho/murderer character, however I think that this will work in our favour whilst completing our opening sequence as her character won't be as obvious to our audience.


Name: Krina Gohil
Age: 17
Character: Kay - The Victim/Jayde's Best Friend


Krina is going to take on the role of the victim as we think that she is capable of playing the innocent character, but adding drama to the scene, which is how we want the victim to act. Krina has been in a music video for GCSE media studies, and isn't phased by being in front of the camera, which is an advantage for us as she knows what she is doing. I think that both Krina and Patrice are good choices to take on these roles as they play best friends, and as they are friends in real life, hopefully their good chemistry will be portrayed on screen.



Laura Perkins

LOCATION 1 - CANAL

This is one of the locations I have researched for our opening sequence to a thriller movie. This location is the Grand Union Canal that goes through Park Royal, and I thought that this was a really good location for the opening sequence because it’s very quiet, however I think it is a perfect set for a thriller. This first image is a long shot of the canal, and the house that is on the edge of the road by the canal, which can also be used as part of the mise en scene of the opening sequence.

The second image is another long shot of the canal in the oppostie direction of the first image, and this shot shows the bridge that is above the canal, which I also think would be a really good place to film. Underneath the bridge, the lighting is quite weak and so I think that this would give a good effect to the opening sequence naturally, rather than artificially. We could also use the other side of the canal to complete some filming as there are some bushes and trees that can also be included in the set.

These two images have been taken of the other side of the bridge and underneath the bridge, showing how it looks underneath and what is on the other side of the canal. I think this would be a really good location to use in our filming as it is quite secluded and I think this will add enigma to the opening sequence. I also like the idea of using the water as a prop in our opening sequence, maybe having a shot of a character looking into the water at their own reflection, and seeing someone behind them!

I think the use of the Grand Union Canal as the location for our opening sequence is a good idea as it is a typical setting for a thriller and we could use a lot of the setting as mise en scene in our opening sequence.

Laura Perkins

LOCATIONS - CHURCH AND PARK

TWO SUGGESTIONS FOR OUR OPENING SEQUENCE

LOCATION 1: GREENFORD, HALLOWS CHURCH













We thought this location would be a good idea to set our opening sequence at night because the setting is around the church, which could have a supernatural element to it which gives an idea what the movie could be about and fits into the conventions of thriller. For example, ghosts, spirits, devils etc, this can be life threatening for the characters. It also appears to be like a deserted location which makes the atmosphere isolated and quite tense.














This is another picture I took just to take a little closer look of the atmosphere. There is a path and reveals more buildings, and shows that there is a behind. This makes the scene quite more frightening as the sandwich buildings would make the characters more inferior and powerless, which adds more tension. The lights on makes the scene more mysterious and quite creepy which creates great effects.


LOCATION 2: PARK, GREENFORD












This is a park in the area of greenford and near perivale. This huge park is also quite isolated and quiet, however I thought this would make a great scene for our opening sequence as it would make it quite tense because of its silence and wide open space. The space would make the characters appear to be more lost in the scene, therefore keeps the audience more focused on them. The tall dark trees with its sharp branches would also make the scene quite suspicious and frightening.















Here are few more pictures to reveal more about the surroundings in the park, to emphasise how deserted this area is.


Krina Gohil

ANALYSING OUR QUESTIONNAIRE

This is a screen shot of our Thriller Questionnaire below.

We made these in order to develop and generate our ideas for our opening sequence, more importantly to get feedback from the audience. This is because to find out the target audience and record their opinions into our opening sequence in order to receive more attraction from them.

In this questionnaire we included both quantitative and qualitative questions.

• Quantitative questions are questions with a range of options such as Yes and No which give researches statistics and require closed answers.

• Qualitative questions are questions which require opinions and need more than a Yes or No answer. These are open questions and get respondants full opinions.

PAGE 1
The first page mainly contained quantitative questions such as:

PAGE 2

This second page mainly included qualitative questions to receive more opinionated feedbacks and information for our sequence:

PAGE 3

We applied one each of the qualitive and quantitative questions on the final page.

Krina Gohil

IDEAS OF OPENING SEQUENCE

Here are a quantity of ideas we came up with, in order to help us expand the suggestions and consider what to include in our opening sequence. More significantly, to think about what theme to do consequently, we can recognise what subject our Thriller film will be about.

Krina Gohil