My opening sequence

At the start of our opening I think an establishing shot would be good to show the location of the deserted top level of a car park. There is one car parked in the middle that looks slightly suspitious, with the couple inside. There could be over the shoulder shots while there is dialogue between the couple, and a point of view shot as the woman looks over to where the mysterious man is hiding. There could also be point of view shots from his perspective aswell, watching the couple making him look like the villian.

Changing our idea

The main criticism we got were:

· There was no guarantee the weather would be good enough to film the whole opening in a drive in.

· There would need to be a bigger punch line at the end as something needs to happen, otherwise there would be an anti-climax.

· A big projection of a 1950's film would be difficult to recreate and to make it look like an American drive in.

· We were advised to take our main strengths of the idea and update them into a more realistic stetting.

Our new idea:

We wanted to keep the three characters, the couple and the villain; we thought this was our main strength as we could still create binary opposite atmospheres in each car. The couple drive to a car park and have a conversation; the woman is sweet and flirty towards the man. The mysterious man spy’s on the couple, and sends a text to someone. The woman checks her phone but we cannot see the screen, the couple carry on talking, and the woman types 'now' on her phone and goes in to kiss the man as she presses send. A gun target goes over the couple as she leans in, she looks straight at the camera and gives a subtle signal. Suddenly the mysterious man shoots the man in the back of the head, and the woman calmly gets out the car and walks towards the other man smiling.

The Pitch

When we presented our pitch to Matt and Simon telling them our possible ideas and thoughts as well as the storyline, props, sound, lighting etc. Matt was worried that as it would be set in the 50's it would be hard to get the correct props and for it to be set in an american drive in would be difficult. Therefore we felt we should reconsider our idea, keeping the best bits of the idea but updating the idea so it is more realistic. 

Group Idea

Our group decided to go with the idea set in the 50’s, of a couple on their way to an American drive in. There is also another man in a car on his way to the same place; there will be fast cuts between the two cars with contrasting atmospheres. We decided to use this idea as we could create tension and contrast the two cars and characters well. I thought this was a good idea however we worried how realistic the idea was, as we were aware it would be difficult to recreate the drive in and get old fashion cars. 

What is a thriller

A thriller is a genre of film that is exciting and tense  building a high level of anticipation and anxiety.Thrillers are synonymous and interchangeable categorizations, and they have similar characteristics and features. There is often a lot of action and fast passed cuts with complex storyline.

A genuine thriller is a film that relentlessly pursues a single-minded goal, providing thrills and cliff-hangers, building up to a climax. Often the main characters are placed in an evil situation or mystery or an escape or dangerous mission that seems impossible. 

There are a lot of varieties of thrillers as they are often hybrids; thrillers combined with another genre. For example  action/adventure thrillers, sci-fi thrillers, crime thrillers, western-thrillers, film-noir thrillers or even romantic comedy-thrillers. Horror is a closely related genre as it also builds tension and suspense, taking the audience through agony and fear. Again there are many different types of thrillers; such as, murder mysteries, private eye, chase thrillers, women in danger films, courtroom and legal thrillers, erotic thrillers, surreal cult-film soap operas, and atmospheric, plot-twisting psychodramas.

The type of characters in thrillers include criminals, assassins, convicts, stalkers, terrorists, innocent victims, prison inmates, characters hiding something often their dark past, cops, couple and more. The genre of thriller often include terrorism, political conspiracy or romantic triangles leading to a murder. 

 

Editing my prelim task

I learnt how to use Final cut server and Final cut pro to edit our prelim task. We learnt how to check in and out, before and after editing. We made two 'bins' a log bin and a rush bin; we put all of our shots into the log bin and then dragged the ones we wanted to use we put into the rush bin. When editing each clip we learnt how to drag them onto the timeline and place them in the correct order. We also learned how to cut the clip to the length we wanted it. Becuase our actor was very quite in the filming so we learned how to edit the level of the sound, making the dialoge loader and clearer.

I really enjoyed editing because we had control over how to portray the narrative just by editing clips. Having more shots of the woman's facial exspresions gives her more screen time and the audience therefor take her side.

The thing I found most challenging was adding subtitles to our clips. As we filmed most of the skript in Russian, we decided to add text showing what they were saying. I found this difficult because it was quite a complicated proeses, we had to find the exact place we wanted the text, then add text, write the words, change the size of the font, then render the text to it would show up, and then we had to change where the text was placed on the screen. This was a long process and took a long time, therefor we learnt to copy a previous text and paste it where we wanted new text, then all we had to do was change the words to what we wanted and render it.

I found it challenging to find the correct shot that followed on from the dialoge in the previous clip but that was from a different angle. For example finding an over the shoulder shot from behind the woman and then change to a over the shoulder shot from behind the man but making their converation continue. The extra shots we filmed helped the script make more sence, with close ups of expresions and different angles.

If we were to film it again I would make sure both actors said their lines clearly and loader, this would make the narrative eaiser to understand and save us time having to enhance the sound. I think we should have filmed more shots so we had a wide choice to chose from. I would have also liked to film more extra shots of extreme close ups of their reactions. I would have liked to add a soundtrack to increase excitment and tention in the scene. Prefribaly we would filme in a more exciting location with better props and a more thrilling skript.

I think we all worked really well together, as every decision we agreed on everyone had to like before we went forward with it. When someone had an idea we all added to it and cooperated very well and fairly. My role was to direct so I made sure everyone was ready to start rolling before we started shooting. I made sure that each time we filmed the scene again everything was the same.

Reservoir Dogs opening sequence

The opening of Reservoir Dogs relates to the thriller genre in many ways, making us know it is a thriller from the very beginning. 
The mise-en-scene shows us straight away this is a thriller as all the men who are sitting at the table are wearing suits, have slicked back jelled hair, sunglasses and signet rings; this is the typical stereotype image of a Italian American gangster. It also signifies their wealth and pride as they look very presentable and smart, however also wanting to keep a low profile hiding their identities in their sunglasses, suggesting they have to be this way because of their jobs; typical of a thriller as they are shady and all in a group. Even though it is the morning and they are having breakfast they are smoking and drinking bear showing it is their culture to get together and do this. Shortly after it cuts to a new scene where a man is screaming in pain, lying on the back seats of a car. He has been shot and there is blood everywhere; this shows the film is a thriller as he is in a lot of pain and close to death. 
There is non-diegetic sound as the gang walk from the cafe; making them look cool and upbeat. However there is a sound bridge, leading into the diegetic sound of the man who has been shot screaming. This sound is enhanced to emphasise the man's pain; the sound is unpleasant and suits the thriller genre. 
The editing has made each gangster have equal screen time showing they are a gang and work together. After the actor's names have appeared the words 'are reservoir dogs' appears showing all these men are a gang, which is typical of a thriller as they are intimidating and powerful. This is also enhanced by them walking being in slow motion making them look cool and in control. 
There is a tracking shot in the camera work which introduces each character around the table, uniting them all as a group. The older man of the group has a low angle shot which gives him higher status than the rest of the group; this is typical of a thriller as it establishes a leader who intimidates the rest of the group and has control and authority other them. There is a high angle shot of the man in the back of the car which makes him look weak and and helpless making the audience sympathise for him as it does not look like he will survive.