Opening Sequence: development

After we'd made some headway with the titles to our sequence, we were given the task to add a storyboard to it in order for us to gain an understanding of sequencing. While our shots were fairly rudimentary, it still carried the desired effect of and displayed the movement from outside to inside. Below is the storyboard we compiled:

Practice Titles

So, after our time sensitive filming was out of the way, we could finally get around to starting to get a grip with the wonders of post production. This journey started with the titles. Below is our first attempt at the opening titles of our sequence:

Tiny Snags

With our production being so time sensitive, we needed to act quickly before people had packed their Christmas decorations away. This meant focusing most of our initial planning working out what exterior shots we needed before working them into the final product. It was an interesting time to film inside too as many of the establishing shots had to be completed as well.

However, this gave us a good insight into how certain factors are out of our control and how it is best to manage your time effectively in order to cope with these inevitable events. Below are some photos taken for our location scouting: 

Production Meetings

Before we came round to filming our opening scene, Alyx and I sat down to discuss the basics involved that need to be sorted out before we started anything. In other words, the pre production. In our first few production meetings during media lessons we sat down and started looking at some opening sequences to movies. As we knew that we wanted something in the realms of horror/ thriller/ Christmas we had quite a good niche to look for.

We looked at opening sequences ranging everywhere from "The Grinch" to "The Conjuring". In the end, we found a good base to set some ideas around. One opening we found that kind of cemented our ideas together was that of "Crimson Peak". In this one, we liked the fact that it was focusing on objects and those objects almost telling the story, rather than action in a scene. And we liked that idea. Below i have linked below the opening sequence for "crimson peak"

Crimson Peak 

Main Task Pitch

When we were presented with our main task for our media AS level, my partner Alyx and I set about thinking about our opening. We were spurred on by the fact that we knew we had to present our ideas in the next lesson. So, for the presentation we had to provide a mood board, ideal cast, and an "elevator pitch" giving our class and teacher a quick grasp of the plot. here was a list of our ideas at the time of the presentation:

Film Opening Plan Pitch

Main Task Brief

So, we were given the brief for our AS media main task, allowing us to start developing ideas around it. Never thought i'd be saying this, but thankfully, the brief was rather vague, allowing us to unleash our full creativity in our task. Down below is the main task and the activities that followed:

289964588 Media Studies Main Task

BFI Trip

Our class was privileged enough to be given the opportunity to visit the British Film Institute in London as an extended teaching session related to our main task. We were one of many schools and colleges that attended this event. There we had a few sessions with a renowned media teacher, showing us various examples of opening scenes and teaching us various factors to include in them. These sessions were incredible helpful as it brought to life many ideas and questions people had related to what was to be done for our main task.

Secondly, we had a Q and A with a film maker called Corin Hardy. Corin came in to promote his new film "the hallow", critique some of our ideas for opening scenes and give us an insight into the development of ideas and the amount of effort put into filming. He also showed us the opening scene of his film before it had even been put in cinemas!

here is a link to his web page; where you can find trailers, interviews and much more- the website