Opening Scene Narration
Our opening sequence for our thriller film will begin with a zooming in shot from the front door to the stairs then to an open bedroom door, to introduce the audience to the location of the scene. The sound that will be employed in this scene will be instrumental music and the shot will directly lead to the audience being presented with a mid shot of the boy putting a pill in his drink and mixing it. The sound used will be an enhanced sound of the boy mixing the pill into his drink and the editing style we will use to move to the next shot with be a straight cut.
The next shot we will use will be an over the shoulder shot of the boy as he stands and progresses towards the door. The sound the audience will be able to hear will be the footsteps and the editing style used will be a straight cut to a panning shot of the boy walking to his sisters room which will straight cut to a close up shot of his feet, then an extreme close up shot of the glass in the boys hand, which will then straight cut back to the panning shot.
The sound employed during the transitions between each of these shots will be instrumental music which will be at a low/medium constant pitch. This shot will then straight cut to a close up shot of his hand opening the door where the audience will hear the sound of the door slowly creaking open. This shot will then straight cut to an over shoulder shot behind the sister, seeing her brother walking in. At this point the sounds used will be natural sounds that are relevant to the scene. The editing style employed after this shot will be another straight cut to a point of view shot of the brother handing his sister the drink.
The sound employed will be dialogue of the brother speaking "It's Perteniam, it will make you feel better" in an encouraging tone. After this shot it will straight cut to a close up shot of the glass and sisters mouth from the side as she drinks the dissolved Perteniam. The sound employed will be the gulping of her drinking the drink.
The next shot will be a high-angle split screen of both the brother and sister laying down in their separate beds with their eyes open. The only sound you will hear is the ticking of a clock. A straight cut will then be used to follow onto an extreme close up shot (also split screen) showing their eyes closed.
We aim for the above shots to make up around 45 seconds so that we have the remainder of time to show our main focus of the nightmare.
We as an audience will then enter their nightmare...
Following the house location scenes will be a series of shots put together with fast paced editing switching from one shot to another to signify the chase they are encountering. One of the shots will be handheld to present the disorientation and chaos of the situation and will also relate to abstract conventions. This handheld shot will be used from both Evie and Jordan's point of view to justify that they are both experiencing the same nightmare: Evie's through the side effects of Perteniam and Billy's through his lack of mental stability.
Another type of shot we will use is an extreme long shot to display Billy chasing Evie and establish the location of the forest. The sounds heard in the nightmare will be a diegetic alone. Our diegetic sounds will include Evie's screams, Billy's heavy breathing and the crunching and rustling of leaves all used for dramatic effect. We aim to record sound separate to the visuals as we hope it will emphasise them more so therefore more effective.
We will also use another handheld shot of the camera spinning slowly at a height showing the trees of the forest from Evie's point of view also to present her confusion; another side effect of Perteniam. It will also display her paranoia that someone is chasing her.
We are also interested in attempting to get a shot from Billy's point of view whilst wearing the mask. We would do this by placing the camera behind the mask but not too close that you do not see the outline of the mask itself but at eye level with the eye holes. This may not work out but we will try a number of methods in order for it to succeed but if this shot does not go to plan we will replace it with a handheld shot.
We are aware that displaying Billy stabbing Evie in the nightmare scene in the forest will difficult due to a number of different reasons therefore we have devised a number of shots we could use instead of typical high budget thriller shots which graphically capture it. Much like Hitchcock's famous shower scene in Psycho, we would like to follow the method of "each physical stab symbolises each cut and shot" We aim to combine a variety of shots and fast paced editing to make the stabbing as realistic as possible but we are also considering the safety of the actors whilst the knife is present. Shots will include a close-up of the knife dripping with blood, an over the shoulder shot of Billy stabbing Evie in the cheek and
As the nightmare scene is not intending to be realistic, we are aware we would like a sense of surrealism to be captured throughout. We are especially interested in making some of our shots out of focused as we were inspired by the Saw opening when the character was disorientated therefore hope to employ this during the editing process.
We would like the nightmare scene to last a maximum of 1 minute in order to achieve it's purpose of thrilling our audience and keeping them engaged with fast paced editing hopefully keeping them on the edge of their seats in suspense.
Once the nightmare has ended, we will employ a high-angle shot of Evie waking up in shock and panicking as she believed the nightmare was true. Due to the side effects of Perteniam, we will then show a panning shot of Evie running to the bathroom followed by an over the shoulder shot of her looking in the mirror noticing she has a flesh wound on her cheek. This then causes her to vomit and this is where we would like to employ another over the shoulder shot of her vommiting down the toilet. The sounds used will be of her choking and spitting to add to the visuals. Once she has vomited, we will then use another over the shoulder shot of her looking in the mirror again, this time with no flesh wound. We hear her gasp.
The final shot will be a repeat of Perteniam fizzing in the glass. We would like this to act as a motif to remind the audience of not only the film title but why the nightmare occured. As we are ending on this, we would like the audience to decide for themselves a number of things: "why did Billy harm his sister?" and most imperatively, "what will happen next?" and "I want to watch the rest!"
If we were not restricted with our opening having to be no longer than 2 minutes we would have liked to have had shots of Evie and Billy tossing and turning in bed showing their reaction throughout the nightmare. This would be effective if we used fast paced editing also with straight cuts from the nightmare to Evie to the nightmare to Billy etc. We may decide to capture these shots in our house location in case we have enough time to play with therefore add it in during the editing process. Although it would add to the effectiveness of our opening, the "flashback" shots are not vital.
In conclusion, we are keen to experiment with certain camera shots whilst filming therefore our opening scene narration may not be exact to our final outcome. However, this is an outline of our ideas which we will follow whilst filming, some ideas of which we will use and others we will alter if we feel it is necessary.
`
The next shot we will use will be an over the shoulder shot of the boy as he stands and progresses towards the door. The sound the audience will be able to hear will be the footsteps and the editing style used will be a straight cut to a panning shot of the boy walking to his sisters room which will straight cut to a close up shot of his feet, then an extreme close up shot of the glass in the boys hand, which will then straight cut back to the panning shot.
The sound employed during the transitions between each of these shots will be instrumental music which will be at a low/medium constant pitch. This shot will then straight cut to a close up shot of his hand opening the door where the audience will hear the sound of the door slowly creaking open. This shot will then straight cut to an over shoulder shot behind the sister, seeing her brother walking in. At this point the sounds used will be natural sounds that are relevant to the scene. The editing style employed after this shot will be another straight cut to a point of view shot of the brother handing his sister the drink.
The sound employed will be dialogue of the brother speaking "It's Perteniam, it will make you feel better" in an encouraging tone. After this shot it will straight cut to a close up shot of the glass and sisters mouth from the side as she drinks the dissolved Perteniam. The sound employed will be the gulping of her drinking the drink.
The next shot will be a high-angle split screen of both the brother and sister laying down in their separate beds with their eyes open. The only sound you will hear is the ticking of a clock. A straight cut will then be used to follow onto an extreme close up shot (also split screen) showing their eyes closed.
We aim for the above shots to make up around 45 seconds so that we have the remainder of time to show our main focus of the nightmare.
We as an audience will then enter their nightmare...
Following the house location scenes will be a series of shots put together with fast paced editing switching from one shot to another to signify the chase they are encountering. One of the shots will be handheld to present the disorientation and chaos of the situation and will also relate to abstract conventions. This handheld shot will be used from both Evie and Jordan's point of view to justify that they are both experiencing the same nightmare: Evie's through the side effects of Perteniam and Billy's through his lack of mental stability.
Another type of shot we will use is an extreme long shot to display Billy chasing Evie and establish the location of the forest. The sounds heard in the nightmare will be a diegetic alone. Our diegetic sounds will include Evie's screams, Billy's heavy breathing and the crunching and rustling of leaves all used for dramatic effect. We aim to record sound separate to the visuals as we hope it will emphasise them more so therefore more effective.
We will also use another handheld shot of the camera spinning slowly at a height showing the trees of the forest from Evie's point of view also to present her confusion; another side effect of Perteniam. It will also display her paranoia that someone is chasing her.
We are also interested in attempting to get a shot from Billy's point of view whilst wearing the mask. We would do this by placing the camera behind the mask but not too close that you do not see the outline of the mask itself but at eye level with the eye holes. This may not work out but we will try a number of methods in order for it to succeed but if this shot does not go to plan we will replace it with a handheld shot.
We are aware that displaying Billy stabbing Evie in the nightmare scene in the forest will difficult due to a number of different reasons therefore we have devised a number of shots we could use instead of typical high budget thriller shots which graphically capture it. Much like Hitchcock's famous shower scene in Psycho, we would like to follow the method of "each physical stab symbolises each cut and shot" We aim to combine a variety of shots and fast paced editing to make the stabbing as realistic as possible but we are also considering the safety of the actors whilst the knife is present. Shots will include a close-up of the knife dripping with blood, an over the shoulder shot of Billy stabbing Evie in the cheek and
As the nightmare scene is not intending to be realistic, we are aware we would like a sense of surrealism to be captured throughout. We are especially interested in making some of our shots out of focused as we were inspired by the Saw opening when the character was disorientated therefore hope to employ this during the editing process.
We would like the nightmare scene to last a maximum of 1 minute in order to achieve it's purpose of thrilling our audience and keeping them engaged with fast paced editing hopefully keeping them on the edge of their seats in suspense.
Once the nightmare has ended, we will employ a high-angle shot of Evie waking up in shock and panicking as she believed the nightmare was true. Due to the side effects of Perteniam, we will then show a panning shot of Evie running to the bathroom followed by an over the shoulder shot of her looking in the mirror noticing she has a flesh wound on her cheek. This then causes her to vomit and this is where we would like to employ another over the shoulder shot of her vommiting down the toilet. The sounds used will be of her choking and spitting to add to the visuals. Once she has vomited, we will then use another over the shoulder shot of her looking in the mirror again, this time with no flesh wound. We hear her gasp.
The final shot will be a repeat of Perteniam fizzing in the glass. We would like this to act as a motif to remind the audience of not only the film title but why the nightmare occured. As we are ending on this, we would like the audience to decide for themselves a number of things: "why did Billy harm his sister?" and most imperatively, "what will happen next?" and "I want to watch the rest!"
If we were not restricted with our opening having to be no longer than 2 minutes we would have liked to have had shots of Evie and Billy tossing and turning in bed showing their reaction throughout the nightmare. This would be effective if we used fast paced editing also with straight cuts from the nightmare to Evie to the nightmare to Billy etc. We may decide to capture these shots in our house location in case we have enough time to play with therefore add it in during the editing process. Although it would add to the effectiveness of our opening, the "flashback" shots are not vital.
In conclusion, we are keen to experiment with certain camera shots whilst filming therefore our opening scene narration may not be exact to our final outcome. However, this is an outline of our ideas which we will follow whilst filming, some ideas of which we will use and others we will alter if we feel it is necessary.
`
Danniella, this post demonstrates a very good understanding of your opening sequence and what you would like to show in your sequence. This is because you have discused some of the micro elements well and you have considered the effect certain elements have.
ReplyDeleteTo develop this post you need to consider the sounds that you would like to use in further detail
Well done, the points that you have included on the sounds, helps to show further knowledge of how your opening sequence is conventional to a thriller film.
ReplyDelete