Reply From the Email To the Principle!!

On Tuesday 17th of January 2012, four days after the email was published and sent out, The principle replied to my email personally giving us the permission to have Yasmin's dog on the School grounds. In the Email which is shown below, he kindly responds to the email clarifying the requirements that we need to undergo in order to have Tyler in for filming. Tyler will now be coming onto the school grounds on Friday the 20th of January in order for us to film the part of the opening with him involved. the email which was sent back is just below. 





the email lays out the basic requirements which we need to follow, and that we will follow while having Tyler on the Schools Property. We then decided to email him back to thank him for taking the time to read the email which we sent to him and for replying to us so we can continue to undergo our media/Filming process.

The emails that were sent out are a good example of communicating using media!! i feel that we could have approached the principle in person, but this may have taking a while as we understand that he is a very busy man and might not have been able to see us. The email idea was good because it was still personal, but was easy for both ends of the communicating cycle.

Email To Assistant Principal (Business & Finance)

I emailed the head of business and finance to get permission for Yasmin to bring her dog "Tyler" to come onto the school grounds in order for us to film the opening of our Film. I spent time thinking about what i wanted to say before sending the email to them. As a team we have decided that this was the right thing to do. This is the Email that I sent to them. . . .

This email was sent on Friday 13th of January 2012. Obviously we did not expect a reply straight away as we understand that the head of the school has a very important job and is busy most of the time. We will appreciate it if he get back to us about this issue, as otherwise we will have to do our filming else where.

Deconstructions of Existing Openings - Hostage

Hostage

Click here to See the Opening of Hostage

The third film opening that we have chosen to analyse is the 2005 thriller "Hostage" which was directed by Florent Emilio Siri. The film was written by both Doug Richardson and Robert Crais. Crais was the one who wrote the book Hostage in 2001 and it was later adapted into film format. The film stars Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollak, Ben Foster and Johnathon. The film follows roughly the same plot as the novel. the main difference being the subplot which involves the mafia was removed and the age of the hostage takers was lowered slightly.

The first screen shot, the camera pans down to two buildings. We can see the actor "Bruce Willis" name on those two buildings with the word Bruce in white and Willis in Black. These two colours correspond and look good against the Reddish backdrop. The buildings are realistic but have been animated in a way that they look real. The fact that the buildings are not real, recognizes that this is not an actual place and doesn't give it a setting. This shot is in play for about 3 seconds and then it quickly flashes to the title. 

In the next scene you see the middle of the title of the film spinning whilst the camera is panning outwards. The title is in red which were the buildings are in the background parts of the title goes black the red is the colour of the sky in the previous screen and black is the colour of the buildings. In the background you see a birds eye view of a town which is in black and white, doing this sets where the film is probably going to be set. 


The following scene is of a telephone mast with the actor 'Ben Foster' going up along the side of it. The pole is in black with white, where the light is hitting the mast. It is an animated mast and continues the animated theme throughout the opening. The sky is a red and this relates to the genre of horror as it is the same Colour as blood.. The camera is below the mast which means that it has a higher importance than us the audience. this shows the pole to be towering above us, making us feel uneasy and not safe. this scene is again shown for about 3 seconds before moving on to the adjacent one. 


In the next scene you see a police man with a white helmet who looks like he is trying to get over the fence but he is not sure if it is dangerous or not. On the poles there names like 'Serena Scott Thomas' and 'Robert Knepper'. The scene looks very dark and gives us a scary but edgy feel to it. The scene changes with barbed wire from the next scene coming across the screen,merging them together.


The next scene is of a set of stairs with the words 'Music By Alexandre Desplat', each of the letters are placed on a separate step. This is done so when the camera moves over the stairs then you can see the words then they break up as if they were on a concertina. There is a shadow of a man in the corner at the bottom of the stairs of police men. 


The scene after is of a street where one of the houses is in red and the rest are in white this shows that the attention of the screen shot is aimed at the red house. The whole scene is animated but it looks as if it is real. The camera pans over the houses to show the front of the houses and the road where the writing is placed. 


In the next scene you can see a police man holding a gun. the gun is pointed just out of the shot so it is a little difficult to see, the gun appaers to be large, but because of the technique used it may in fact be very small The shot then follows around the wired fencing,  you can then see that their is writing on the gun. Before this part is put into play you can see that the gunman is hiding behind a a piece of board with has writing displayed on it, as the camera pans round you see the first set of writing on the board and then the camera proceeds to move until you see the second set of writing on the gun.  

You see in the next screen poles with white writing on the with a blurred out background of a police car. This shot is called a focus shot. At the start of the screen shot you can see the background clear and the poles look like they are just black with white colours on them then the camera focuses out and you can then see the poles clearer and the background faded, the scene just changed after this has happened.


The last scene is of a wooden board with writing saying who directed the film. In the background you can see the red house area which you saw earlier.  It is all blurry so you can no longer see it a clearly which directs the audiences attention straight to the board. At the very end on the Opening sequence you can see an animated telephone which quickly turns into a realistic one. you can see a man shouting down the telephone and he appears to be situation in the Red House. At this point in the opening the house is actually coloured normally and then the opening ends.


If we was going to create a film opening like this one then we would have to do the majority of the film in the editing side of things. this opening did not require a lot of filming as most of it was animated or just photographed and place over the footage. we are not going to be doing an opening like this one as it would require a lot of animating software and skills which we dont all have. That's why we are going to film the majority of it and place the credits over the to of the film. 

Script and Inspiration for our Opening!

For our filming process we will not be having a scrip as there inst a lot of dialogue used throughout the opening. there will be music played through certain parts of the film opening, but not all of it. there is a scene from the E4 hit series "Misfits" which we have got some inspiration from. we are going to use the same idea as they have in the scene below in one part of the opening.

the picture to the left is from the Season 1, Episode 6 of "Misfits" and was the inspiration for the opening of our film. we all thought that it was a good concept that they had and we all wanted for this to play some part in our final opening scene. The link to this Video is below.




Misfits - Gear Up Sequence!!






The sequence is really powerful and will be shown in our opening in our own interpretation.


So, because of the use of music and the effect which we are trying to create, we have decided that we do not need a script. because of the type of film opening it is, there is no room for dialogue as it just wouldn't fit in with the story. The most that Yasmin will say through this process is either "Tyler" or "Help". she will be doing a lot of screaming and gasping but not any real dialogue.

Group Storyboard

 This post is all about the storyboard that me and the group made in order to represent the story-line of our film opening. The story is planned out in easy steps so that they are easy to follow and very simple to understand. Hopefully the film opening will reflect storyboard in its end product so we can go back over it in order to say what improvements were made.

The first image has the basic story of Yasmin walking her dog Tyler. she walks him and enters an abandoned area which she doesn't know about. she is listening to music during this process.

The Second image starts when she has entered the area and she is venturing further into the woods. Her music cuts out and she feels as if she is being watched. she hurry's along and hears something following her and she starts to panic. As she starts to run, she trips on a branch and Tyler runs off. she gets up and Tyler is nowhere to be seen and she sees a zombie (Reece) behind her. She Runs off in a hurry, scared and lost.

This Final image starts with Reece chasing after Yasmin. Yasmin is terrified and wants to find her dog. she bursts through some trees and finds herself in a empty field with nothing there and no sign of Tyler. As she turns around, there are three pairs of eyes staring back at her. Yasmin screams as Reece, Myself and Fay jump out of the tree and drag her down to the ground. The final shot is of Yasmin on the floor with Myself, Reece and Fay eating her insides. the camera then pans down to her screaming mouth. as the screen cuts to black, the Title of the film is then dramatically shown.

the film name hasn't been decided yet as we are a bit sure on what to call it and whether the name will be good or bad.

Deconstructions of Existing Openings - Zombieland

Zombieland

Click here to view the opening of Zombieland

This is the First Film deconstruction that we "as a group" decided to break down. "Zombieland" is a 2009 American zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer. It was originally written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. The film stars Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin who are some of the only human survivors of a Zombie Apocalypse that has covered the planet and they must fight to stay alive. 


In the first clip of the opening of this film, there is a man falling from a watch tower, which is situated in a prison. the zombie which is stood above him is a prisoner from the jail, considering the orange jumpsuit he appears to be wearing. the guy who is falling is the police officer who would have been keeping an eye on him. As the police man falls, he falls through orange text reading "Columbia Pictures Presents". this then gives the audience time to view the text, it then blurs and merges into the next scene. the text for this shot in over the top of the footage and is there until someone or something moves or dismantles the text. 


In the second screen shot you have pretty mush the same editing as the shot before, except there is different text with a different thing happening to it. Again the text is over the top of the action and is in the same orange colour and same font. this time the text reads "A Pariah Production" and is located on the cinema wall. the text then gets distorted as the women runs past it. In the action segment, you see a young lady at the cinema with her milkshake, running away from a zombie. this shows that the lady was carrying on as normal when the zombie apocalypse occurs. 


in the third scene, there is 3 men that are running away from an exploding car, of which two of them are zombies. the orange text on the left hand side of the screen reads "Jesse Eisenber". his name is the knocked over by the zombies arm. the text then disappears and then another piece of text appears on the right hand side of the screen. this orange text reads "Emma Stone". this text is then disjointed by the human in front knocking it with his shoulder. In the background as the explosion goes off, a briefcase of money flies up into the air and money flies out of the case. 


In the next scene you have two zombies trying to be to held back by a member of a swat team. there is blood covering one on riot shields. the orange text is still a constant and is shown throughout the opening of the film. i think that the text represents the fire in the film as there is a lot of destruction being done to the planet by the outbreak. the text which appears, reads "And Abigail Breslin". this text is then destroyed by one of the riot shields. 


In the next scene you have the main title shot. it is the title shot because the main title appears and no other text is over the action in this clip. you have a guy with a crowbar hitting what looks like the screen. as the impact happens, the glass is shattered and the text, "Zombieland" is also shattered in half. this gives off the impression that the entire film will be very destructive and broken. 




In the next scene you have a very disturbing scene of a stripper running out of a strip club chasing out two clients. You see a fat man running in the middle of the camera shot; his facial expression looks scared and terrified but he also looks like he is struggling to run away from the zombie stripper. This maybe due to the weight or maybe another problem which we didnt see on screen. Like the other scenes, the fat man runs into the words saying 'Casting by John Papsidera' 'Costume designer Magaliguidasci' and 'Music by David Sardy' He runs into all 3 sets of words one after the other like in some sort of order. after he destroys the last set of words, the scene fades into the following one.



The next screen shot shows a zombie, which is on fire chasing 2 firefighters and one of them has a hose and is trying to put out the Blaze. The zombie which is still on fire, runs at the firefighter who has the hose; he dosent notice the zombie is running straight at him because he is standing with his back to the creature. When he moves the pipe, the water flys out and hits the writing making it fall upwards like dominoes. Also the firefighter that was running away from the zombie runs into the paragraph of writing which then crumbles up. The scene then merges into the next one. 


In the final scene you see a man that has been turned into a zombie being thrown at the window of a car. The camera is based in the passenger side of the car looking out at the man flying towards us. When the zombie man is flying towards the car window he spits out a lot of 'blood' onto the window were the camera is looking out of. His elbow hits into the end letter of 'Directed By Ruben Fleischer' The 'r' goes flying towards the camera and the other letters follow. When the man hits the glass the music is ending with a bell sound. 


Throughout the opening the soundtrack 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' by Metallica is playing, this song makes the opening sound like its in slow motion but also if you listen to the lyrics of the song they relate to killing and terror. 'For a hill men would kill, why? they do not know' This shows that men would kill anyone and they would not know what they was doing or why.




This is like what zombies act like their only function is to feed on flesh; this is killing people, zombies don't think about it so they dont know why they do it or what they are doing, this is like the lyrics form the song. This film deconstruction will help us decide what type of effects and type of shots that we will be using in our film opening, this depends on what our audience would want us to do as our film opening. If we were going to do a zombie film opening then we will be using some of these effects like having music that ties in with the action that is happening like 'zombieland' has done and having different scenes at different times to show that the zombies are everywhere and not just in one place. 




We will also try to make our film opening have a clear story line with an introduction like 'Zombieland' has done. It needs to reflect this as this is one of the best film deconstructions that we have looked at. We want our story to be gripping like this opening, so that the audience will want to continue to watch the remainder of the film. 

Deconstructions of Existing Openings - The Mummy

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor 

Click Here to watch the Opening of The Mummy

In the above image you can see the Opening title sequence from the film 'The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor'. Click on the link above to view the video version. As a group we have decided to do this film as it is horror in genre and it is a little different from the other choices that we have made previously.

In the first clip of the sequence, you see three red dragons that look like they have been painted onto a black screen which could be a canvas of some sort. They pop up from the bottom right corner, as soon as they pop up the music starts. When the bright red dragon pops up onto the screen for the first time, the name of the director also pops up which would be Rob Cohen. After Four seconds the writing then disappears and the dragon moves and flows into the next scene like a wave. This  animation continues with the rest of the film opening but it is used in different ways to create different effects.

In the next scene of the opening, the animation changes from a black background and turns white. the dragon the turn into a "snake like" animated animal moving across the page slowly then rushes across the screen over the writing that says that Simon Duggan is the director of photography. The Red dot appears by the snake and the snake slithers over the dot in a sinful way.

In the next camera shot the animation moves from writing to show a mountain.There is an aeroplane that appears in the background and it flys over the top of the mountain. In this shot their is the same sort of features that are shown here as in the Shot before. When the aeroplane flies past the camera it flies over the writing and covers it. There is then black paint streaks that cover up the scene in order to make the opening to continue to progress and that if is fluent. The transaction between the two clips are fluent and in my opinion, the best transaction throughout the entire piece.  

In the fourth and fifth screen shots, they are using the same features as in the previous shots but they do the effects in different ways to create different emotions while viewing them. they do this by changing the scene from two black cliffs which are coloured in their entirety you can then see the white paint strokes that graze the screen, which then move the scene along into the next one. you also see the image of an animal which is silhouetted on the screen. it then scratches away at the screen, which then progresses that scene and onto the next one with one ripping transition.

The next few screen shots are all the same but with a few differences in the images that are shown on the screen. they all have a different way of transitioning into the next scene. At the end of the opening you see a dark animal figure which the camera moves towards to show a completely black screen then the film starts.

If we did this type of film genre we would also have to use animation in some way. this opening is very complex because it is all done with the use of animation and this would be very difficult for us to do. we do not have the technical equipment available to produce and create some spectacular scenes of animation. This is why that if we do use any particular animation then it will be either badly made by us, or will be a piece of animation that has been specifically made for us, to be used by us and no one else. if we choose to use animation created by and for someone, then we could be done for copy-writing their idea and creation.