Main Task - Opening title sequence research

The first film i am going to look at for the opening sequence of a thriller is the latest Casino Royal. This seems like the perfect opening to analyse due to its emphasis on the poker game at the pivoting point of the film. The opening sequence begins with a black and white figure of the main character, James Bond, a character which I based my main character on.

The title of the film also appears as soon as the credits start rolling in the font of the "casino royal" sign from the film. Diamonds also appear in a foreground in a mind trick kind of style. Images of Kings, queens and jacks are also in the foreground with bond in the background shooting card shapes from his pistol. I shall use the black and white colouring in my own film and will also use a similar title sequence to make my film authentic.

The most important part I was looking for however  was the sequence in which the titles appeared on the screen. They were as followed;

• Production company
• Lead actor Name
• Origination Writer Name of 007
• Title of film
• Actor names
• Designers

I shall use the same style as this will definitely as it would work with my introduction, all there is now is to find a suitable piece of music  and suitable sound effects.

Update - Editing

Today I have been editing the first and third scenes of my thriller movie. The editing so far has gone well, however the software i have to use at school can be temperamental so i have had to back up my work frequently which is good working practice anyway.

Tonight I am going to come up with a sequence for my credits by looking at fonts used in other thriller movies and also the font and way they fade in and out. I had an idea that the letters "K", "J" ,"Q" and "A" could be in the font of the playing cards used. I would also make the font slightly bigger to make them stand out.

Next week we also have to present our first rough cut of our films. I will be ready as long as the editing keeps going to plan. I also need to find a sutiable piece of music which can be used for the opening sequence and the poker scene. I will also look these up tonight.

Target Audience - Results

Today I carried out my survey on a variety of 20 different aged people. The results to the questions i asked were varied however interesting and showed my the audience I should be targeting with my film. 


The Questions




How old are you? (Ranges - 0-11, 12-15, 16-25, 25-50, 50+)
Are you male or female ?
On average out of 10 movies you watch at the cinema, how many of these would be of the thriller genere?
Which specific thriller sub genere would intrest you the most? (Answers include: Consiparcy Thriller, Crime thrillers, spy thrillers, supernatural thriller) 
Would my script intrest you into watching the production?
Out of the characters in the script section, which would you relate to yourself. (All charcters have different back grounds and levels of wealth, so i will be able to make somewhat of a judgment about theirback ground)


From my results shown a interest of my idea within mainly the 16 - 25 and 25 - 50 age range and primary of the male sex. Most of the men in this age range shared a interest for similar styles of movie, mainly being horror and thriller movies while many of the women primarily were into genres such as rom coms, however there were anomalies. 


Due to the age brackets there were mixed opinions on our productions as the younger and older audiences didn't seem to be interested in the plot, this leads me to a conclusion that my production should be aimed at the male target audience between the ages of 18 - 50.

Update

Last week we shot our last scene of the production with quite a good level of success, I kept to my schedule exactly taking almost exactly the same time to film as specified. On the day i had to pick up the lighting kit from another group and had to organise everyone to meeting at the school for 11am sharp.

When we go there we set up all of our equipment and started filming after a script read through which everyone on set sat through. We also adjusted our set slightly with chair arrangements and prop positions.

Below are some stills from out shoot:

Research - Main Task

First off we needed to search for a place to film the majority of our production being the poker scene, both me and Chris agreed on trying to get the back of our school hall due to the gloomy nature of the area and the long black curtains which would be perfect for back drops. After consulting Mr Shepard however we soon came to a problem that over half therm the hall was having major building work. To get around this we went off hunting again for a new location which we found within our 6 form area, the area wasn't ideal, however we would not be interrupted at any time during our shoot.

Below is a shot of our set-up

Before shooting we also had to do research into where we would get props and costumes for our productions, we were lucky enough to have contacts to borrow suits and formal wear off of, however we did need to buy a few props such as the poker set and guns. I did personally order a green poker mat for the table, however the website amazon sent back to me an E-mail which said the product wasn't in stock, this meant we had to use a clean white sheet instead which wasent ideal. 

Story Boards

Target Audience

Today i am going to write up a questionaire to go with a section of my script and film idea to a range if different people both at my school and around my village. This will help me determin which age ranges are intrested and which are not. I will then compare my data to data i can find of the internet to see if my film fits into the generic target audience of a Thriller film.

I am expecting a younger audince between the ages of 16 - 25 year old males who are of a middle to upper class. The upper class element comes from the element of the film revolving around the game of poker which corrosponds to wealth.

The 6 simple questions that i shall ask include:

• How old are you? (Ranges - 0-11, 12-15, 16-25, 25-50, 50+)
• Are you male or female ?
• On average out of 10 movies you watch at the cinema, how many of these would be of the thriller genere?
• Which specific thriller sub genere would intrest you the most? (Answers include: Consiparcy Thriller, Crime thrillers, spy thrillers, supernatural thriller) 
• Would my script intrest you into watching the production?
• Out of the characters in the script section, which would you relate to yourself. (All charcters have different back grounds and levels of wealth, so i will be able to make somewhat of a judgment about theirback ground)

Even having only 6 questions will allow me to quickly predict someones taste in films, and pinpoint which types of thrillers they find enjoyable. It will also allow me to see if there is any appeal to my own production.

Update

Had a play around with my new camera and is much easier to extract files from so will make the post production process much quicker. The shots are also in HD which means large files, this means i may have to obtain a larger memory card.

We have also come up with a week long time period in which we can film. Tomorrow we are going to book a time period in which we can film the main part of our films after consulting each and everyone of our actors. (10th Febuary - 17th Febuary)