Transsiberian - Thriller intro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lPSrc9cpAY&feature=related

The film starts with an establishing shot showing an industrial road going through a cold and snowy port probably early in the morning somewhere in Siberia. This shot has no non-diegetic sound atoll because the establishing shot wants to give the viewer an idea of the location as if they were there; the almost quiet sound with a couple of dogs barking in the background, the cold environment and the quite shaky handheld camera make you feel like your there in a remote area of Russia.
While a couple of credits appear and disappear while moving slightly at the bottom of the screen. You see a car appear at the other end of the road you are looking at, coming towards the camera and turning while the camera tracks it by panning left. Again you hear exactly what the microphone on the camera hears which is the car driving by on top of complete silence; As if you were there. Then you see a credit under the car introducing the location of where the intro is set, which is Vladivostok in Russia. You then see the car heading towards a boat with lights on.
Then the shot cuts to two Russians in coats in the same dark industrial location smoking and one says to the other in Russia 'On your toes.' All of the aspects in this shot show an element of fear in the two men because of the dark, dim, cold, remote surroundings, the big coats, the smoking, what the man says, the way he says it and how he's standing. The viewers are given a feeling of mystery and a lot of questions to ask: what will happen next? who's in the car? what are they doing there? All the viewers can do is keep watching.
The next shot shows the car parking opposite the too men which are probably police officers because they are standing next to a police car. A figure then comes out of the back seat of the car and walks towards the officers which then say 'good morning, inspector Grinko' introducing the mysterious character in the black coat whom we haven't seen close up yet. We now know that this character is an inspector and that he's most probably at the scene to investigate a murder or a crime of some sort.
The shot then cuts to a shot of a watch which is taped a couple of times probably because its not working, because its too cold or it might be one of the films many mcguffins. It then cuts to another shot showing showing inspector Grinko's face looking down where you can hear him taping his watch, he then looks up and takes a breath. The shot changes to a traking shot of him walking down some stairs of a boat from a low handheld angle going behind a police officer to give the audience a feeling of them being there again as an invisible person or one of the many police officers. He then walks past the viewers stops at a ledge and looks down; the camera does the same and looks at what Grinko is looking at which is what looks like a dead frozen person at a table having breakfast. This being the crime-scene.
It then cuts to an image of frozen fish in ice which in a way mirrors what has happened to the dead person in the crime-scene. This then focuses behind the fish where Grinko is there to investigate.

18/2/11 What did we do toooday?

                                                                                     

                                                                                   

                                                                             

                                                                                  

                                                                                  

             SANDBOx                                                                

                                                                               

                                                                                

                                                                            

                                                                           

                                                                                  this is our Production company

What did we do this lesson? 15/02/11

We began to edit together all our clips in the order of the storyboard. :)

We've also been experimenting with ghosting in one of our flashbacks!

Picture will be added later :)

How did our filming go???

Well, in general we were very efficient, we finished all our filming before we expected and we only did one take of most shots. Due to our organisation and good team work.

HOWEVER, 
We did find a few difficulties:

• Lighting: it got dark quicker then expected, BUT we had brought torches and used the street lights effectively.
• There was a lot of traffic on the road but, in the sake of health and safety, we waited until the road was completely clear before we filmed our main character crossing the road.
• Cyclists kept disturbing our filming, but we were respectful and let them pass us.

When we got to our location, we realised our original ending wasn't as good as we had thought so we changed it last minute. 

Our filming went really well, and we conquered all our difficulties by thinking about how to get around them and our risk assessment helped us with this.

TEST SHOTS

Weather report for this weekend - Filming weekend.

So all looks good for filming saturday evening, and sunday we are mostly filming indoors, we may get wet travelling inbetween locations though!

Requirements

Kit: HD Camera, Tripod.

Props: Lighter, Cigarettes/Roll up, Rope/String, Photos, Bottle of what looks like alcohol.

Costume: Phil - Doc Martins, Long Trench Coat, Black Jeans, Less Chunky Tunnels.
                Livvy - Shirt, Grey Coat, Plain Black Shoes (Work clothes basically)
                (Steve - Possibly tramp Clothes)


EMERGENCIES
Nearest A&E - Chesterton Emergency Room

I.C.E numbers  - Ruri: Mama - 01223410778
                           Steve : Parents - 07968305026
                           Livvy : Parents - 01223847932
                           Phil: Peter - 07704178350

USEFUL INFO

Public Transport : Madingley Park and Ride to location 1
                             Citi3 bus Location 1
                             Citi2 bus Location 3
                             Citi7 bus Location 4
                             Train from Shelford to Cambridge.
                             We all need bikes and bike locks.


Location 1&2

 

Location 3



Location 4

CALL SHEET!

Call Times:

Camera/Production crew location 1 : 5:30PM 

Location : 

1) Coldham's Common

2) China chef/Back of China chef

3) Ruri's Shed

4) Granchester Meadows

Location contacts:

1) Ruobei Quiqui Qian - China chef owner 

    07966623887

2) Rosalind Munro - My mummy

    07879272237

Production Contacts:

Director: Steven P M Young - 07968994534

Producer: Olivia Love Bull - 07595416800

Associate Producer: Ruairidh P M Grass - 07794840092

Protagonist: Phillip P M Abbott - 07928226752

Shooting Schedule :

            SAT

17:30 - Location 1 EXT

            Phil Walking through Park

            Phil

19:30 - Location 2 EXT

            (In his mind) scene + Last scene

            Phil , Livvy

             SUN

10:36 - Location 3 INT

          Flashback!! scenes

          Phil

12:00 - 1:00 LUNCH BREAK

 2:00 - Location 4 EXT

         Livvy and Phil Romantic scene ;) Flasback!!

Psychological Thrillers

 I was doing some research on psychological Thrillers and I found this list of the top fifteen worst psychological thrillers.  And thought we shouldn't use the openings as a bit of a reference. Here's the link:

http://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?genre=Psychological+Thriller&order=desc&perpage=20

Set

 

super sonic mood board

How could I improve ?

Looking back at our children's film intro, I have remembered many problems we as a group had to solve while the making of our project. Many of these problems and mistakes are quite obvious when you watch our short film. Although there's not a lot we can do now to solve these problems, what I can do is to avoid these in my future projects; in this case our Thriller intro.

Here are some of the areas I should improve on:

Planning and Scripting:

One of the main things we should have concentrated on was on our planning and scripting of our piece. Before we started filming our opening sequence all we had for our planning was a very rough story board containing only about 4 or so scenes with very little information. The problem about doing this is that on the day of the filming you won't have enough information and story to film on and you end up making up what happens as you go along. Because of these we ended up with a very rough and unfinished version of what we had in mind.

Risk Assessment:

This might come in to the section of Planning but I believe one of the main reasons our film didn't end up the way we wanted it to was because we didn't write down a proper risk assessment. On the days of our filming we encountered many unplanned problems some of these being we didn't have the right props and a couple of these days one of our group members was ill. These led to many problems we didn't know how to resolve which meant we had to improvise.

Experience:

For our childrens project we decided to do something we had never done before and film our film with stills using the filming method of stop-motion. We learnt how to work with this method very quickly yet we did have a few problems because we had never used this method before and we were not used to it. For example we had problems with keeping the camera steady which is extremely important and in some cases we moved our characters along the frame too quickly or we took to little pictures in some bits compared to others which made the speed of our film very jumpy.

Man On Fire

Last night I was watching "Man On Fire" a film by Tony Scott, and even thought it's not directly related to our opening sequence because it's an action/ crime thriller, but I thought that it had a really interesting opening sequence which we could look at to consolidate and improve our ideas.

It starts with a crane shot above a misty Mexico City, with slow string instruments playing over this. This establishes the set of the film, and also gives it a more dark and corrupt feel to the place. The credits are effective because the font and animation of them. Due to the background being generally dark, the white and bold credits which are underlined really stand out. This could help us with our credits.

After this the pace of the sequence begins to speed up and you see a crowd of people walking through one of the main squares of the city. They have edited this section so that there is ghosting of people in the foreground which are at a canted angle, which make the city seem disjointed and makes the audience feel uncomfortable because it is unnatural to see people walking at such and angle and to be able to see through them.

Also with the suspense building music, the director has put shocking facts about the city this film is set it, which gives the audience an idea of what the story is about, Kidnapping and the protection of children. This also solidifies the audiences thoughts that this place is corrupt and generally not nice.

The director also uses a montage of images and videos to introduce the main characters. What is interesting is that the family this film is about are all introduced separately, which you later find out that the father in the family plans the kidnapping of his own daughter in order to fund the corrupt "La Hermadad" which means "the brotherhood", who are the people who organise and execute the kidnappings. Also I realised after watching the film that the montage shown in the credits are actually screen shots of the film itself, so within the first five minutes the audience has already been told what happens in the film, without knowing. This I think is very clever but also confuses me why the director would give away so much in the first couple of minutes. In a way he was preparing us for what lies ahead.

What we can improve from our first assignement - Children's film opening sequence

In our children's film opening sequence we used little variety of shots types and angles - in other words we weren't very adventurous. However, we plan to change that in our Thriller opening sequence. The plot features a troubled individual who is haunted by thoughts and memories of his past and held back by his own mind, his weak point or Achilles heel, a common convention of a psychological thriller. We intend to show lots of different flashbacks/memories in lots of different locations so the plot requires us to try and shoot more advanced shots in order to achieve a sense of disorientation.

In our children's film opening sequence we didn't plan our shot list or make a storyboard - we weren't sure of what our plot actually was, we just made it up as we went along. For our Thriller opening sequence we have already completed a shot list, risk assessment, story board and half of a location recce. So we are guaranteed to improve from our previous assignment because planning is so key to any filming.

In our children's film opening sequence the lighting was flickering between the shots, because we used still images pieced together and we were either in the way of the lamp or out of the way. We will use similar artificial light with torches for our Thriller opening sequence because we have chosen to shoot it at night in order to create suspense in the build up towards the murder scene. 

In our children's film opening sequence the camera work was quite poor and sometimes slanted or not horizontal with the the ground. When we are out filming our thriller opening sequence we plan to use quite a lot of hand-held footage because we need the maneuverability in order to follow the main character. We will try and use tripods and dollies as frequent as we can though because we don't won't the camera work to be as poor as our children's film.

From Children's Opening Sequence Project - How I could improve!

It's quite difficult to pick out things I could have done differently from my children's film project because we used animation rather then live action, although I can think of a few things I would change if I could.

1. More different types of camera shots and angles : In my children's film project we rarely changed the camera angle or changed the distance of shot, and we tried our hardest at tracking but didn't quite do it effectively, so in my thriller project I want there to be lots of complicated and different shot types and angles.
2. Planning phase : In the planning phase of my children's film project, I didn't utilize the freedom of the blog enough. I rarely completed assignments which were necessary for me to gain the top marks, in this project I wish to have a very detailed and organised blog, with work completed which wasn't assigned.
3. Editing Phase : Because our children's film was very simplistic, the editing on it was fairly straight forward and the titles were a tad boring. In the thriller project I wish to challenge the group and I to more difficult and complicated editing and transitions, which comes with the plot to our opening sequence, which is full of flash backs and more technically complicated transitions, e.g. when the storyline moves from reality to the main characters mind.

Story Boards

(Click On Picture)

Risk Assessment

(Click on picture)

Shot List

Why do thrillers thrive?

This article explains us what is in thrillers that makes them thrive and become so successful. It says that we as viewers find them exciting and emotional because of the unusual and risky situations the characters are in; situations that we have never been in before. All of these unusual situations in thrillers give the viewers a feeling of tension and suspense while in the comfortable surroundings of their living room or cinema seat.

Research on location

We have checked the Cambridge United website and the fixtures for the day we are planning to film. Fortunately, they have an away game on that day (saturday 12) so it won't be busy and we can film. (y)

Psychological Thrillers

 I was doing some research on psychological Thrillers and I found this list of the top fifteen psychological thrillers.  And thought we could use the openings as a bit of a reference. Here's the link:

http://listverse.com/2008/06/23/top-15-psychological-thrillers/

Why "Thrillers" Thrive article

The main ideas in this article are:

The Uninteresting Lives of Humans
We as humans need to be excited because our lives aren't as exciting and adventurous as those we see on the big screen, particularly in thrillers because one of the key conventions of a thriller is that extraordinary things happen in ordinary situations. Although saying this, we don't enjoy to be physically put through these situations portrayed in thrillers, we prefer to be in safe surroundings and let our mind venture through the world of fear and tension shown in thrillers.

Our Response to Thrillers
We love to believe everything the actors say and the feeling of our blood rushing as tension is built by many different aspects of thrillers, such as the music or interesting and creative camera shots, which evoke an emotional response from the audience.

The Difference of Horror Films and Thrillers
The brutality and goriness of horror films are not as effective and as enjoyed by the viewers because due to human nature, the level of violence used and the unnatural fear created by horrors is not acceptable and isn't as easily remembered by humans.

IN MY OPINION: The most memorable films are thrillers, Such as the classic thriller "Psycho" by Alfred Hitchcock. This film is still enjoyed by viewers today, even though it was released in 1960.

Script

Coldham's common EXT. evening time -

A male figured character is walking down a spooky path at night time. He has his hands in his pockets, looking slightly sketchy. We see various different flashbacks in different locations. As he is walking along at a steady pace

Flashback1 EXT: The protagonist and his ex-girlfriend on a romantic date, walking down Newmarket road, hand ing hand entering china chef.
Flashback2 INT: The protagonist in his room burning a picture of his ex-girlfriend, smoking, behind this a montage of several different photos of him with his ex.
Flashback3 INT: him looking at a dictionary with a close up of the word apprehension, drink alcohol `.
Flashback5 EXT : back to n1
Flashback8 INT: Back to n2

Then he comes to the end of the of the path, on the opposite side of the road, facing China Chef, hesitating. Then we focus in on his eye and enter his mind.

In his imagination we see him bursting through the door of china chef, going straight to the kitchen, grabbing his ex-girlfriend and strangling her, until she dies and then he leaves. But then we move from his imagination back to reality, he walks casually across the road, whistling, stops at the door just as the closed sign is turned. We focus on his face and see his disappointment and over his shoulder you see his ex-girlfriend walking away, without him noticing her.

Top 5 things we learnt from Amar, the chosen one

We learnt from Amar many things, but our favourites are as follows.

1. The location recce, after finding out about the information, one of us is going to our location to take pictures and find out the disadvantages of our location.  
2. "You cannot be fully creative without being fully organised." "Preparation is key, nothing happens by luck." - Amar Sraan, Tuesday, 01/02/11, 13:30.
3. Test shots - in order to get used to our location and equipment we will be using (practice shots). 
4. Always have a shot list. 
5. Shooting schedule - When is everyone is available and location is free

Amar <3