Examples of title fonts 'Mute'

I created a range of examples in the way we would like our title to look at the end. Here is a rough idea on how we would like it too look...

Costumes for Hannah

As we changed our idea, we also decided we needed to think of our costumes as last time the characters wore anything we found in megan's house which was similar to what we wanted. There will be several outfit changes to show Hannahs innocence in the beginning wearing all white, and then when she changes wearing all black.

Hair and Make-up-

We also needed to think about the make up we wanted Hannah to wear. When wearing the white costume we wanted to make her look natural and simplistic, we would like her to wear natural eyeshadow to connote her purity and to make her look pretty. She can have soft curls with pinks and whites to express her personality. In the 2nd costume, when Hannah is wearing all black her make up will be much heavier, blacks and blues, to show how her personality is now dark and evil. She also will be wearing red lipstick to connote she is no longer innocent the red will signify romance, lust, and a little danger. Her hair will be flat and dead to show her personality that she no longer cares about anything.

Re-Thinking opening sequence

Our group did not like what we had filmed for our opening sequence therefore we all decided to sit down and re-think our idea. We decided to create a montage of short clips of 'Hannah's' different attitudes. Hannah would be happy in the beginning wearing all white and smiling connoting innocence and purity which we then would edit to glitch to show Hannah now dark and evil wearing all black with heavy make up, looking depressed. This would create narrative enigma as the audience would wonder what made her change to a bad person. I put together a load of giphs I found which we would like to recreate for our opening sequence...

I like this gif to show off that she wants to look nice, and the red lipstick connotes love but also foreshadows she has danger within her. 

This gif also shows her smiling and she looks happy and free, this is how we would like Hannah to look in the beginning which gradually changes. 

This gif is similar to the one we tried to recreate, Hannah having her eyes closed and opening connotes to the audience she has just woken up, and everything has changed. Hannah our actress has blue eyes, and we plan to recreate her make up similar to this. 

We would like to re-create a shot like this to show how much Hannah has changed from innocent to bad. The character in the gif also looks sad and depressed which is how we would like Hannah to look with dark, heavy make up as if she feels like she is against the world. 

We also would like to use a shot like this to show that she is no longer smiling and very depressed. We like the use of close ups, and extreme close ups to show off facial expressions. 

I also found some images I would like to recreate as a shot. 

I like this shot as it shows i like how the antagonist in our film took away Hannah's  innocence (and her voice). It is also very easy to re-create.

I also like this shot as it connotes the shadow follows her everywhere, and she can never forget what happened to her and what she's doing. It shows the darkness within her. 

Audience interaction- Questionnaire

It was being proven very difficult for us to choose a name for our opening sequence, therefore we decided to include some audience research. We wrote out a small questionnaire with a brief explanation of our opening sequence, and we chose a few choices we had for names, we gave them to people in our school to tick on what name they thought is best or what they would go and see in cinemas.

These are our results-
Songbird: 3 votes
Mute: 7 votes
Extortion:2 votes
Silence: 3 votes
Silent: 0 votes
Other Title: 4 votes

Therefore 'Mute' was the favourite and our group will most probably decide to use this name for our opening sequence unless we chose to use anything else.

Filming day 3

This is our last day filming today, we plan to film Hannah, as her personality is now changed and hair and make up and costume now needs to change to create enigma for the audience to question what happened.

Props we used:

• Can of alcohol
• Lollipop
• Surgical instruments
• Glass with blue liquid
• cigarette 
• strobe lights
• Torch

We finished filming, and successfully filmed all the shots we wanted to use. With our new idea, it was easy to film for us, the acting was natural and simplistic which helped us improve our opening sequence. On several occasions, my group member filmed the actress (Hannah) without Hannah knowing, which means Hannah is natural which looks better for opening sequence as this is exactly what how we wanted our shot to look. The costume, props, lighting, hair and makeup was all thought about a lot more so it led to better quality of filming. I found today genuinely enjoyable as it feels really good when something is going well. However, we will see how the editing next week turns out.

Later on, Alice was able to get our voice over from her brother as he speaks fluent Spanish, This will help to give the audience a greater understanding of what is going on and why.

Here are a few shots of us today filming-

Second day filming

Today we all met up again to continue filming for our opening sequence, here are some photos of us filming-

What went well:

We managed to film the production logo to our satisfaction, we also managed to get a few shots that we would really like to use in our opening sequence, such as in the 3rd photo, he extreme close up, we would like to use the shot of the girls eyes opening. 

Problems:

We faced a lot of problems whilst filming which made us all decide we needed to rethink our idea for the opening sequence as when we looked back on the footage we was not all pleased with our results. The lighting in the room was not as high key as we wanted it to be, and our acting in the opening sequence was very difficult to make realistic as our actors kept laughing and therefore did not make it scary, it was made to look like a parody of a horror film. The camera also did not pick up on the sounds around whilst filming or the characters voices which became a reoccurring issue. The mistake which I believe was our worst was, the fact that we strayed from our script and attempted to come up with parts we hadn't rehearsed and thought of on the spot. It made the acting appear extremely fake. 

As a result of all our issues we had, my group decided to re-think for our idea. 

Production Logo idea (More thought out)

To accompany our opening sequence, our group decided it would be better for us to create our own production logo, we thought of an idea before of a hand slamming against a window, then the logo inn the hand, however as you can see from a previous post, we was not satisfied with the result. Therefore we thought of a new idea, this time we would have a completely white back ground, the hand still slamming on the window, but this time the name of the production logo would come up when the hand hit the window. We also thought of our production name being 'Glitch Studios', and we would make the screen and the hand flicker to signify the 'glitch'. Here is an idea on how we would like it to appear.

First day filming

On sunday, we started filming for our opening sequence, we decided to film the credits, such as blue food dye going into water, the young girl being washed, the medial utensils being washed in the gel like substance, everything clean and white, below are some shots of us filming.

We managed to film the blue dye successfully to exactly how we want it...

We also filmed the young girl in the bath being washed by the man, playing with her hair, making sure she is clean, we slicked back the girls hair and had her lay in the bath with a white top on...

Our filming was successful and we all had an input on what we thought would look good or how to improve a shot. However we did have some difficulties, such as the man who was supposed to play our kidnapper was unable to make it and therefore we had to buy gloves to hide the fact it was girls hands instead of a man's. We also struggled filing some shots, as we wanted to stand over the girl with a birds eye view shot, but then we would have to stand in the bath with the camera which would be too risky. 

Although we had some issues, we did manage to film loads of shots we would like to use in our opening sequence, such as the blue dye in the water, the hair in the bath, and we also filmed the bath water blue, and we dropped in the blue dye which circled the plug hole and made it look like an eye, which will then use a graphic match shot on to the girls blue eye opening. 

Our group got a long well, and there were no arguments throughout filming, we all had the same ideas however next time we should make sure all the actors are available to film. Other then that it was a successful day. 

Contingency plan

My group needs to be aware of the problems that can occur during filming. We had to think of resolutions and possible emergency changes to make sure we do not have an problems with the filming and editing of our opening sequence. If we follow this plan if problems occur, we will essentially have no issues.

Problems with cast-
It is likely there may be several problems with casting of actors and actresses such as unreliable actors, drop-outs and the issue of poor acting making the whole opening sequence look bad. In order to prevent the issue of unreliable actors, our group decided to make the main actress a member of our group, meaning we minimised external cast members, this also keeps the problem of anyone dropping out to unlikely. Furthermore, if there is an issue of substandard acting, we do have 2 back up actors to play the main role, who are family members of the group, which then means it is unlikely for them to drop out but does have a slightly higher risk of being unreliable. However, poor acting may not be a huge issue as our opening sequence contains minimal dialogue, and natural performance which isn't too difficult to act. However, if the dialogue is a struggle we have a group members brother who speaks fluent spanish, to do a voice over for us, this way he is not on screen, there will be no problems with not being able to hear the dialogue and he will not laugh or act poorly as it is possible for him to say it without us there. Furthermore, if there is still a problem of the actress not being able to act natural, we have the idea of filming her without her knowing. For example, on the day we are filming, when she is in costume with her hair and make up completed, she could just be having a conversation with another group member and we would turn the camera on without her knowing, which we then can cut and edit to get the facial expression and body language we need for the opening sequence which will be literally her natural personality. The main focus for our sequence will be based on sound, body language and facial expressions, meaning our sequence must be presented clearly for the audience to understand what is happening.

Problems with crew-
As we are well aware, there is problems with the crew members as we need to fit the filming and the editing around everyones schedules. This could be due to work, being late or the type of travel when getting to the location to film. In order to prevent this, we have thoroughly discussed the easiest location for all of us to get too, which is close to all of us to get too, what time to meet up, the props and costume needed and to work out 2 days before the time to meet up exactly and how to get there. We all have each others contacts so if an emergency on the day of filming we are able to get in contact with each other instead of not being able to reach other. We also created a filming schedule with the days and specific hours when we are filming which fits around everyones schedule, to make sure we know exactly we also wrote on the schedule what we are filming so we know what to bring with us to the location so there is no problems with forgetting props or wearing the correct costume.

Technical Difficulties-
Our group could encounter a few technical problems such as loss of footage, backing up files, or if the camera runs out of battery. Incase the camera ran out of battery, we will ensure it is fully charged before we are filming. we also have scheduled breaks in-between filming and our location has places to charge the camera, in the break time we will charge the camera to prevent it running out of battery.  Furthermore,we have taken into consideration that we may lose footage or shots that we have taken, to prevent this we decided we would take multiple shots of various scenes to see what looks better as wells as making sure we have files just in case some may become corrupted. There is also the possibility that we might lose the files on the computers one day, we have decided to upload the footage to only the schools computers as we don't want to have our shots all on different computers, we also once uploaded the footage will save everything we have every few minutes to make sure we lose nothing and if theres a problem with the computer it will be saved.

Continuity Problems-
There maybe a few continuity errors occurring throughout our opening sequence such as changes to the location, costume or props. In order to prevent these errors of costume, we have taken a picture of Hannah's outfit from the first day filming, paying close attention, taking long shots, medium shots, and close ups, also extreme close ups on her make up to make sure we use the right colours and shades, and the same top, coat, trousers and shoes, e.g whether she had her coat done up, or her top zip undone, her top tucked into her trousers or not. We can then refer to these on each day we are filming to make sure we have no continuity errors in costume. We also wrote down the time of day we recorded, and all the props we used throughout filming to make sure there are no errors with different times of day outside, and different props used. We also took a picture of the room we was in on the first day we filmed so we can also refer back to the photo if anything has accidentally been moved around it can be put back into place. 

Filming schedule

I created a film schedule, saying what we are filming exactly each hour, each day.

Mood board for opening sequence

I created a mood board for our opening sequence, it contains images that link to our opening sequence such as, the hands of the murderer, the blue clean liquid, the type of room we would like, the medical utensils etc.

Mood Board

Possible film title names

Title Ideas

As our film title is undecided, we wanted to jot down some possible ideas. We thought that it it would be a good idea to have a name with a strong meaning behind it. Something that would go along with the theme of the film or a complete binary opposite e.g. Filth when the setting is extremely clean. The title will show at the end of the opening sequence in either a white or blue font to fit the mis-en-scene it will most probably be accompanied by a amplified diegetic sound.

Possible Titles

• Extortion
• Damnation
• Grace, Lily, Rosie, Daisy, Lucy (any innocent or flower girls name)
• Crucifix 
• Mute
• Articulate
• Silent
• Nightingale
• Song bird

Production Logo attempts

Our first attempt we thought was very poor...


We did not like this, as we can see the actress in the background and it did not come as a shock to the audience, we also didn't like the movement of the hand moving down the window, although this can be effective in some horror movies to signify the character giving up wanting someone to help, we didn't think it made an impact and was very poor camera skills.

However, we tried again, and this time we much preferred the outcome. Although, there are improvements that need to be made such as we want to dim the lighting and make it much more dark and eery, we also need to edit the production logo on to the hand. But this attempt was much better as we paused with just the trees blowing and the ambient sound of the wind, then the hand sharply hit the window.
Furthermore, my group was thinking of changing the setting so it looked like the actor who slammed their hand against the window was in an all white women, very clean, instead of using the outdoors. The use of changing the setting to a white room will foreshadow the opening sequence, as it would be more linked to the narrative. So, we might re-film the production logo again with a different setting and successfully edited.

You're next (similar to production logo idea)

I wanted to analyse this gif from the film 'you're next' which is similar to the production logo we wanted to create.
The use of the hand on the window and the blood on the window connotes a horror genre, but we decided instead of using a bedroom and blood, we wanted to use a different setting.
This scene is very effective as the hand on the window makes it look like the character is reaching for help, we like this idea as it creates an impact and is used in many horror films.
However, we would like to make many changes to make it different then this scene in 'you're next' so it is original.

Production Logo idea

My group decided we wanted to create our own production logo instead of using another companies.
We decided we wanted to create a hand slamming sharply against the window. This would make the audience jump and signify the film being of the horror genre. We wanted have the production logo on the persons hand maybe like tattooed on, or make it look like someone has used a knife to cut the production logo into her hand which also connotes the horror genre as blood, and pain.

Storyboard for opening sequence

My group made a storyboard of our opening sequence, there have been a few changes to the original plot already which we think will improve the narrative and make it more interesting for the audience.

Media 

media2

Analysis of Insidious:Chapter 2 opening sequence

Camera-
There are a variety of shots used in the opening of Insidious 2, such as close ups, wide shots, the close ups are used to see the characters facial expressions and the wide shot is used at the start to establish the relationship between the set and the characters to show the whole view so the audience understand what has happened.


Most of the shots are over the shoulder this is to connote the relationship between the two characters talking and make he audience feel as if they are their with them. Furthermore, there is a tracking shot used when the male actor moves to grab the dead women in the chair, the use of the tracking shot helps the audience feel to sympathise for him being worried about the dead women, it also makes the target audience focus our attention on him as he seems important that when he moves so does the camera.

Editing- 
There is the editing technique of a fade however instead of fading out it fades in and focuses agains on the women's face, this fade connotes the situation of the dead women is over and there is a new scene beginning, it is effective as the women's facial expression stays the exact same but there is a new scene making the audience feel confused that we have completely moved on.
There are a lot of long takes that make the audience feel uncomfortable as it feels as if the audience are forced to continue watching.

Sound-
There is a non-diegetic sound throughout the first take in the room with the dead women of a very high pitched chime. It is quite hard to listen too as it can hurt your ears making it uncomfortable. Furthermore, it gets lower and higher as the take goes on, not in a rhythm but in random times, this makes it unusual and weird and builds tension as the take goes on and it seems unexpected, there is also a sound bridge. The non-diegtic sound is also quite slow paced, and drags on throughout the take making the audience feel uncomfortable.
There is dialogue throughout of the male husband speaking but no one else knowing what to say. His words and the tone of his voice is masculine and dominant, almost shouting at his wife telling her what to believe. There is also dialogue of the police investigation, it is very serious language used, very tensed with what the investigator is saying to the women. It gains tension when he tells the women "The fingerprints match your husband", this makes the audience feel tensed and get them intrigued as to why the husband was acting so shocked and sympathetic that this women was dead, when it was clear he murdered her. the dialogue uses Roland Barthes theory, as it creates a lot of enigma codes.

Visual-
The body language of the women in the interview is very guarded, she is holding her hands in front of her, and makes it seem like she is scared to open up and say what she feels. The womens husband in the beginning is very confident, he is standing up-straight and even when he kneels down his shoulders and back to show his dominance.
The lighting in the beginning is very low key and dim, it makes it seem very dramatic and unusual as you want to be able to see clearly what is going on  but you can't,
The man is wearing a red shirt which could connote he is dangerous and has a lot of anger in him, the women is wearing black which could connote death, as this women has died and she is wearing black signifies funerals or evil etc.
The facial expression of the women in a close up signifies she is tired or drained, she is clearly upset and distraught as she has tears in her eyes, she could of been up all night to be investigated and she looks very confused. The investigator has a very stern look and signifies his attitude being serious but also sympathetic to the women he is investigating as he knows how hard it is for her.

Audience-
The target audience for this film would be an audience who enjoy moral panic, they enjoy being scared by particular groups in this film it would demons and evil spirits, or it could possibly be an active audience as they might react to the plot of evil spirits or interact with it, they could believe or go as they like to be scared but think spirits and demons are not real

Open title-
The open title is very dramatic, uses the colours of red and black, red connoting danger and black signifying death and evil, it also flickers with writing coming up on the screen, which makes it feel disorientated and makes the audience feel uncomfortable, you can see this below.

Our opening sequence idea

We made a presentation to explain our opening sequence idea, it includes the narrative, costumes, location, and the sound we want to use. There will be improvements and there will be things we have to change as we might not be able to do them but this is our original idea and we don't want to change too much of it.

Presentation on Opening Sequence

Analysis of preliminary material

We finished our preliminary material and overall I am happy with the result. We managed to include most of the requirements successfully. However, if we were to do the task again i would make several changes.

Firstly, we used a variety of camera angles and shots in our filming, such as a point of view shot, low angle shot, over the shoulder shot etc.

We also used a variety of editing techniques to connote a flashback. Such as we made the clip black and white, we slowed the pace of the shot, and we also added soft focus to make it a bit blurry, as if he is remembering what happened. Further editing was used, such as action match when the interviewer opened the door, and shot reverse shot which were required in the material. 

For sound, we only used dialogue, to make it more effective and for the audience to hear exactly what the criminal done. We could of added a sound in during the flashbacks such as the women screaming so the audience to feel sympathy for her. 

However, we mistakenly broke the 180 degree rule, if we were to do this task again, we would need to make sure to remember this rule when filming, but other then this requirement we had successfully added everything in.

Overall, I think we were successful in making our preliminary material to how we wanted. There were many things we could of added to make it better, and things we could improve on. Such as making all of the shots flow better together. But there are many things we done well which will help us with our opening sequence.