Research - Holiday Homework

I watched the opening for Murder By Death and the opening for An Education

Murder By Death

In this opening you see titles in capital letters in a large white plain font.
Sound

The clip starts with the slow playing of a piano which slowly gets faster as the clip goes on. The music plays throughout the whole clip and gets faster and louder all the time. Different instruments join in as it goes along and it begins to sound like an orchestra. Although i would class this as a discreet opening, the tense mucic makes the person watching have a small insight as to what the film will be about by the sounds that are used. The sound is non - diegetic.

Mise - En - Scene

 The first thing you can see on camera is a big brown box with a padlock on it, then you see a persons hand take the padlock off and open the box. After that you see inanimate paper people until the end of the opening, The paper people are not colored in but the actions they are stuck in gives the audience an insight as to what the film will be about.

Camera

At the start the camera is facing the box from a high angle. When the box is opened it then tilts up so the audience can see the contents of the box. It then zooms in so you get a clearer view of the miniture paper people. From then the camera tilts and pans so you can see the faces and expressions of the paper people. Finally at the end it zooms into the paper door and the film starts from there.

Editing

Finally for editing the scene fades in at the very start, after that there are just cuts when you see the miniture paper characters.


An Education
http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/an-education/#

Sound
At the start you can hear a light cheerful piano playing this also caries on throughout te whole opening and gives the audience the feeling that it is going to be a nice film.


Mise - En - Scene
For the first 43 seconds of this opening you can see titles over a black screen and animated effects. After that you see the narrative side of this opening with the girls in uniform walking with books on their heads .


Camera
Some of the camera angles in this used are...

• Tilting
• Tracking
• Panning
• Extreme High angle

Research - Previous Student Film

The password to view this video is Student

Sound

At the start of this opening you can hear an electric guitar playing and that plays throughout the whole of the clip, this non diegetic sound makes the audience aware that it is going to be a thriller, due to the fast paced music. as the sound goes through the whole clip it makes you think that all of the scenes are linked together in some way.

Mise - En - Scene
When the clip starts you can see a boy dressed in a shirt and tie running through the woods. The scene cuts back and forth from the boy running g through the woods to somebody working on a computer.


Camera
The camera starts in the woods and it pans and tiolts. It also has a low angle from the floor making the audience feel uneasy

Editing
The editing is fast paced as it is for a thriller.

Research - Structure of a film opening

There are four main types of opening in which films introduce the first few minutes. For thrillers the opening will have to create a good impression on the people watching. The four different types of film openings are; discrete, narrative, credits over a blank screen and stylised editing. All these different structures can create a good opening for a thriller film.

Discrete:

A discrete opening wont give anything away about the film and is a string of random clips meant to thrill the people watching and leave them wondering about the film. This opening is from a film called enemy of the state. This is a discrete opening because it is a series of clips that ultimately only give away that the film is a crime thriller. This type of opening in this film is effective because it keeps the person watching and guessing about what is going on and what is going to happen in the film.

Narrative: A narrative opening is the type of opening that is the opposite to a discreet opening in the way that it starts off the film and has more of a story line. A narrative opening will introduce the audience to the film and the characters and what role they play. Many films may mix up the structure in the way they have a stylised narrative opening like the taking of Pelham 123. In that film it has a stylised opening but it also introduces you to the main characters and starts off the story. This opening isn't your typical narrative because you don't see any actors but it is still a narrate because it starts the story off.

Titles over a black screen:

Below are some screenshots of the titles from the film

Donnie Darko. Titles over a black screen are another way thrillers can open although it can be argued that it wouldn't  give the audience anything to think about

Stylised Editing: This is another of the most used editing structure in films. Stylised editing consists of

RESEARCH - Film Audiences

Audiences are the different groups of people that a particular thing is aimed at. In the film industry there are many different audiences that they have to cut down in order to see what will fit their production the best. For example, some films may be targeted at Males, Females, Elderly people, youth, middle aged, Adults and so on. The target audience for a thriller film would usualy be aimed at adults because of the violent content and cover issues that would be unsuitable for younger children.

For example this thriller "knight and day" would be targeted more at women because of the romantic element to it. It could be argued that the target audienvce for this thriller would be males aswell because of the actor Tom Cruise who is usually tagged to films that are mainly aimed at males.

On the other hand this thriller "Taking of Pelham 123" is mainly aimed at males due to the language used and the violence that males would tend to enjoy more. This thriller is mainly a male cast and has lots of violence in it.

Producers keep all of these things in mind when they are making films so that they have a specific target audience who they are aiming the production at.

RESEARCH - INTERTEXTUALITY

The Concept of intertextuality is explored through:

• Mimicry in Movies/Episodes
• Parodys
• Marketing of media text e.g. posters

INTERTEXTUALITY The way in which texts refer to other media texts that

producers assume audiences will recognise.
 Probably most films today, at some point in the film, have borrowed an element from another film, whether it be visual, sound or editing. Some films choose to use intertextuality subtly whereas other choose to make that there key feature.

Scary Movie:

The Scary Movie Quadrologies are best known for creating spoof of various horror films or thrillers. Some of the references are from films like Scream, The Matrix and The Shining, to name a few.

ACTUAL FIGHT SCENE IN MATRIX

MIMICRY IN SCARY MOVIE WHEN CINDY HAS A FIGHT WITH THE KILLER.

Conventional Order Of Title Sequences

The first title that appears in a conventional film opening would be the production company. The next title would be the distribution company, however, If there were to be another production company involved in the making of the film, that title would appear second and then the distribution company third.

The next title would usually be the title of the film. Next would be the name of the main actor. However, there may be a twist. Depending on who the actor is, if they were a huge hollywood star, they would appear before the title of the film. The next titles that would follow are the names of the other main actors in the film.

After that, the names of the crew behind the film would appear. This includes the casting, the costume designer, the production designer, music and executive producers. The sequence would then end with the writer and then the producer/director.

This is the sequence of the film "The Taking Of  Pelham 123".

Title Sequence

• Production ident 
• Distribution ident 
• Actor 1
• Actor 2
• Film title
• All other actors
• Crew - Casting, Costume design, Music by, Co-executive producers, production designer, director of photography 
• Executive producer
• Producer 

In this title sequence the conventions are followed apart from the title of the film and the name of the 2 actors. The 2 main actors appear before the title of the film. This is because they are almost acting as marketing tools. If the audience sees these two names they would be even more intrigued to watch it 

RESEARCH - TARGET AUDIENCE

TARGET AUDIENCE

A target audience is a specific group of people within the target market at which a product or the marketing message of a product is aimed at.

AND

Audience data describes the gender, age, ethnicity, social group and region of the film audience as a whole and for particular popular film titles.

A target audience is a specific group of people within the target market at which a product or the marketing message of a product is aimed at.

A target audience can be formed of people of: age group, gender, marital status, teenagers, females, single people, etc. A combination of factors, e.g. men aged 20–30 is a common target audience. Other groups, although not the main focus, may also be interested.

Discovering the appropriate target market and determining the target audience is one of the most important activities in marketing management. The biggest mistake it's possible to make in targeting is trying to reach everybody and ending up appealing to no-one.

Thriller Audience Silence of the Lambs and No Country for Old Men are considered the two best thrillers in recent memory... and they're rated R. Their target audience was probably for the young male adults. Meanwhile, there are those thrillers that are borderline horror films, such as M. Night Shyamalan films The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Village. Since they're close to horror and horror films target teenagers. And then there are legal thrillers and crime thrillers (e.g. Se7en) that target a more mature audience... and classic thrillers any Alfred Hitchcock film that are rated PG, but are intended for adults. These are some opinions of what kind of thriller audiences you could get due to the sub-genres of a thriller. It all depends on the content you will show to your audience.