Final Task Research : Sherlock Holmes opening Sequence

The sherlock Holmes film which came out in 2009 and was directed by Guy Ritchie started on a budget of $90 million and ended up with a gross revenue of  $523,029,864 . This was evidently a highly successful Detective/Crime film. This film ws distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
This movie begins by showing a series of titles embedded in a cobble floor this immediatly sets the scene for the audience as cobbles represent old villages. In the background some non diegetic music is heard it is quiet. The camera is rapidly turned upwards so that the setting is seen more clearly. There is some diegetic sounds like horses neighing along with increasingly dramatic music. The horses neiging gives a sense of distress. the camera follows a carriage and quickly zooms into inside the carriage where a man is holding a  gun this shows that something is about to happen already.
This is an element that could be incorporated in our opening sequence as this would keep the audience in suspense. We want our opening sequence to be very dramatic and to instantly grab the audiences attention.

Research : The da vinci code opening sequence

The Da Vinci code is a popular detective movie which brought in a total gross of  $217,536,138 and in the first weekend it came out it brought in a total of  $77,073,388. AS the production budget was 125 million dollars some features of the opening sequence may help us to produce ideas for our own opening sequence that are appealing to the target audience.

The da vinci code opens with the titles which are placed on an all black backround. some eerie and mysterious music starts to play in the background this creates a very tense and suspicious amosphere which prepares the audience movie which is full of disturbing  events. After the titles have finished an ambient sound of footsteps is heard before the source of the sound is seen. this gives a sense of urgency. It also keeps the audience watching as they want to see where the sound is coming from and also what is happening and what is going to happen. The footsteps echo this makes it sound more haunting to the audience. While this is happening the non diegetic music in the background is significantly louder which makes the man in the scene seem more nervous and it makes it seem more chaotic. Within the first few minutes there is a man seen holding a gun. This scene is shot in a dark room which adds to the sense of mystery and secrecy. This immediatly sets the tone for the rest of the film.

Final Project

For this project i am working in a group with Nat and Manny. At the end of this project we need to have produced a opening sequence to a film taking into consideration the codes and conventions of the chosen genre. The target audience also has to be thought of when planning the sequence.
We have decided to do an opening sequence to a crime/detective movie. We are now researching the codes and conventions of this dramas and also looking at examples of detective movies to get ideas of how to make it appealing to the target audience. Also we are finding out which film distributor would be suitable to distribute or film. Nat, Manny and me are researching 2 films each. This should give us lots of ideas for how to structure our opening sequences.

Continuity Task : Editing

Today we started editing the clips that we shot. We uploaded the clips on to the media server, and from there we opened them with adobe premier. We started by cutting the shots so that they flow better. We also cut them to alter the length of them as some of them were too long. we also added a music clip to make the clip sound better. we also had to change the sound level on some of the clips as the dialogue in the clip was too quiet, this made it easier to hear. we also added titles to introduce the video. We learned how to adjust the brightness of the clip as some of the shots were too dark.

Continuity Task: Shooting

On the first day we started shooting. On the first day shooting we were shooting a cafe scene. On this day we didnt have many problems shooting.
After we had shooted the cafe scene we needed to find a room that was suitable to shoot a interview scene in. On the day it took a long time to try and find an available room to shoot in but in the end we found one.
After shooting on this day we watched some of the footage back but realised that there were some continuity errors like Manny was holding the papers in one hand but when she walked through the door she was holding the papers in the opposite hand. On the second day we had to shoot this scene again. On the second day we were shooting the interview scene including the shot/reverse shot. This did not take very long. On the third day shooting we shot a bus stop scene and a flashback scene. Manny Shot some of the footage at home as we wanted a series of shots showing her getting ready for the interview.

We had call sheets so that we would no exactly what we needed when shooting:

Continuity Task: Storyboard

We have planned our shoot and made a story board to ensure that when we shoot everything runs smoothly and we can shoot it quickly. Here is our storyboard for this task:

Continuity Task

For this task we had to create our own script and then shoot our script. This video has to have great continuity without any errors otherwise the video will look wrong. The plot for our video is :
A woman goes for a job interview after being fired from her old job as she has kidnapped a child from the nursery she was working at. She wants to start over with a new job but shes afraid that what shes done in the past may affect the interview. As in the interview she has a flashback to when she kidnapped the child. In the interview we are using lots of reverse shots, quite often reverse shot sequences contain lots of continuity errors so we thought that this would demonstrate how good the continuity is.  

The Prisoner - Final Video

This is our Final Video completely edited.

Task 3: Editing

We came across a number of problems when editing these shots. Out first problem was when we realised that we had cars and people in the opening shot that we actually didnt want in the shot. At first we tried to cut the parts of the shot with the car in but realised this made the shot speed up to much and the shot didnt flow smoothly. In the end we had to put the full shot in even with the extra cars and the people that we originally did not want.
Also some of the shots had different lighting in them and this affected the continuity of the video as in one shot it was really dark but in the next it was brighter so we had to use the brightness tool to make it look the same darkness throughout the video.
When it came to listening to the sound we could here ourselves in the backround of the shot giving directions for the shot. This we did not want in our shot. we found out that it was possible to lower the audio of the shot and this worked so that we could not here ourselves in certain shots. We also imported music into our shots to add to the drama.

Task 3 - The prison : Shooting

For this task we were given a script to work from with the setting of the shots on and we had to go out and shoot this. The Script was called "the prisoner" and it included dialogue.We had to find suitable settings for shooting for example we had to find a dark room to shoot part of the scene. We had to Look around the school to try and find one dark enough. We eventually chose to shoot it in a dark office with no windows. But we shot the scene over two days and the lighting wasnt the same on the second day so we had to use the camera settings to change the lighting.We also had to shoot in a village. we shot this part in a village next to the school. The Street was hard to shoot in as cars and people kept walking past and we wanted it to look secluded and we wanted the person in it to look alone and solitary. It took us 2 days to shoot the whole thing. We had to re take some of the shots as we realised we had done something wrong this was time consuming. We had to take a lot of the shots when i had to enter a door as we realised we had shot it from thr wrong angle and it would affect the continuity. Also you could see me in the shot when i had walked through the door and we didnt want people to see this as we wanted to make it seem as if i had walked into a different room.

Storyboard

Me, Manny and Nat have created a storyboard including all the different types of shots we needed to shoot and the movement of the shot. It took us two days to complete the storyboard. We tried to include a variety of shots. The storyboard was made to enable us to complete the shooting quickly and easily as we already knew how we wanted to shoot the video.

Task 2 : Editing the Shots

we also edited the shots for this task just like in task 1 using the same software. This time we knew how to use the software and we could edit it properly straight away. the editing of the clip didnt take a lot of time but the rendering and exporting of the clip is extremely time consuming. Here is the Finished Video:

Task 2 : Camera Movement

in this task we were given a list of various camera movements which we had to go and shoot. each shot had to be between 10 and 20 seconds. Manny, Nat and me all had to shoot at least 2 each.

Task 1: Edits

After we had gone out to shoot with the cameras we uploaded the video clips onto a computer and started to edited them and compile the shots into a video.i personally found editing the shots difficult at first as i didnt know how to use the software properly. but we got the hang of it and made a video including all the shots. however at the end we had to render the video and then export it. Here is the finished Video:

Task1: Types of Shots

For this task Manny,Nat and me were instructed to take a variety of camera shots and then edit them and to compose a short video which featured the shots we had taken. 

All the Shots had to last approximately 10 seconds. The shots we had to shoot were fairly basic. This task was useful as it enabled us to be able to practise using a video camera. Using the camera was easy to get the hang of so we did them quickly. The problem we realised was when we uploaded the shots onto the computer and they were jumpy. We each took atleast three shots this allowed all three of us to get used to handling the video camera. We took shots including Long shot, Shot, Extreme Long Shot, close up, Medium Close up, Extreme Close up, high angle and low angle.

Creating A Movie Plot

For this task my partner Manny and me were given a choice of two plots we could have either chosen A horror or a Romance. We chose the romance as we were both more interested in this genre of film and had a better idea of the codes and conventions of this genre.
Person A has had something that person B wants. Person A has lost this thing. A and B now have to find the missing thing.


Person A: Gemma
Person B: Sophie


genre of film: Romance

Film is set in New york

Gemma has a boyfriend who sophie fancys a lot. Gemma is an undercover reporter who is only going out with the boy to get information about his dad as his dad is a famous actor. Sophie finds out about gemma being a undercover reporter. sophie sabotages gemmas plans of getting information about the boys dad. sophie ends up with boy in the end.