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.