The document discusses the opening sequence of the film Panic Room and compares it to the author's own opening sequence for a film called Beautiful Psycho. Panic Room establishes the thriller genre through dramatic music and builds tension, while introducing key elements later in the film. In contrast, the author's opening sequence uses unsettling camera shots and music to throw the audience immediately into a state of mystery and desperation. It introduces the main character Sabrina and locations through props and costumes rather than dialogue. The sequence aims to intrigue audiences while challenging thriller conventions. Overall, the document provides an in-depth analysis of how different opening sequences can be constructed to immerse audiences in the narrative.

2. The purpose of an opening sequence is to establish the genre of the film but sometimes to
introduce key elements of the narrative to the audience watching the film. An example of
how key elements are introduced through the opening sequence is Panic Room. Panic
Room written by David Keopp and directed by David Fincher, is a thriller that was created
in 2002. The first shot of the opening sequence is an establishing shot of a city skyline where
we can see the urban metropolis , immediately we can see text over the clip of film ,
showing the audience who has produced the film, where as compared to my opening
sequence where in the first shot is of some spinning trees in a bleak atmosphere, the
impression that the mise en scene is giving off is that the trees give a sense of
interpretation as it is an unknown location that has a presence of mystery that surrounds it.
Panic Room’s first shot of the city, the is nothing
unusual about this location as it a metropolis skyline
which is beautiful to look at and it lulls the
audience into a sense of security which will be later
on destroyed through the narrative.
In our opening sequence straightaway the audience in
thrown into a state of desperation due to the rotating
camera shots of the forest, paired with the editing to make
the shot look extremely creepy , we are introducing the
audience to a future location within the film that they are
unaware of.

3. The opening of Panic Room consists of establishing shots of a city, the shots show the everyday
lives of the city’s inhabitants going on with their everyday lives. From these shots of the opening
sequence we are not able to clearly establish the genre of the film. This is where music is
important because the music from Panic Room is very dramatic and it builds up, this is used to
build the required atmosphere for a thriller genre. In my opening sequence my group had a
hard time deciding what piece of music to use in the opening sequence, ultimately after
receiving feedback from a focus group, we changed the music to Possibility by Lykke Li and
Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix's cover of Radioactive. We found that Lindsey Stirling and
Pentatonix’s version of Radioactive was the best for our opening scene as it had a great
instrumental from a violinist, the instrumental builds a certain expectation for the opening
sequence and as our opening sequence finished just as the instrumental is reaching the bridge it
entrances the audience in to want to watch more. Panic Room’s music is very dramatic as
throughout the opening sequence it builds through the tempo speeding up and the pitch
increasing.
As Panic Room’s opening sequence
concludes there is a voiceover in the
background, we are still not introduced to
any characters but we hear some dialogue,
this intrigues the audience to listen to see
what is going on.
In our opening sequence we challenge the conventions that
Panic Room use in their opening sequence as we yet to have
speech in our opening sequence. The closest our opening
sequence comes to having dialogue within the sequence is a
frustrated sound Sabrina makes at the end of the scene. We
did not want to include masses of dialogue within our opening
sequence as we wanted to keep the aura of mystery
surrounding the narrative as we wanted to play with the
conventions of the thriller genre.

4. Through my opening sequence we wanted to establish character through the
use of props/iconography, setting, costume and even genre.
We were able to establish our female lead’s (Sabrina) character through her
choice of two costumes. We had Sabrina wear a red dress for the majority of
the filming as we wanted to use the colour red to symbolise the danger
Sabrina posed to the other characters through her obsession. Her other
costume in opening scene contrasted with her original costume as it was
extremely mundane, the costume is used to lull the audience to believe she is
normal. Compared to Panic Room where there is no characters within the
opening sequence we have no understanding or prior knowledge to the
character’s characteristics, the only ‘teaser’ we receive is a character talking
towards the end of the opening sequence.
The choice of the red dress for the costume is to play
with the conventions of a thriller as it is suggesting to the
audience subliminally that this character has an aspect
of danger around her and the audience should be wary
of her. The decision to use the colour red was for the
purpose of tricking the audience as later on in the film
we will see that the red dress will be a significant in the
narrative.
By us using mundane looking clothes in the opening
scene we are conveying to the audience that Sabrina
is a normal person and at this stage of the narrative this
will be before she goes under the transition to her
psycho persona.

5. The directors of Panic Room played with the
conventions of an opening by only using establishing
shots for the opening sequence, we are only able to
see the setting used within the narrative to establish
characterisation. Even with this we are only able to
establish the character’s location and home. This is
good and bad because we are left in the dark to
speculate the characters’ but it bad because it is
extremely simple and may bore the audience. The
opening sequence does not really convey the codes
and conventions of a thriller opening sequence
through the setting as we only view shots of a city.
Whereas if you compare my opening sequence we
are able to associate the already identified
character with the locations filmed. We can see
Sabrina in a house, we can associate this setting as
Sabrina’s house. The trees in the forest we can
associate as a local hangout as our character is
located in the location. The locations we use are very
simplistic as they are everyday locations, in Panic
Room the locations in the opening sequence is too
big and populated.

6. In my opening sequence we had originally planned
on having the main focus on the props like in Se7en,
in Se7en props played a huge part as they helped
characterise the main character as they showed his
insanity.
We wanted our opening sequence to be similar to this
so we made sure we incorporated a lot of props that
could be associated with Sabrina later on in the
narrative. As our main character is female, the props
used in the opening sequence will be more feminine.
We chose use more feminine props because we want
to make sure the props used can easily characterise
Sabrina. We want the props to show Sabrina’s childish
side as the props consisted of teddy bears, china dolls
and her scribbling out pictures of Ben and Hannah.

7. Sabrina
We chose to use Sabrina in our opening sequence as
she fitted the creepy look with her dark long hair. We
chose Sabrina to be our main antagonist due to the
fact that her hair and small stature could be likened to
the girl from the grudge and the ring. We thought that
the audience may react to our choice of antagonist
because if costumed correctly Sabrina would be able
to pull of the look of the ring girl, she should be able to
install a sense of fear when she looks like this and this
will hopefully link in to the codes and conventions of a
thriller opening sequence. Also as Sabrina is of Pilipino
descent she will be able to look like one of these other
antagonists as they always seem to be from oriental
descent. Because Sabrina is naturally pretty we did
not want her to wear make up as we wanted
empathise on her natural beauty also due to the fact
that our target audience is of a young age we did not
want our characters to look older than our specific
target audiences so made sure she stays away from
make up with her costumes. We wanted our audience
to react to Sabrina in two different ways , the one
where Sabrina is a psychopath and obsessed with Ben
and normal Sabrina that some of the audience would
be able to relate to, the desperation and insecurities
of being a teenager looking for love. Sabrina’s
character will be from a suburban background of a
middle class status, but we will not know her actual
back story, there will be a sense of mystery that
surrounds Sabrina’s character.

8. Ben
We decided to use Ben in our opening sequence as Sabrina’s love obsession
, Ben’s role in Beautiful Psycho is to be the protagonist who ultimately saves
the day and is Sabrina’s demise. We chose Ben because of the whole guy
next door look, from the way he dressed in smart casual trousers and casual
hoodies. We thought his look was perfect for the role as he was a normal guy
who would attract a woman. His style is a typical style of a teenager of 2013
with the smart slacks and hoodie, culturally his style is common throughout
today’s society, Ben is an 17 year old man who lives in England and is from a
middle class background. Ben is a perfect example of the average male, he
has everything going for him, unlike normal movie heart throbs, Ben will be
more down to earth making it easier for our audience to have more of a
connection to with him, so the audience will be able to make the
connection with him being the protagonist easier.

9. Hannah’s character is portrayed to be the typical girl
next door that everyone will be able to associate as a
protagonist as she will be a victim to Sabrina’s obsession
with Ben but unlike other thriller films there will not be a
horrid fate that awaits her. We plan on having Hannah
overcome the problems she faces to make the audience
empathise with her character. The audience should react
to Hannah’s character by feeling sorry for her and the
situation she has been stuck in and that her boyfriend is
being stalked by a psycho. She will typically look like a
high fashioned young adult relating her to our young
audience as they will be able to aspire to be dressed like
herself. Hannah is a typical English rose with her colouring
and her demeanour, her hairstyle is modern and up to
date. All of this helps the audience reflect themselves on
Hannah’s character as culturally the majority of the
audience will be the same age as Hannah’s character.

10. As the budget we had to produce and create our film we were unable to
use big international production companies, we had to look for a
production company closer to home. As our film is an independent British
film, we decided to go with a national distributing company instead of a
larger scale institution. A film distributor is a company or individual
responsible for the marketing of a film. From the research I had conducted
prior on my blog, I decided that the distributing company I was going to
use for my opening sequence was Vertigo Films as they are a rising movie
distributing company as it was only created in 2002. I wanted to use the
company because they are fast, gaining a wider portfolio of films and I
would like my film to be produced by them as well. I have shown in our
opening sequence the choice to use Vertigo Films by having their logo at
the beginning of our opening sequence so our audience knows our choice
of distributer. We are giving Vertigo Films credit for the production of the
film by using their logo and promoting their name by doing this.

11. The target audience to Beautiful Psycho target audience is 18-25 females and
males. We decided to make it for both genders because we believed that
because the narrative followed two different characters, one male, and one
female, it would be appropriate for the film to be targeted for both male and
female.
The BBFC is a crucial part of the film industry in the United Kingdom as it is the
classification system we use to classify the age rating for films and some video
games.
We as a group needed to decide what we were going to rate our opening
sequence by following the guidelines of the BBFC, after looking over the
classifications of the BBFC we decided that the best age certificate for our
opening sequence was an 18. Without conducting research we assumed that
our rating should be an 15 due to the fact there was some blood and intention
of violence, but from further research we did in fact discover this rating would no
be acceptable for our opening sequence.
Here is the official regulations from the BBFC website:

12. What sort of issues might I find in an 18 film or DVD?
18 works are for adults and can contain strong issues such as:
very strong violence
frequent strong language (eg ‘f***’) and/or very strong language (eg ‘c***’)
strong portrayals of sexual activity
scenes of sexual violence
strong horror
strong blood and gore
real sex (in some circumstances)
discriminatory language and behaviour
In our opening sequence we do not plan on using the majority of these
classifications because what would be the point? If the opening sequence was
to include all of these exciting factors there would be no point in having a film as
the majority of these aspects would be included in the opening sequence. In
reality the opening sequence only contains content that would be acceptable
for the rating of a 12, but because we have to consider that the rating is for the
entire film not just our opening sequence, we need o take into account the
codes and conventions of a typical thriller film. Because it is a thriller we would
be including some kind of sex scene that would lead to our female lead’s
obsession, we would have strong blood and gore due to the fact we have a
sub-genre of horror, so we plan on having murder and mutilations within our
opening sequence.

13. How much strong language is there in an 18?
There is no limit on the number of uses of strong (eg ‘f***’) or even
very strong language (eg ‘c***’) which can be passed at 18. Uses
could be aggressive, directed, frequent or accompanied by strong
violence.
In our opening sequence we do not plan on having any dialogue so
this does not apply to our opening sequence but we do plan on
using a few swear words within the film but only when characters are
distressed because ‘Beautiful Psycho’ is aimed towards a female
audience seeing as the narrative is about a woman’s obsession with
a man. We do not plan on using extremely strong language within
our film and opening sequence as women are often more refined
with the elocution and their vocabulary so we do not plan using this
language as it may be off putting towards our target audience of
females.

14. What about discriminatory or offensive terms?
There may be racist, homophobic or other discriminatory language
at 18, and the work could explore themes relating to this.
Though a work as a whole must not be in breach of any relevant
legislation, it is possible for discriminatory language or themes to be
the main focus of the work, and for main characters to engage in
discriminatory behaviour.
We do not plan on using any discriminatory language within our film
or opening sequence like racist or homophobic as we do not face
any of these issues within our narrative, if our genre was a horror or
drama this would be more common as they often face issues like
this.

15. How much sex and nudity is allowed at 18?
There can be strong and detailed portrayals of sex at 18, including full
nudity. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational
context. Very strong, crude and explicit sex references are permitted at
18. An 18 film or DVD might also contain depictions of real sex if it is
justified by context, as long as the film or DVD is not a sex work.
We plan on having a mild sex scene within our movie, nothing to graphic
as it would not fit into our narrative. The use of the sex scene in our film
would probably suit the rating of a 15 as we do not plan on having a
strong and crude sex scene. This would be completely irrelevant for our
opening sequence as it would confuse our audience if a sex scene
came on, it does not fit in with the genre. If it was a rom-com it would
work better, take Bridesmaids for example, the opening sequence is a
comical sex scene that automatically makes the audience feel
uncomfortable, this would fit in with codes and conventions of a rom-
com.

16. Can there be strong violence?
Yes, at 18 violence can be strong and be portrayed with strong detail. There
may even be dwelling on the infliction of pain or injury, or scenes of strong
sadistic or sexual violence. The strongest gory images are permitted at this
category.
In our opening sequence we do not plan on having an violence, as we are
only establishing the narrative and usually in a thriller film, directors try to
convey a sense of mystery, often opening sequence do not make sense but
have some sort of iconography that relates to later on in the film. We will
probably have some sadistic violence later on in the narrative but not in our
opening sequence.
What about horror works?
The strongest horror works are passed at 18, they may contain strong horror,
gore or sustained threat and menace which exceeds the boundaries of 15.
As our opening sequence/film is a thriller but has a sub-genre of a thriller we
are going to include aspect of a horror like the obsession of a woman that
leads to death.

17. Genre is extremely important when you are making any media product, you have to consider all of the
codes and conventions of the specific genre. My opening sequence manipulates the thriller genre’s
conventions to its advantage. Before we received feedback on our opening sequence, our original
plan was for us to scare the audience by building up a thrilling atmosphere through the conventions of
sound, we introduced a thrilling soundtrack that built the atmosphere.
In the early stages of production we conducted some research to do the naming of the film products
and also making some of our target audience take part in a quick survey to determine what idea the
preferred.
Here is our tally we created to see
which idea the audience preferred
from this data I was able to create a
bar chart.
Ideas
Idea 1
Idea 2
Idea 3
This pie
chart
shows
that the
most
popular
idea from
the
selection
of three
was the
third idea.
I believe the third idea was the most popular for our target audience as it contains the
most aspects of a thriller genre as a cloud of mystery was present within the idea, we
planned on using lots of shots of props so we would not see the character as much, fitting
in with codes and conventions of a thriller as the main focus is on the sound as this is where
the atmosphere is built from.

18. After we had created our opening sequence for the first time we received
feedback from our teachers we are group decided to conduct a focus
group and ask them what they thought of our opening sequence? You
can see this work on my blog here:
http://maddisonnicolepage.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/feedback/

19. From before I underwent this process of coursework, I think unfortunately I did
not have a wide understanding of the technologies that were available to me,
however I did have some understanding of construction process as I had
created a media trailer for a fantasy film the previous year on Sony Vegas. I
faced a few problems using this software as we encountered an error quite a few
times that ended up closing the program and loosing all the work we had done.
We conducted research as the basis on creating an opening sequence, we
decided ultimately that we wanted to create a thriller opening sequence so our
group knew to research thrillers and make sure our research consisted heavily on
thriller opening sequence. We commenced researched on two famous opening
sequences directors (Kyle Cooper, Saul Bass) we also analysed Laurent Kelly’s
‘Importance of opening sequences’ and we were able to pick out key points from
his critical essay. Also we watched two opening sequences and analysed what the
opening sequences were like and how the fitted in with the mise en scene and
codes and conventions of a thriller opening sequence.

20. In our planning stage of the opening sequence we had to scout out areas that we
found were appropriate for our filming locations, keeping in with the mise en scene of
the thriller genre. We found a creepy trail like forest round the lake. We also decided
to use two of our bedrooms because we did not want to have too complex locations
to distract away from the narrative. We also had to conduct health and safety checks
on all our locations to make sure it was completely safe for our actors and so we were
prepared for an emergency. Other aspects of planning included creating a
storyboard and a script so we had a guideline to follow when we were filming,
although a lot of our footage was improvised as we found we were able to
experiment more.
I learnt how to use some new technology through the planning stage of the
coursework was how to use the blogging website, as although the concept is pretty
easy to understand, we learnt more on how we blogged the post and how we were
able to insert multimedia into the blog posts.

21. Construction was where I was introduced to new aspects of the editing process as we
were able to experiment with different editing techniques like enhancing the colour
red in our clips with use of pure red screen. We were also able to use effects like darker
less contrast that enabled us to edit the clip to make it look like it was darker than it
actually was, giving off the effect f it being night time.
Some problems we faced with using Sony Vegas was that if you had too many clips
being uploaded at one time Vegas would crash and delete all of your work. I found
that the solution to this was to just add the clips we needed and delete the ones we
didn't need.
The addition of music was a little tricky because we didn't want the music to just end
and not make sense, so with the new tracks we added we edited it to make sure that it
ended at the end of the bridge in the song and then made sure that the second track
faded in before the first track had ended, making the music flow seamlessly. We only
used diegetic sound for our sound effects in our opening sequence and this consisted
of Sabrina typing on a laptop, we used the diegetic sound because it synced with the
movements Sabrina was doing.
We also added into the opening sequence portals transitions for the titles, we chose to
use portals because the colour matched our theme of red and also it was a quirky way
of breaking up the scenes.

22. Evaluating my opening sequence
We gathered a focus group and showed them our opening
sequence and we were able to receive a wide range of feedback so
we could improve our opening sequence. I have previously stated
the feedback we received in question 5.
Also we received some feedback off YouTube after uploading the
video, it was good to be able to receive feedback off the web as
they would not be biased towards our work.
Receiving the feedback
was good as we were
experimenting with well
known technology on
YouTube and uploading
our constructed work onto
the internet, we were
exposing ourselves to
potentially mean
feedback, but we would of
took this criticism to heart
due to the fact everyone is
entitled to their opinion .

23. When we first started this piece of coursework and we filmed our preliminary
task I was quite wary what was up ahead because some of the things we did
at the time I was unsure about some of the camera angles like the 180 degree
rule. But after completing the task it made filming our actual opening
sequence a lot more easier. From the preliminary task I was able to get back
into the filming process as I had got a little rusty as I hadn't filmed in ages. Also
where we filmed the lighting was perfect as it was day time and there was
artificial lights. The weaknesses of the preliminary task was that we had
continuity errors like filming the same scene in two completely different
locations . The strengths of the preliminary task was that from the use of the
tripod it kept the camera shots nice and steady.

24. From our preliminary task we were able to establish as a group what not to
do and what to do whilst filming our opening sequence. We learnt that for
our opening sequence which was thriller that we should film the majority of
the film clips free hand to give the films a more creepy effect. We wanted to
film at night for the majority of the clips but we faced a dilemma of trying to
organise all of our crew and actors together to film. Also we faced the
problem that our equipment was not like the equipment many other
directors used, that costs more than a thousand pounds. We were using a
Sony handheld camcorder. We had to factor in the disadvantage that our
clips were not going to be of the same standard of Steven Spielberg’s, but
we made do with what equipment we had and we were able to , in post
production, add effects to edit the film clips we had look like it was shot a
night. When it had in fact been shot in the middle of the day.

25. The music that we used in our opening sequence was always a huge issue within
our group due to the fact that we all had different tastes and different ideas to
what we should have in our opening sequence. We had to learn as a group to
make compromises on decision making we had to make sure that we always
went for the majority vote as this was the fairest way for decision making. Overall
we had five different choices for music but after receiving feedback we stuck to
two and we are very happy now with our decision. I think the majority decision
making helped us with our progression as we were able to make sure everyone’s
opinions were heard and we all had input.

26. Although making the opening sequence was extremely fun we did have quite a
few hardships whilst in the planning and construction process. The issue was, how
were we going to create a two minute opening sequence for a narrative that
was meant to span over a period 90 minutes? In our group we had to make sure
that we had clearly thought about the rough outline of the narrative or
otherwise we would be like headless chickens. If we compare my opening
sequence to my preliminary task, you are able to see the difference from the
preliminary that is completely improvised on the spot and to my opening
sequence which has a whole narrative and has to entice the audience in to
watching the rest of the film from the opening sequence. As I mentioned earlier
the opening sequence is sometimes used to establish the genre of the film but
also to show the audience key events that take place in the narrative.
These parts of my
opening
sequence , even if
they do not look
like it, are
important parts of
the narrative. They
tell the story of
what is to come
later on in the
narrative, we had
to think ahead
whilst planning
these scenes so
we knew why the
scenes would be
important later on.
Our preliminary task
had no meaning
apart from getting us
used to filming with
the cameras, as you
can see from the
screenshots that the
actors are very
hesitant to what they
needed to say or do.
This is where our
opening sequence
had more strengths
than the preliminary .