1. 7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have
learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
From looking back at the preliminary task, I believe I have learnt quite a bit, as I
was new to the whole film making process. When making the preliminary we
only had a few days to come up with a plot, script and where we were going to
film the footage, which of course was the burn valley as it was the only place
nearest to our college.
This gave me a better understanding of how this works; however this was only a
brief side to the film making process. For creating the opening sequence I had to
choose 1 out of the 3 genre’s provided and I of course chose the thriller genre as
it is a much wider area to work with as there are so many sub genre’s to look
into.
The first step I did to creating this opening sequence was a mind map. I made a
list of the conventions that I researched that are most common in the modern
day thriller. This mind map contained actions of characters all the way to what
they wore. This gave me a much better understanding if what to expect in the
genre.
Once the mind map was finished, I then began to research and make a small
presentation on the history of thrillers. With this I explored from the first thriller
to the modern day we see now, exposing how the thriller has evolved and what is
achieved in the modern time compared to the past.
Over the years as well I found that thriller genre has expanded massively
creating new combinations of multiple different genres. Combinations such as
sci-fi thriller like in the ‘alien’ series, which raised the bar for a lot of thrillers to
surpass.
The next step was to see how successful the genre is at the box office and also its
consumer audience. I found that the genre comes 5th in the top grossing genres,
making a gross of $1,500,674,664 last year with the release of 59 films. Overall
the genre is quite a successful one, it also has a larger range than most other
genres as it combines many others appealing to more than just one crowd.
From what I found so far is that the thriller genre is quite a success among the
masses of those that watch films. With the genre chosen and its success looked
into, I was then able to move onto planning my opening sequence.
To get a further understanding of how the opening sequence of the chosen
genre’s work, I had to look and create a nine-frame analysis of a popular title.
The one chosen was the movie ‘seven’ which gave a massive influence to my
opening sequence.
With this nine-frame analysis I had a better understanding of what camera
angles to use and what to show to create and maintain suspense throughout the
opening sequence. As the opening sequence is one of the most important things

2. in a film as it sets the theme and atmosphere of the following footage. If the
opening sequence is wrong it can easily mislead fans and give the film a bad light
already before the film has even started.
Another film that inspired me was the title ‘silence of the lambs’. Like the movie
‘seven’ it had this psychotic character that messes around with the protagonist
sending them through a physical and psychological obstacles. These films
inspired me to want to create a character as similar but as I had noticed these
characters have their own traits that differs them from each other, which of
course I had to emulate. For my film to stand out I had to create a unique
protagonist that becomes strongly remembered. Characters such as ‘the joker’
are strongly remembered as they have this unique character with a quirky
persona that gives them a lot of light.
With these films analyzed I had a clear understanding of what to do to create a
successful opening sequence for the chosen thriller. With the research finished
and analyzed, I was then ready to set out on my planning. From the research I
had much better awareness of what camera angles to use and what to be
displayed maintaining suspense through out. This made me much stronger and
confident at creating what I wanted, as I knew what to do to achieve a more
successful result.
For the planning I had to create the initial ideas covering a brief over what I
wanted to be portrayed and how I was going to do it, involving a list of several
angles that I found to be most popular in the modern day thriller. This helped me
plan out the storyboard much more smoothly as I knew which selected angles to
use.
A script was written giving me a brief for the storyboard to follow. I now knew
what to film to give out the same point as the script with out trailing off into
something else. The storyboard as well helped me edit so much easier as I then
knew what to put where and what filter effects to apply.
I’d say that overall my use of camera work and camera angles has improved a lot.
Before I was not confident with what I was doing as this was my first time
creating something like this. I now have a better understanding of what angles
are use to portray certain events throughout a film to create the desired demand
and also the use of the equipment such as the camera work and editing.
I’d say overall that my opening sequence is quite a success at achieving what the
brief wants. I managed to create 2 minutes of an opening sequence for the
modern day thriller following the conventions that I analyzed and researched
that will maintain the right effect and tone of the film throughout. If I had more
time however I reckon I could of came out with something better during the
editing process. There were quite a few effects that I wanted but couldn’t achieve
as I had little time to look into how to do it. If I were to do this again I would set
my self some time to revise and look into how these effects are achieved and
follow out the instructions provided.