SERCRET WINDOW ESSAY

Secret window is a film directed by David Koepp and written by him. The actor Johnny Depp stars in it. The film is a Thriller. The opening sequence starts off with Johnny Depp sitting in a car. He is angry with someone, possible his wife, he finds them and bursts into their room to catch her in bed with another person.

The opening starts off with the logo of the production company and sound bridge of the window screen wipers, this gets you thinking as you cant see the wipers, it makes you think that it could be a train, a heart beats, someone knocking a door? this is really effective and the audience is immediate intrigued. Camera is used very effectively, for example, the first shot is a close up of Johnny Depp's face, this is use dto show his emotion which is anger. The camera really focuses on the actors face only, not the background, this really projects the fact that he is disturbed. Another shot where the camera is used is at the end, where it is a high angle shot of the two people in bed, this shows how angry Johnny is because it is as if he is looking down on them in disgust. In another shot you can see a medium shot of him rushing behind a desk. the way the camera tracks the actor is very effective as it is showing his every move, the way he rushes behind the desks, the way he reaches for the keys just shows his anger very well.

This is my first written essay in media as it is my first time doing media as a lesson, i haven't done very well i know this as i have had feedback and have read it back over myself, i will reflect on my mistakes and learn for the the future. i will practice more of my written essays to get ready for my exam. https://youtu.be/brLAPZydPYQ

BRITISH AND AMERICAN FILM PRODUCTION COMPANIES

When i was researching different film companies both american and British i cam across many power points on slider share and picked out this one as it i was easy to follow and has clear information.

British Film Productions:

• Smaller audience
• Smaller budgets
• Set in the UK
• Less known actors
• Actors are mostly only British

Hollywood Film Productions:

• Budget is a lot higher
• A lot more production companies
• Animation
• Actors are well known 
• More time spent in the film

this is where i got the power point from : https://www.slideshare.net/JadeMelady/british-vs-american-films

TITLE SEQUENCES

The title sequence is where the film or TV series  present the title and the names of the people included. It helps establish the theme of the film.


Examples:

Star Trek, start trek is a futuristic fantasy film. The title really does show that the film is futuristic as it is shown in space and has a futuristic font.








The Hobbit title also shows what the film is. The first thing that comes to my head when i see this title is, medieval fantasy. it is very iconic as the film is very medieval with sword and battle like features.
Insidious is a horror film. The title is very creepy showing clearly that the film is going got be a horror.

GETTING PERMISSION TO USE THE MUSIC

We have commented on the music video and emailed the band to see if we could use their music in our film, however, we have haven't had a response yet.

Inspiration

We have thought of many wasyus to film our opening sequence

QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS

TEST SHOTS

We were told that a time-lapse would look really good in our film, so we decided to test out a shot for a time-lapse, we wanted the time lapse to be a landscape shot where you can see a lot of the landscape eg. cars, trains, buildings, people etc. and this was one of those shots.

ANALYSIS OF EXISTING A-LEVEL MEDIA THRILLER OPENINGS

in this post i will be analyzing two existing a-level openings.

the first one is called captive we watched this in class once, then discussed its features.

• the titles stand out
• establishing shot linking into the title 
• all the different camera shots used
• soundbridges
• flash backs
• highpitched music
• continuity
• montage of quick shots

this is the second one we watched and discussed as a class what we liked about it.

• jump cut shots
• over the shoulder shots
• POV shots
• quick fast shots
• different variety of shots used.

Thriller directors and their sub-genres

Brian De Palma is one of the well-known directors who spear-headed the new movement in Hollywood during the 1970s. He is known for his many films that go from violent pictures, to Hitchcock-like thrillers.

Christopher Nolan is the highest grossing and one of the most successful filmmakers in the 21st century. Nolan created his first thriller in 2002 which was insomnia; this is the only film that Nolan directed without receiving at least a share of one of the writing credits, although he wrote the final draft of the script. Nolan has created some of the most famous action thrillers for example: the dark knight trilogy, inception, and interstellar.

One of the most famous British thriller directors was Alfred Hitchcock; he became renowned as England's best director, because he made exceptionally good silent films. Hitchcock was mostly famous for creating: psycho, vertigo and rear. He directed a lot of different types of thriller for example; horror, mystery, romance, action, adventure and crime. Most of his work was mystery thrillers.

Codes and Conventions of opening sequences

The purpose of a film opening is to engage the audience, make them want to continue watching the film. An opening sequence should establish the genre these are some ways that this can be done:

• A wide landscape shot can set the scene straight away. Showing the audience where the scene is located.

• Titles, titles can show the genre of the thriller for example if it is in scary righting usually means it is a horror.

• An action scene is used a lot, this mainly consists of a fast pace chase scene, or a scene that is straight into the battle, it will then end in something bad about to happen but doesn’t actually show you which makes you want to see the rest of the film to see what happens.

• Narrations can establish the character, tell you about them, their background etc.

Existing A level films

This is another existing A level media film called Captive which we also looked at in class, we watched it once then discussed what we liked about it and then we watched it again to really dig deep into the piece and looked at the different types of editing, sound, camera work and the mise en scene:

• Non-centred shots
• Titles and how they move and jump around
• Establishing shot links into the title
• The security camera angles
• Flashbacks
• Sound bridge
• Silence or no dialog
• Music builds up suspense
• High pitched string instrument
• Montage of quick shots
• Reflection in the puddle
• Continuity of titles
• Extreme close ups
• POV Shot
• Fast paced editing  

This was an existing A level film called exemption which we looked at in class, we made notes of what we liked about the film so we could try and include them in our opening sequence. Some of these points are:

• Titles, my group liked the way the titles came on and went off the screen.
• Editing/Overlay, we liked the way the scenes faded into other frames.
• We liked the way the music stopped and the titles appeared.
• Montage of close ups.
• Extreme close ups.
• POV shots.
• The music and the action start at the same time.
• Builds tension using fast shots.
• Jump cut shot.
• Over the shoulder shot.