Research Questionnaire

Questions:

1. Name?
2. Age range?
3. Favourite film?
4. Favourite film genre?
5. Least favourite film genre?
6. Favourite film opening?
7. Thoughts on age certificates?
8. What 3 things do you look for in a film?
9. What do you like to experience when watching a film?

I used both video interviews, as shown above, and contacting them through Twitter to complete my research.

All those asked on Twitter were within the 18-25 age range and those asked in the video interviews were a wide range of ages.

In terms of genre for a film, majority of the market seems to like thriller or horror films (8 out of 14 asked) which fits well with the genre we originally pitched. In addition, those who didn't mention thriller films liked to experience tension and edge-of-your-seat moments when watching a film, which is something that we hoped to include in our film opening.

Protagonists were seen as important to those asked, including protagonists who were complex and not perfect people. We were thinking that our protagonist would play an important part in the opening, rather than many establishing shots of scenery so this helps to back up our idea.

10 out of the 14 asked said that they are hooked by an opening that did not reveal much of the plot, so that they were left wanting more, also, half of the people asked said that they liked an opening with nice cinematography otherwise they may find the opening boring and therefore not continue to watch the film. 

Tracking Shots

One of the ideas we had in our 25 word pitch was that we would open with a long tracking shot of a character getting ready to and then leaving the house. Below are some examples I found of tracking shots.

The first is from a short film by Bertie Gilbert, 'Rocks That Bleed'. However, this tracking shot doesn't show the face of the character, which isn't what we would want to do in our film opening.

The next example is the film Birdman, which is filmed almost entirely through tracking shots.

The film Atonement also uses a very long tracking shot, following one character, which is exactly what we were thinking of doing for our opening. 

Coursework Task and Assessment Criteria

The coursework task is:

Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film to last a maximum of two minutes.

Assessment Criteria:

Film

Blog/Research

Evaluation

Storyboarding

In Monday's lesson we learnt how to storyboard, which is an important part of planning for a shoot and so will benefit us when we make our film opening. We practised storyboarding using a scene from Luther and below is my finished storyboard from that scene.

Our 25 Word Pitch

Here is our 25 word pitch for the film opening we are going to make, as well as a really useful discussion with the class afterwards. I think our next move is to clarify which locations we are going to use and start to think about how we will hint at the film's genre (which is a thriller) in the 2 minute opening. Another factor that we will have to consider is who will play the 'interviewer' in the piece.

Prelim

Our prelim.

Interesting Sound

An example of interesting use of sound would be this clip from an episode of the BBC's Sherlock, 'The Hounds of Baskerville'. In this clip, tense music and sound effects as well as Watson's whispering builds tension in the scene and creates the illusion that the 'Hound' was in the room with the character. The music builds even more and the creature-like sound effects increase towards the end of the scene, leading the audience to believe that something bad was going to happen to Dr Watson.