Obsession: Plot

Opening starts with a black screen, then a computer login comes onto the screen. There will be no music, just the sound of typing as the stalker types in their password.

Then a plain desktop screen will appear. We follow the mouse around the laptop screen, as it opens a folder called 'Her'.

 Inside they'll be lots of photos, videos, social media pages, documents, etc of the teenage girl.

Then they will click on the multiple photos, videos, etc and they will pop onto the screen. This will make a montage as lots of photos and videos will help the audience understand the teenager's life, personality and almost show that idea she's innocent and vulnerable.

While the stalker looks through the pictures and videos, extremes close ups of their facial features and the body parts. This adds a creepy element as the audience don't fully know the stalker's identity, leaving them with narrative enigma.

Zooms out of the laptop screen to reveal the room that the stalker works from. So a shot from large close up to wide shot. Then pans around the room, close up shot on weird/interesting/important items like documents, maps, photos, details. etc...

Close up of the phone screen when a notification appears. Music stops, the sound of notification alerts the audience and the character. Makes the character snaps back to reality as the text could read "go to work" or a friend could message him saying to "meet for coffee" or something. This highlights that this man lives a double life and that he could a normal person you see on the street.

Then a medium shot will capture the man sighing from behind, closing his laptop down, while getting a siloquette of his body front of this 'decorated' wall. This still makes the man unknown still and the darkness will emphasis this dark secret which is his identity. Then get a long shot of him getting and the camera will follow him towards the door. Then the opening ends with a close up shot of the doorhandle as the man open and closes the door. Text/coding font will get 'typed' on the door revealing the title Obsession

Genre Inspiration

These are the films I have decided to explore into the drama genre. There are all different types of dramas like Drama-Romance, Drama-Disaster film, Drama-Biography, Drama-Mystery and Drama-Thriller. I didn't want to just look at Drama Thrillers, even though that's the genre of my film opening, I wanted to to see the genre of drama on a wide scale and see if theres any key signifiers to the genre.

Chloe (2009)
Genre: Drama Thriller
Director: Atom Egoyon
Budget: $11 million
Box Office: $11 million
Production: StudioCanal

Notes on opening:

• Heavy, seductive music, the transitions to delicate music but with heavy beats 
• Narration, voice over. Quite a monotone voice, no emotion 
• Shots: Close ups (links to narrative) POV shots (looking through hanging objects, plants, etc), panning shot 
• Music comes before the picture 
• Texts fades in and out, smooth transition.

American Beauty (1999)
Genre: Drama
Director: Sam Mendes
Budget: $15 million
Box Office: $356.3 million
Production: Jinks/Cohen Company


Notes on opening:

• Video camera nosies, close up of a teenage girl, monochrome/dark tones. 
• Text: Capital letters, red (blood, killing? or love and romance?)
• Establishing shot of a neighbourhood, zooms in on main character's house 
• Wide shot, looking down at the protagonist 
• Music: sounds quite clumsy --> could highlight that he's a clumsy guy (this is agreed as in a shot his bag drops and everything falls out)

Endless Love (2014)
Genre: Drama, Romance
Director: Shana Feste
Budget: $20 million
Box Office: $34.7 million

Notes one opening:

• Soft music, instrumental, piano, guitar 
• Hand held shots, realism 
• Text: simple, nothing too bold, soft, delicate 
• Shots: close up, zooming out, panning, low angle (shows innocence) 

The Crush (1993)
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Director: Alan Shapiro
Budget: $6 million
Box Office: $13.6 million
Production: Morgan Creek

Notes on opening:

• Music: has a pop/rock element, fits for the time period, music stops when the teenage girl nearly runs into the car.
• Shots: wide, close up, medium 

American Psycho (2000)
Genre: Drama
Director: Mary Harron
Budget: $7 million
Box Office: $34.3 million
Production: Muse Production

Notes on opening:

• Narration, voice over
• Shots: wide, medium, close up, long
• Tones: white, bright apartment (contrasts with his darker personality)
• Music: calming peaceful, makes the attention more on the narration than music. 

The Boy Next Door (2015)
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Mystery
Director: Rob Cohen
Budget: $4 million
Box Office: $61.8 million
Production: Blumhouse Production

Notes on opening:

• Dark, eary music, adds a creepy element 
• Unfocused image at the start 
• Music before main picture, starts in ident
• Fine, capital letters, not too bold but still stands out strong just less intense 
• Point of View/1st perspective shot, running viewing the ground. The shot tilts up, close up to the woman's face.
• Voice over, narration
• Flashback --> blue tones, adds a cold atmosphere. Bad memory?
• Wide shots of a forest, following the character running. 

Girl on the Train (2016)
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Mystery
Director: Tate Taylor
Budget: $45 million
Box Office: $168. 5 million
Production: DreamWorks, Reliance

Notes on opening:

• Sounds of train nosies like on the tracks, builds up through the ident, builds tension
• Black screen, then loud noise and film begins 
• Voice over, narrative 
• Music: soft, delicate
• Shots: wide, close up, tilt up, medium, establishing, POV

Titanic (1997)
Genre: Drama, Disaster film
Director: James Cameron
Budget: $200 million
Box Office: $2.187 billion

Notes on opening:

• Music: soothing 
• Historical pictures, recalling past events and memories  
• Wide shots of a deep sea, shots of the rusted titanic 
• Title fades in and out, links towards a semantic field of water, sea, etc.
• Overall calming effect. Calm before the storm. 

The Notebook (2004)
Genre: Drama, Romance
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Budget: $29 million
Box Office: $115.6 million
Production: Avery Pix

Notes on opening:

Calming music
Various of shots: Wide/establishing, medium, long, close up to highlight the location and every single detail
Shot are red toned, connotes towards a sunset, evening time?



















The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Genre: Drama, Biography
Director: Martin Scorsese
Budget: $100-155 million
Box Office: $392 million
Production: Red Granite Pictures



Notes on opening:

• Opens up with a montage of old clips about finance business and at Wall Street, while introducing the protagonist business; Stratton Oakmont Inc.
• Narrator; main protagonist, breaks the 4th wall as he talking to the audience, looking straight at the camera some shots. Talks about his life, making the audience understand how the main protagonist is.
• Shots; medium, long and wide shots when theres a mass amount of people in the office to connote towards the chaos and madness. Also wide shots help show his massive house suggest how successful he has become. In addition close up shots of drug use is to connote towards how his drug addition is part of him and takes over his life and causing dangerous and irresponsible consequences to him. Furthermore some shots follow the main protagonist around highlighting his is the centre of attention in the film and its his story. 

Other films that I'm taking inspiration from but more Drama Thriller and with the synopsis of my film opening:
Fear (1996)
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Swimfan (2002)
The Roommate (2011)
Obsessed (2009)
Sliver (1993)
Nerve (2016)


After watching these openings I have found some common elements for a drama/thriller films:

1) They all have narration at the beginning from the main protagonist/s. Their voices are very emotionless tone, monotone.
2) Sound/music helps emphasise the mood of the opening/character/settings, etc..
3) The text helps shows the impact on a certain element has on the main characters. Eg. If the film is romantic or just a drama film, the text normally fades in and out whereas Thrillers texts are bold, harsh, adds and create tension.
4) Always includes an establishing or wide shot or shows the location.
5) Music or sounds before picture/image appears. This helps build tension.



Famous Directors in Drama and Thriller genre:
Alfred Hitchcock
Martin Scorcese
David Finchler
Adrain Lyne
Jonathan Demme
Danny Boyle
Steven Spielberg

Pitch

Film Opening Idea no.3

Title: Obsession or Her or The Girl

Genre: Drama, Thriller, Mystery

Synopsis: A young adult, Brett (aged 21-25) has an obsession with a teenage girl, Millie (aged 16-18)

Opening: Montage of photos and videos of Millie on a laptop, then cuts to a study seeing a hooded figure behind a desk in a room. Cuts between close up shots of the hooded figure and wide/panning of the room. The opening ends as the hooded figure gets up and leaves the room.

Millie

Brett

Possible locations: A bedroom, or a dark room, Leeds or busy city (for some of the video clips)

Props: A laptop or computer, photos of the teenage girl, number of files/documents, maps, glasses, mugs/cups, bottles of alcohol. Videos and photos will need to be taken before filming as they are embedded into the screen of the computer.

Costume: Black/dark clothing, a hoodie, jeans, trainers, coat, etc...

Film Opening Idea No.2

Title: Vegas Stripper

Genre: Romance, Comedy

Synopsis: A broken hearted women makes a drunken mistake by applying for a job at a strip club in Vegas
Opening: Main protagonist finds out via a friend that her long term boyfriend is cheating on her with her childhood bestfriend. Gets drunk instantly, has fun, dances and sings around her flat. Whilst heavily drunk, gets her laptop and applies for a strip club job in Vegas. After applied, yawns and jumps into bed, unaware of what she just applied for.

Locations: A bedroom, bathroom

Cast: A young women (aged 21-30) fun, flirty, adventurous

Film Opening Ideas no.1

Title: The Four Elements? The Five Elements (dependant on how many characters)

Genre: Fantasy, Teen

Synopsis: Four or Five teenage girls find out they have magical powers in which they have to use to save a kingdom from evil.

Possible locations: bedroom, school (Ilkley Grammar), Ilkley

Overview of the opening: Following each of the four or five girls' daily morning routine as slowly their their magical abilities start to unfold. Journey to school, each girl will have a different transport (e.g. car, bus, train, bike, walking)

Props/Costumes: Casual clothing, bags, clothing/uniform and props needs to help reflect each of the girls' different personalities

Cast: 5 girls aged between 15-17

A popular girl, very girly, blonde, into fashion and beauty

A cheeky girl, wears glasses, an outsider

A confident girl, the comedian

A creative girl, into arts, shy

A new girl, complete unknown

Swede: The Hunger Games

Overall the Swede of the The Hunger Games was fairly good as I felt we got all of the main scenes done to the best to our abilities. We found good locations such as we filmed our outdoor shots on The Cow and Calf and The Moors which were perfect as the quietness of the moors created the battle grounds. It was windy so the sound of some clips weren't quite crisp and sharp

Feedback no.2

Overall I feel that you have made an excellent start to the course and I have been very impressed with your commitment, enthusiasm and desire to do well. Well done. Love the vlogs too; keep it up! Although they are quite long! Maybe make more notes beforehand and be more targeted in your analysis. You are currently working at a low Excellent level (A/B); in order to ensure your work falls comfortably within your targeted A/B grade, you should do the following going forward:

Now that we are approaching production, I would recommend that you start blogging more regularly on everything that you are doing on the course. This could start with your swede; write a blog (or do a vlog) on your contribution to the production and what your challenges/difficulties were in achieving your swede.

Keep it up! You are on target and I’m looking forward to seeing you work on your film opening.

AS Media Analysis: Defy FINAL Cut

Overall I found this opening really was action packed and I like how that adrenaline and action builds up with the used of music and the fast paced shots, so it fitted the action genre perfectly. I really like the news videos embedded into the world map, it really makes the opening professional and sophicated, yet it added tension as all the clip built up. Also the definition of Defy again made it look professional but it also suggest what if the film is about (if it is a full length film). The low angle shot which looks up to the main protagonist, so this could suggest he has importance and/power and mostly in his fingers as he types away on the key board so he could be a threat to someone or a group of people by his power and control.  Also this low angle shot is tracking along the screen going towards the left as it unravels technology equipment and computers so it connotes that we are set in the modern day and give an indication of what the main protagonist does. Then we get an over the shoulder shot which views the laptop and pieces of paper so this highlights that the protagonist is some sort of hacker or computer genius. Then we get a medium shot of the male as he speedily gets up and runs away. Then run away shots are shot a mixture of wide and long shot that are hand held to make the clips more edgy and realistic by how he runs past but it also shows his journey and where he is going to. Then the last couple of shots of are medium and long shot however the protagonist is hided by the shadows as he becomes a dark silhouette figure, this shows he can be dangerous as we (the audience) gotten an masked personality which highlights some narrative enigma at the end of the opening.

Feedback

Film Opening Analysis: Star Wars

Star Wars: A New Hope is about a teenager Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi master, a cocky pilot, a wookiee and two droids to save the galaxy from the Empire's word destroying battle-station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader.

Title: Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope
Director: George Lucas
Production: Lucasstar
Distributor: FOX
Budget: $11,000,00
Box Office: $460,935,665
Genre: Sci-fi, Action
Stars: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford
Year Released: 1977

Film Opening Analysis (audio analysis)

Film Opening Analysis: Fifty Shades of Grey

Literature student, Anastasia Steele's (Dakota Johnson) life changes forever when she meets  handsome, yet tormented, billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) 

Title: Fifty Shades of Grey 

Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson 

Production: Focus Features, Trigger Street Productions, Michael De Luca Productions 

Distributor: Universal 

Budget: $40,000,000

Box Office: $166,147,885

Stars: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan

Genre: Drama, Romance 

Year Released: 2015 

Here is a video of me analysing through the opening of the film. 

Here is the opening of the film.

Film Opening Analysis: Friends with Benefits

While trying to avoid the cliches of Hollywood romantic comedies, Dylan Harper (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie Rellis (Mila Kunis) soon discover however that adding the act of sex to their friendship does lead to complication.

Title: Friends with Benefits
Director: Will Gluck
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Production: Castle Rock Entertainment, Zucker Productions
Distributor: Sony/Screen Gems
Budget: $35,000,000
Box Office: $55,802,754
Stars: Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis
Release: July 22 2011

Film Opening Analysis: Mamma Mia

The story of a bride-to-be (Amanda Seyfried) trying to find her real father told using hit songs by the popular 70s group ABBA.

Title: Mamma Mia
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Production: Relativity Media, Littlestar
Distributor:Universal
Genre: Comedy, Musical
Budget: $52,000,000
Box Office: $144,130,063
Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan
Released:

opening-scene from Mamma Mia! (2008) - Video Dailymotion

The ident from Universal

 Then we get text saying universal pictures and Littlestar/Playtone productions. This text is quite 70s text so it links to the ABBA music in the movie., since ABBA was a 70s band.

  We first get the sound of waves before any image, then we get a gradual image of dark waves crashing against a boat.  

 Then shot pans up/zooms out as we get a silhouette of a girl on a boat as calming music fades in.

 then we get a shot of the boat coming into the shot from the right, then it zooms out so we get a establishing shot of this island at night.

Then we cut to a wide shot of a path leading to a yellow post box. The yellow stands out as theres lots of dark blues and tones around the shot. This cold connote the importance of the post office if the letters she's posting are important to her.

 Then we cut a long of the girl as she walks towards the postbox but she's still unknown as the shadows cover her face. Cut to another shot of the postbox as this is much closer, connotes that this letterbox is quite important. Then to cut back to the girl with a medium shot as she continues to walk, masked by the shadows. We cut to the last shot of the yellow postbox which is fully centre of the screen, then finally we see the girl; Sophie unmasked as she holds 3 letters.

We get this close up shot of the letters as she says the name of the men on the letters and posting them into the box.

Then the music quickly changes to a upbeat 70s track as we get a montage of shots of the three men. This emphasises the busyness which all three men are surrounded in and adds adrenaline to the montage.

Our first shot of the montage is a close up shot of a tattoo on one of the guy's knee. This tattoo could connote to a rebellious, spontaneous or inde side to this guy. In addition we see a part of a motorbike, again showing a rebellious characteristic.

Then we get a wide shot of Bill on his bike. Within the Mis-en-sence we see Bill's style more clearly as he's wearing shorts, sunglasses, a hat and a t-shirt. This connotes that the weather wherever he is its quite warm and sunny or it could show that he's into travelling a lot as he's on a motorbike.

Estblashing shot of large market, suggest that Bill is currently travelling.

Then we get a panning down shot looking down onto another male character, Sam. The shot pans from a tall building. This implies that he works in this building and this is answered as we see a small female assistant instructing or telling him something which causes him to walk over these Asian business men. This shot is at a low angle (just below eye level) this suggests that Sam is more important than the Asian men, she could be a boss of a company or of a section within the company.

The low angle shot and long shot of Harry walking out of his house and getting into his car connotes towards his home and social class therefore allowing the audience get a insight in Harry's lifestyle.

The wide shots of The Mall in London and the harbour in Morocco to establish the location/home of Harry and Bill