Opening sequence of: The Silence Of The Lambs and The Blair Witch Project

The Blair Witch Project:

A lot of our inspiration and ideas will come off this film. The ‘home movie’ style to it appeals to us. It has that armature feel to it, which we feel will come of our film opening. The constant had held camera shots show a more personal view for the viewer as they can see most of the things that the character can see but this also gives a more confusing feel for the person watching as they have to ask them self’s ‘what are they doing’ as you cannot see directly what that character is doing or looks like at a particular moment as you can only see what they see. It adds to the suspense factor that the film portrays and this is what we would like to create in out film opening.

The opening sequence starts with the production company first, then the stars, which is followed by the directors name. Also in the opening sequence, we are provided with information about what the film entails.

Sound

- Score: Low key horror music - tells the audience what to expect e.g Horror.

- Heavy breathing.

- Sound of dead branches on the ground as the main character runs through them.

Camera work

- Establishing shot of the woods - send a false sense of danger.

- A close-up of her face and feet - to show hard work and determination, which shows there idea that later on might be involved in a difficult investigation that requires those qualities. This might reject female stereotype as this kind of jobs is usually seen as masculine.

-Her environment dominates her by the use of long shots.

Titles

- The titles of the starts and the director's names faded in and out throughout the opening sequence.

Prelim Task Shot List

• Aerial shot - Walking into Ellis Kennedy Building.
• Close-up - Text message.
• Match on action - Walking into Ellis and Kennedy.
• High-Angle shot - The character looking at the stair case.
• Long shot - The character walking up the stair case.
• Close-up - The sign of the first floor.
• Close-up (the character's point of view) - Shaky camera.
• 180 degree rule (over the shoulder of both character).
• Shot/Reverse shot - The conversation.
• Medium shot - The conversation.
• Medium shot - Both characters leaving the "yellow floor"
• Fade into the blackness.

This is a picture of Ella filming a long shot of Katie walking up the stairs.

These two pictures are of us filming on the roof of the college, which we successfully got permission for.

-What did you learn about the cameras and editing software during the preliminary task?

Using the video camera and the editing computers for the first time was difficult and complicated. However as time went by, we became familiar with both them Whilst filming, we used the tripod to ensure that the shots were stable even though we did a little of hand held shots to suit our storyline.

We used the Final Cut Pro to edit our film, this software allowed us to cut takes that we unnecessary and used “match on action” to match each scene seamlessly. By adding credits to our prelim made it more valuable and gave it the impression that it was a professional film.

-Give a detailed, specific example of how you achieved match cuts during the editing process.

We used match cuts through out the film, as the continuity of scenes could not have been achieved by filming the whole film at once. We found this part of the prelim task particularly difficult, as we had to be accurate and precise to match each scene at the right time. In order to achieve this we used buttons on the QWERTY keypad such as “Prev Frame” and “Next Frame” which allowed us to notice every detail, therefore were able to match them correctly.

-In the filming and editing of your project, what worked well and what could have been improved?

When filming we felt that the shots filmed whilst the camera was on the tripod worked better than the hand held camera shots, saying this though some of the hand held shots worked well in the over all story of the task considering that it was about struggling and shaky and hand held camera shots worked well. When editing and piecing the different shots together we felt that they all worked well together and linked into each other seamlessly. We used a bit of elliptical editing near the end to cut out some of the longer bits. In our main task we will concentrate more on the details in the filming aspect, making sure each of the shots content link into each other as they did in our prelim.

-Give a detailed, specific example of how you used a shot/ reverse shot combination in your film.

In our prelim task we didn’t find it hard to film the shots needed for the shot reverse shot sequence but when editing them together the ‘shot reverse shot’ sequence isn’t very visible because the convocation wasn’t long enough to put several shot reverse shots in place. In our main task we will make the shot reverse shot more visible if needed.

-How did you make sure that you didn’t break the 180-degree rule? Or if you broke it, what have you learnt from this?

When filming we made sure the characters were in the same position each time we filmed a shot, also we made sure the camera was in the right position to make sure we didn’t break the 180-degree rule.

Preliminary Introduction

Welcome to our preliminary task. In this task we explored different camera work such as shot reverse shot, 180 degree rule and different angle shots for example aerial shot, medium shots and close ups. Also we explored different editing techniques on final cut pro, such as match on action.

Our preliminary task entails a character walking and almost struggling to climb several sets of stairs, to meet her friend 'on the yellow floor' where they exchange dialogue.