Opening sequence analysis

Amelie- Jean Pierre Jeunet

They made something simple into something big.
They connected with the audience in order for them to say "I used to do that". They already connect with the audience in the first few minutes because the things that the little girl is doing are things you could do at home on your own.
They showed us, so much infomation in the first few minutes.

Skin- Anthony Fabian

The music is very upbeat and energetic, which amidately grabs the viewers attention because they want to see what all the fuss is about.
Camera moves to, so many people which gives us alot of infomation in a small amount of time.
Zooms in from big to small to medium, so we see a dessert then alot of people celebrating in the street then we see a women in the car.

To kill a mockingbird

The camera shows us possesions that get picked up and used. It also focuses on the fact that the possesions mean something to the person using them, so we start to see the characteristics and personalities of the caharcater.
It follows a single object rolling, which allows us to see more.
The background is blurred, while the camera focusses on the watch.

Idea- objects are thrown in the air. We focuses on each object in slow motion as they fall. We flash to different things associated with these objects.

The script

INT: BEDROOM

Daytime 8am
Music: Hip-hop Rap – Post Production

Nikki’s face is not exposed through out the whole opening sequence.

Only few features are shown e.g. eyes, mouth and hair


Nikki awakes from her sleep

Nikki opens her eyes
The music starts to play

Sits up and we see the back of Nikki’s head.



Sits up on her bed and stretches out her hands, which signifies that she just woke up.
Then she steps out from her bed and walks to her closet, shuffles through her clothing’s then
takes her hoody from the hanger in her closet.

But we do not see Nikki’s wear the rest of her close except for her hoody

CUTS AWAY

Music: Hip-Hop Rap – Post Production

Int: Bathroom

Nikki brushes her teeth and

Exits the bathroom with her head down

Int: Stairs

Nikki walks down the stairs with her head down which show that she’s depressed. She on her way to the kitchen

She walking down the stairs very slowly because she tired

Turns downstairs and walks directly into the kitchen



Int: Kitchen

Nikki opens the fridge and she grabs out milk,
Nikki fills up her glass half full and she finishes her glass and walks towards the stairs

She walks directly up the stairs to her room


Nikki sits on her bed and looks up and then pulls up her mattress
In a rush she pulls out a plastic bag which contains the gun she owns

She starts to cry very softly and tears drop down from her eyes.


Her hand is shaking

She points out the gun like she going to shoot someone, whiles tears are dropping from her face. She is facing a mirror but we can only see her up to her lips.


She hears voices in her head of people who don’t like her and the bullies making statements about her and she hears people in school that she doesn’t know laughing loudly at her because she’s getting bullied.

(V.O) TOM:
I WILL KILL YOU

JAMES:
YOU’RE UGLY

TRACEY:
SHUT UP YOU

LAUGHTER OF RANDOM PEOPLE


She puts the gun into her school bag

She exits her bedroom


Now she walking downstairs in a hurry directly to the door



NIKKI: Bye Mum! I am off (Aggressively)

There’s no reply from her mother, Nikki leaves and slams the door


Nikki is walking down the school road very slowly and enters the school premises

Nikii- moodboard

My first idea

My first idea



little lonely girl



Jenny is a little girl who lives in a big house with her aunty. Jenny's parents are always away on business trips, so they never have any time for her. They both love Jenny very much, but they never show her or tell her that. Jenny's aunty is nice to her, but because she is so old jenny never has any fun with her because she is regularly sleeping or with her old friends ect.

One day Jenny's aunty gets too sick to stay with her any longer, so her parents get Jenny a nanny. Her nanny Clara is the one raising Jenny; to Jenny she is the mum she never had and the friend she's always dreamed of. Clara plays with her and treats Jenny like her own daughter. She grows further and further apart from her parents; soon she doesn’t care about whether or no there with her.

Jenny’s parents start to notice the changes in Jenny over a long period of time and they have started to get worried about the fact that they are loosing her. They try to get Jenny’s love back by buying her loads of gifts and appending more time with her at home, but she always wants to spend time with Clara instead.

Little by little they start to get more and more jealous of Clara, so they both decide to frame her. They decided to steel Jenny’s scrapbook which is her most prized possession, but tell Jenny that Clara stole it. Jenny’s parents fire Clara and Jenny is heartbroken because she thinks that Clara did it; she feels betrayed. Clara is angry with Jenny because she can’t believe that Jenny thinks she did it.

Clara doesn’t have enough money to support herself, so she goes broke. She can no longer afford a house, so she gets kicked out and is now living on the streets. She tried to get another job, but everyone in town thinks that she’s a thief, so no one wants to take her. Meanwhile Jenny is feeling more and more lonely. She has her parents, but there not Clara. She can’t talk to them as much as she talked to Clara; her parents seem like aliens to her.                    

Jenny’s parents start to feel guilty about what happened after they find out about what happened to Clara. Due to the fact that Clara’s gone they have noticed that Jenny is always sad and she talks to them even less now. One night Jenny over hears them talking about Clara and Jenny finds out the truth. She starts crying. Jenny’s parents come out when they here her cry; they try to comfort her, but she shrugs their hands off and runs away in search of Clara.

After a heated argument Clara and Jenny are now friends. Jenny’s parents apologized to both Clara and Jenny and now Clara is living with them. Clara is now like a member of the family.

Opening sequence

The doors open and we see a great big light and nothing is visible except the doors. We see a bunch of childhood things scattered across the floor e.g colouring pencils, dolls, books ect. We see someone’s hands fiddle, with the things on the floor and then we hear a soft childlike music play. We enter a new room that is empty, but full of pictures. The camera is the characters eyes. We hear different emotions as we glaze over the pictures e.g crying, laughter. The camera follows the characters hands as she touches each frame. The character goes back into the first room and throws the childhood thing against the wall and they fall slowly. We see the credits on the childhood memories as they fall. The music goes faster or slower based on the main characters emotions.

Treatment

Treatment- No destiny

Genre: Drama, Action

Ideas from two teenage deaths happening in London

Nikki is a lonely 15 year old girl in her own world. She doesn’t like anyone from her family and she doesn’t like anyone in school accept one girl called Samantha, which is her closest friend. Everyone in her area judges her based on the way she looks. They tend to gossip about her behind her back, but she knows they talk about her.

On a casual mourning Nikki walks to the fridge; pulls out milk and pours her glass half full. She then walks to her schoolbag, stands still to look around and pulls out a plastic bag containing a gun into her schoolbag.

Nikki then wears her school bag on her shoulders and leaves her house. 10 mins later she’s down the road from sixth form then enters the premises. At first sight she sees Sam walking to her; they exchange a few words of dialogue about what they had done during the weekend. The first bell rings and everyone goes off to lesson, however Nikki decides not to go to lesson and Sam leaves her. She then texts Sam saying “I’m waiting for you come near the canteen”.

Nikki then starts to roam about on the school premises. She then decides to go to the toilet, but then sees the bullies that she’s feared for years.

One of the bullies calls out “Oi Nikki puss comes here”. She starts to walk in the opposite direction, but they catch up with her and drag her outside. They then start to beat her up; she’s screaming, but everyone is in class.

They run off and she stands up and she can hear voices in her head of people laughing at her. Then she starts to cry; she then runs off to the toilet and she sits down in the corner crying.

She clenches her bag and then drops it. The gun falls out of the bag. She starts to shake and then picks up the gun and then we see the outside of the toilet. A loud bang goes off!

Feedback from first pitch

“Likes it that it’s a school drama and we can relate to it because it happens a lot today”

“The way we have the letters on the fridge and on the milk is creative”.

“Likes the use of imagery”.

Kidulthood

Kidulthood is a teenage drama.  In the
beginning of the clip we first focus on a bunch of boys playing football; the
camera only focuses on their feet and the ball. This scene is repeated many
times it’s played fast when the music is fast and slows down when the music
slows down ,so it is parallel. We flash from this shot to groups of people
around the school having their own little conversations, but we can’t hear some
of the dialogue being exchanged. This make the dialogue we hear clearly stands
out more. The main dialogue that was said was “do you want to come to my party?”
which is repeated several times (not these exact words all the time, but they
are always party related. This makes the audience assume that the party is very
significant to the film. Although the characters don’t talk much we can already
make assumptions about their characters through their body language e.g. the
character Sam is seen looking around frantically as if he is looking out for
teachers or a form of authority, which tells us he’s doing something he isn’t
meant to be doing. The audience can assume he is the “bad boy of the school”.
Although the characters are all wearing school uniform we can still make
assumptions about the school as a whole or the individual. E.g We can stereotypically
think the school is poor academically because they  all speak slang a lot; they all have their
top buttons undone ,the boys playing football don’t care about the fact that their
feet is drenched in mud. The school lacks discipline and the student’s lacks
morals. We are also shown shots of a character building something and toying
around with it. We see and hear every little detail, but we don’t see the whole
of the object that he’s making, which makes it a mystery. This is because now
the audience want to know what it is? Why he isn’t outside with friends? and
Why it is so significant. I like this opening because it uses the audience’s stereotypes
which allow us to gather a lot of information without them actually spelling it
out to them. Already we start saying she’s the geek, he’s the rude boy etc.  The fact that it’s set in a school allows us to associate ourselves with characters in the film.

Analysis of opening sequences

Clips for analysis

Dawn of the dead

What are director’s aims?
I think she/he wants to try and get as much information about what is currently going on as possible in order to frighten the audience and make them want to know more about what is going. Then can tell from the news report that the problem is on a global scale.

What are the audience thinking, wondering, feeling, asking?
The audience don't have that much time to think because the clips go by so quickly, so they ask themselves what’s going on and it makes them panic because of all the horrific images. We feel distressed.

How does this engage the audience?
It engages the audience by flashing lots of disturbing clips at them and using the news reporters to spread the panic. The clips are unusual which makes you want to find out more.

What are your favourite bits in these clips? Why?
My favourite bits are the parts where people are running wild causing riots ect. This is because it has, so much drama in it which keeps you entertained.

Coraline

What are director’s aims?

I think their trying to make the audience confused because the action that that the hands are doing is in reverse; there meant to be sowing things on the doll.

What are the audience thinking, wondering, feeling, asking?

The audience would be thinking why is someone trying to dismantle a doll that looks perfectly fine? They would also want to know who is actually doing it? I think they would feel a little bit awkward. The hands also look strange, so they would really want to know who it is.

How does this engage the audience?

This engages the audience because they want to find out more information about the doll and the person ruing the doll. The doll is always in the centre of the frame to make the audience notice the abnormality of the action.

What are your favourite bits in these clips? Why?

My favourite bit is when we can’t see the hands and the doll is just spinning around in blackness. I like this part because it looks interesting and abnormal. I want to find out why she is there.

Hulk

What are director’s aims?
To make us travel into science and see the origins of how the hulk because the hulk. It sets up the story in order for through images rather than explaining through dialogue in the beginning.

What are the audience thinking, wondering, feeling, asking?

The audience is wondering what does the opening sequence leads to and why are they carrying out these tests in animals. I think the audience is also trying to take in the information and learn due to the fact that the opening sequence is telling us a story.

How does this engage the audience?

The clips make us want to find out more because we have already seen the back story. We now know too much to just leave our knowledge of the film at that.

What are your favourite bits in these clips? Why?

I like the bit where we go into the word "Hulk". This is because it's something different and it looks cool. It's also at a fast pace, so I was engaged into the opening.

Story Idea's research 2

Supreme Court rules infavour of pre-nuptial agreement

A husband and wife are walking down the beach holding hands (this is a flashback all we can hear is the sound of the sea and laughter). They sit down and hold each other, as they star to kiss we hear 2 knocks from a judge’s hammer. As we hear the sounds of the knock the camera shakes and the previous image becomes blurred.

We then see a man in a court room shaking his head as it he is forcing the image out of his head. He then looks at a woman on the other side of the room. She smiles a cunning smile and he covers his face with his hands,

Next we hear music building up as we flash from the women in a rich house to the man in a council house. The music turns very childlike when we see a close-up of a little girl looking at a photo of the two older characters together. The girl is crying and we see a tear drop on the photo and we hear the impact.

She slowly steps on a chair in order to hang herself. We flash from this to the man and woman running shouting the girls name once. The music stops when they open a door.

 

Story ideas research

UK aid worker's joy at release from captors in Somalia.

Frans Barnard's release was secured
by Somali clan leaders

A British security consultant kidnapped six days ago by gunmen in Somalia has described his release as "marvellous", Save the Children says.

I would make a film about a group of people in the army who set out to rescue this man. We will see them bond over time because right now they don't see the point of sending ten men to save one man. The man will be having flashbacks of his life during the film.

Opening sequence

Man on chair in dark room all tied up with men with guns around him. He will be filthy with low-key lighting, so we can't see his face. Tense music will be playing during this scene.

The tense music will turn soft (preferably classical) It will constantly flash back to people in his life  laughing and smiling with him or without him. All of a sudden a little girl will scream and say daddy and then the soft music will stop. It will then cut to the 10 man army fighting various people and leaving America. It will then cut back to the man this time we see his face. It goes pitch black and we hear a gun shot and see a light.