Film Opening: Story Board

Film opening story board from Millie Turner

Film Opening: Overall Plot Outline

Christa/ Anti-Christ

The film begins in a church setting with a young girl crying inside. Flash forwards reveal an older version of the girls self in the same setting. The girl reveals herself to be the second coming of Christ named Christa. Christa has returned to Earth with knowledge of Gods plan to destroy it in the form of crippling natural disasters. As humans have run the Earth into the ground with pollution and destruction, God believes there is no hope left for the human race and planet Earth. However, Christa disagrees and believes that there is still hope for Earth and that the human race just need some guidance. In an attempt to save Earth, Christa battles against the natural elements forced down upon her by her parent. On Christa’s mission to save planet Earth, she must disobey the divine power above her, and in a swift turn of events, making her the anti-Christ. Christa manages to battle the elements and save planet Earth with her own divine powers and wins the unlikely battle. Christa restores Earth back to its healthy, natural and luscious state and gives mankind the correct guidance to ensure they never make the same mistakes again. Once Earth is restored, Christa is banished to Hell for her acts against God.

Film Opening: Idea Origin

In preparation for creating our Film Opening we watched a variety of movies to get ideas. It was movies like the The Exorcism of Emily Rose that caught our eye and consisted of ideas we wanted to try and replicate. Instead of the horror and thriller aspects of the movies, it was the consistent gothic themes throughout that we aimed to replicate within our Film Opening. To create these gothic themes we decided what kind of mise en scene, sound, editing and camera work we would include to emphasise it. For example: Gloomy weather, such as wind, rain, or fog. An atmosphere of mystery and suspense recreated with sound and editing.

Exorcisms are deeply religious ceremonies and I wanted to recreate the religious aspects, but those that weren't associated with exorcisms, otherwise our movie would have been very similar to previous movies like The Exorcist or The Devil Inside. Instead, Ella and I recreated the religious aspects in the form of the idea of second coming of Christ. We decided to take our own spin on the idea of the 'second coming of Christ' by portraying Christ as a woman. Due to the alternative portrayal of Christ, we decided to name the character 'Christa'.

Conventions of Thrillers

Thrillers mainly consist of a a series of negative events which build tension and suspense. Meanwhile the protagonist fights for justice while the antagonist seeks to destroy it.

The thing about thrillers that separates them from horrors is that they manipulate the content so the audience believe that it could potentially happen to them, making the experience much more frightening and intense.

Conventions

- Fast shots in quick succession.

- Music connoting tension = high strings, low bass.

- Dark lighting.

- Mysterious noises and shadows.

- The antagonist in control.
- Montage shots.

Characters
The protagonists are more often than not, males that are the 'leader of the pack' and want to restore justice and fight back, not just cower away from the fight. For example, in the adventure thriller 'The Grey' where Liam Neeson, playing Ottway, becomes the leader and helps others fight for survival in an extremely isolated part of Alaska.

The antagonists often have their identity concealed or partially unknown, so the audience uncover the true identity as the move progresses. This is the case in the most recent Bond film 'Spectre', where the antagonist reveals himself to be super-villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Also, in many thriller movies, the explanation for the antagonists actions is often for revenge. For example, in the movie 'Cape Fear', where Robert De Niro plays the antagonist that seeks revenge on the lawyer who provided the fundamental evidence that convicted him of rape.

Camera Work
With the protagonist, there's often many close up shots and reactions shots to highlight their emotions. To help conceal the antagonists identity, shots of them will be dimly lit and will cut quickly to avoid them being revealed to the audience. Or, shots including the antagonist will show them in front of a bright light so that they appear simply as a silhouette, or they'll appear as a shadow with a voice over, over the top. An example from the antagonist in 'Spectre' is shown below and an example from 'The Revenant' trailer.

Sound
Orchestral music is often used to increase suspense and tension. This is done by using very deep and low bass and contrasting high pitched strings that keep the audience on edge. Minor chords are also played because they have connotations of sadness and create an eerie feeling within the movie.
Diegetic sounds such as creaking doors/floorboards or footsteps are used to emphasise the feeling of being crept up on, consequently increasing tension.
As tension builds, the music usually increases in pace, which subsequently builds tension and suspense even further. All of these features are displayed within the trailer for the 2013 version of 'Silence of the Lambs' which is linked below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuX2MQeb8UM



Flashbacks
Flashbacks are commonly used in thriller movies. They create the sense of disorientation of time and space. The confusion of the audience also makes them much more vulnerable to feelings of fear and anxiety.They also lead the audience to believe that there's more to the story than meets the eye. Flashbacks often used to reveal more about the protagonist or antagonist and can either reveal why the antagonist is doing what they're doing or help them identify with the protagonist. Flashbacks are famously used in the thriller 'Inception'.

Film Opening: Audience Questionnaire Results and Analysis

I asked predominately students to fill out my questionnaire as they were easily accessible as I am a student myself. All of the students asked were within my own year and so they were ages 16-17 years old. I also asked a couple individuals in their 20's. Due to my research's slim age bracket, my results cannot be generalised but are accurate when analysing the younger generation’s movie preferences.

 

More females than males answered the questionnaire and so this could subsequently affect the results. However, when analysing the final results, I found it didn't really affect them at all.

With more females answering the questionnaire, this would stereotypically suggest that the romantic genre would be more popular. However, this wasn't the case. Comedy was the most popular genre with the younger generation. The top three genres they chose, as listed above, were no surprise to me. Not everybody enjoys a movie that challenges them, when the younger generation watch movies, it is often to relax or via social occasions. In neither of those situations would you want a hard hitting thriller or gory horror to watch. Ultimately, people want to relax to a funny or adventurous romance, comedy or action movie that is easy on the eyes and the mind.

The most popular purpose of a movie opening to achieve is attracting your attention. This surprised me as personally I would rather a movie opening hold my attention rather that attract it. However, there may have been some confusion as to what the difference between the two are. Holding your attention is maintaining your attention and holding it for a longer and steady period of time. Whereas attracting your attention is having something attracting your attention for a brief period only. However, the attracting of attention complied with the results of the favourite genre. Comedy and Action movies tend to have exciting, comical or dangerous moments that momentarily attract the audience’s attention. Whereas thrillers tend to have a complex storyline where it’s crucial that it has the audience’s full attention. The second most popular answer was to leave the rest of the movie in mystery. This is a very common aspect of psychological thrillers as the story unravels before the audience’s eyes and is never immediately explained. This also makes sense generally as you don’t want the movie to explain the entire storyline because then there is no excitement or suspense in watching it.

The majority of people said that it was the content of the movie opening that inclined them towards watching the rest of it. However, some people felt it was very important to be able to identify with the characters/ actors and that is why that was an important aspect as to why they would continue to watch a movie afters its opening. Many people’s favourite movies contain a character they can relate to, identify with, or even aspire to be.

It was interesting to see that people cared more about their family and friends opinions of movies rather than the official reviews. This is also due to the fact that a huge aspect of publicity is word of mouth. However, people were attracted to movies depending on the actors in it. This complies with the common view that the more popular the actors are in a production, the more popular the production is. This is because the actors themselves generate publicity without the movie, its production company and how it is distributed. Genre is also an important factor in being attracted to a specific movie. With modern media outlets that let you watch movies online such as Amazon Prime and Netflix, you can search for movies categorically by genre and so that reinforces that.

Film Opening: Audience Questionnaire

1. What is your age?




0-16        [3]
17-24      [7]
25-30
31-40
41+




2. What is your gender?




Male      [4]
Female   [6]
Other




3. What is your favourite genre?




Comedy      [6]
Thriller
Action         [3]
Romance     [1]
Horror
Other




4. What do you want a movie opening to do...




Explain what the rest of the movie is about.
Leave the rest of the movie in mystery.     [3]
Hold your attention.      [1]
Attract your attention.   [6]




5. What makes you want to continue watching after the movie opening?




Setting
Characters/ Actors [1]
What's already happened    [9]
Editing
Sound/ Music




6. What attracts you to movies?




Genre      [1]
Actors     [4]
Reviews
Family/ Friend's Opinion   [5]

Film Opening: Initial Ideas

Our initial ideas contained a variety of different genres. We decided to do an audience questionnaire to help us decide which genre to go with. We did this by asking individuals of our target audience, what their favourite genres were.