Real Opening credits:

Below are examples of films which have their opening credits like ours, creating an atmosphere of suspense and anticipation for the film, helped by the main soundtrack...

BLADE RUNNER:
YOUTUBE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbWNZkoQHuE
(unfortunately the embed option for the video has been disabled, so I will post some screenshots instead.)

Teacher Feedback: The Final Cut

We were very pleased with the feedback we received from our teachers. They all were really impressed by what we had managed to acheive.

• The new fight scene worked well, with the 'bad guy' looking more professional and less like a thug!
• Continuity works perfectly with no very noticable flaws.
• The camerawork is imersive and lively, with handheld techniques giving it a raw quality.
• The editing is fast paced and action packed, but also thrilling and suspense-filled.
• The acting is really professional and makes the narative really dramatic and scary!
• The music works brilliantly with the picture and helps build suspense.
• The titles at the beginning and end make the final product look very professional.
• The fade to white at the end cleary indicates to the audience that the film is about to begin.

Final Titles

We originally wanted to track our titles onto surfaces using Adobe After Effects (as below), so that it appeared the titles were layered onto surfaces, but found it was difficult for a number of reasons:

• 
  
  There weren't enough shots that were long enough to have a title in it, and we didn't want to have the same title in consective shots.
• 
  
  There weren't enough suitable tracking points in many of the shots, and many of the shots are handheld so the shot moves too irregularly to track effectively.
• 
  
  The process is very time consuming, and we didn't have that much time.

After much discussion we finally ended up putting our titles before and after the sequence itself. This was for many reasons. Firstly we felt that it allowed suspense to build up before the sequence started itself. The opening sequence now cuts from titles straight into fast paced action which is very effective in delivering a shock to the audience.

 Secondly we didnt want to take away from the quality of the sequence itself. When placing titles in the sequence we felt it distracted the viewer away frrom the suspense of the sequence itself.


We were influenced to have these titles at the begining and end from many films such as The Bourne Supremacy which is a very similar genre to ours and then also a Monty Python film which although different in genre uses the titles very successfully.

Errors in our sequence: EDITED BY HUGH

Here are all the continuity errors that we have noticed in our sequenced, most of which were noticed well after the shoot. We are all very disappointed to have not noticed them earlier as we were unable to mask them effectively in editing.

After editing the final sequence, Hugh re-edited the sequence on a new timeline on the edit suite, slowing down each error. It was uploaded to youtube and annotated, pointing out these errors (and topped off with an appropriate soundtrack).

Group Reflections

We are all very happy with our finished sequence, and are very pleased to have finished the production side of this project. We set out to create a sequence that was completely different to all the horror openings that had been made before, and are satisfied that we have done this successfully.

• We love the pace and excitement of the opening part of the sequence
• We also like the the tension created in the latter part of the sequence, especially when Hugh enters the house
• The music gave us a lot of stress during editing, but we think the the final soundtrack works very effectively with the images and titles

• We also like the narrative of our sequence
• We like the way we have framed the shots, and the way that we have edited it to make a continuous sequence
• We like the acting, and are especially surprised with Hugh's ability to drop seemlessly into character, delivering an convincing and believable performance throughout
• We are pleased that the titles work effectively, and dont take anything away from our sequence, dispite us not being able to track the titles properly.

However...

• There are many, many continuity errors in our sequence, such as doors being open/closed when they shouldnt be, things disappearing from rooms, mist disappearing from windows, etc.
• We were disappointted that we were unable to track titles onto surfaces, but this was not possible in the time given
• We dont like Hughs costume, but we made the decision to leave it unchanged from the test shoot so that we did not have to reshoot all of our sequence in difficult weather conditions

Summary of Audience Feedback

Group 2 Questionnaire

The Screening:

To get some feedback from other students in the school, we held a screening in the media department at lunchtime on wednesday 17th march 2010. 

After receiving an applause when the first viewing of the film ended, we handed out questionaire which we had prepared beforehand, and asked the audience to fill them in whilst we screened the film again.

The screening was a great success with around 20 questionaires fully filled in. People seemed to really enjoy the screening of our opening sequence.

Welcome!