Further Jumpscare Research

From watching this video it really helped us to see what adds up to a good jump scare as we realised that it is not the jump scare alone but the build up is just as important, so we thought that if we showed her walking to her car and slowly build up the pace so that she is little bit spooked by the time she gets to her car and when she gets there she thinks she is finally safe and then we reveal the dead body, we thought this would work. As we knew we couldn't build up her background hugely as it is an opening title sequence and we only have 1 and a half minutes before it to do show what we want.
We wanted a jump scare that had a slow build up and the tension slowly builds up which is similar to the jump scare in insidious as we see the scare just before the main character does.

-Archie Eve

Research into the Actual Order of Titles

Research into the Actual Order of Titles...

If I'm going to make an opening title sequence, I'll need to look into the ordering of other similar sequences from professional products. This opening title sequence for Four in the Morning (2016) is of a similar style. Ignoring the colourful waves effect and pig character, the sequence first listed all the actors and actresses involved fairly quickly, as they're most likely not very big names. This was soon followed by the executive producer and producer. Finally, as the tv show was a small budget independent project, there was a list of all other executive producers and lastly the creator. I was not a fan of this format particularly as the titles didn't include many of the usual credits such as the music and studio. The font suits this particular style however for mine I would prefer a more traditional look to match the grimy feel of the sequence rather than bright neon colours.

Another good source of inspiration is this opening title sequence from Enemy (2013). Once again the titles in this open with the lead actors followed by the film title. The bright bold font looks really good on the establishing building shots. However the film does the opposite of Four in the Morning and has too many titles on at once, and for too long. From these two sequences I've decided I'd like to use a basic white font, and have titles of the most important people involved and no more.

Researching Makeup Update

The main research for this project will go into the dead body. At this stage it's important to consider what actual injury's  the dead actor will have. When I see the dead actor in my head, I see him as very pale in his face, with extremely dark eye shadows, and a clear wound that indicates that he has been killed, whilst still wearing his work cloths, I don't want to overdo the makeup, and will want to test different possibility's before the shoot. Our group found a video online for the face. to get a rough picture of what we want the actor to look like.





For the wound we decided to go for a small bullet wound between the eyes. We are would like one with just a bit of blood comming out of it that its not too overkill. I think in combination with the whited out face that it will look really good together. Below is a tutorial of how we could do the make up. In the video I find the blood poring out of the woman looks too wet, I would like the blood to look more dried out to fit the dead for a while look.

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Update:

Our teachers have looked through all of our projects again and have informed our group that we could possibly get a make up artist. They gave the phone number of a professional make up artist called Jackie Whitney, that groups in our school have used a few times in the past years. We where told that we would have to arrange for her to meet us if we would like to use her. We didn't really know how to approach her as none of us had really done this before, but we just went for it. The phone call went very well, she said that she should have time, and will get us back and we briefly explained what we would like her to do. We agreed to keep in contact through email where I sent her the videos above. She quite soon replied saying that she would have time on our shoot day, and regarding the video she said that she could easily do it, she agreed with me that the blood in the video of the bullet wound is a bit too wet, she also gave us advised us to go easy on the paleness, and to not shadow it out as much as in the video. She recommended a slight skin whitening, and making the lips look slightly blue. We definitely trust her opinion and will follow her advice.

Jumpscare Research

A huge part of our thriller is the jump scare which is very important for us to get right in order to portray the message we are trying to show, as this is what the whole video leads up to. Without getting this scene right then the whole video would be compromised. In order to make the whole sequence worth watching then the ending is going to be very important so I will have to do a lot of research in order to find what type of jump scare our sequence is similar to and I would have to look at this one and see how the producer effectively makes it work. According to research I have done, a lot of people believe that a jump scare is a cheap way of scaring the audience.
In its simplest form a jump scare is a sharp cut usually accompanied by a frightening sound. We thought that the jump scare shouldn't just scare the audience but it outlines a key part of the film so the audience is constantly reminded of this scare throughout the film.
The most important part of a jump scare is the 30 seconds before it, so the build up which is usually slow and suddenly goes to a jump scare.

-Archie Eve

Researching Stair-climbing Sequences

Researching Stair-climbing Sequences...

A very large percentage of our thriller opening sequence is going to be the woman climbing the car-park staircase. In order to make sure the video is interesting throughout I will have to try and make a fairly tedious sequence worth watching. Therefore I looked into some other films that tried to do the same.

The first example is one of the most famous stair sequences from Alfred Hitchcock's 'Vertigo'. By using 'the vertigo effect' down the centre of the staircase, the film effectively portrays how far up the character is whilst also unsettling the audience. This technique is done by zooming and pulling the camera back at the same time.

Another good sequence for stair shots is in Casino Royale. The sequence uses a lot of tight, high and low angle shots creating a sense of the height, chlostrophobia and steepness. Again this sequence uses a shot straight down the middle of the stairwell, a shot I would like to try as it looks quite good as well as giving the audience a sense of scale.

Thriller Update - Second Storyboard Draft

Progress..

Having emailed around we now have our Actor and Actress. For the woman we have Fran Lee, who fits the part perfectly and is willing to shoot all day, given that she gets a free wagamamas! For the dead body we have Adam Grant, who will be there at the shoot anyway so there is no issue.

The car park hasn't yet been contacted, but it will be as soon as we get our shoot dates. The next issue that needs to be solved are the props involved. We're going to need 2 cars, and if we can get those we have to hope that we can find an open corner in the car park. The cars we should be able to borrow from teachers who are on set already.
Finally I have re-drawn the story-board which we can use for a test shoot soon. We need to do a test shoot in order to see if the shots we've chosen work.The new story board is below;