Audience Questionnaire Results

In our audience questionnaire, we first asked for the participants age. This was so that we would be able to get a firm grasp of which age group were more likely to watch thriller films. The scatter chart shown below made us aware that the majority of people who would take part in the questionnaire about thrillers were between the ages of 10 and 30.

 

Of these people, we found that most of them did watch thriller films, shown by the pie chart here:

 

Further to this, we asked each participant what their favourite thriller film was and why. One of the most common reasons for the film being their favourite came down to the narrative in some way, with one participant saying (about The Butterfly Effect) "it's narrative is so cleverly constructed and is extremely intriguing - it made me question not only aspects of the film, but also my own morals".

The next question asked what the participants expected to include in Thrillers which produced a wide range of results. To make this easier for us to process, we asked them which one aspect they believe to be the most important to include in a Thriller. However, each person still gave a very different answer. These included:

• Intrigue
• Contrast
• Tension
• Suspense
• Mystery
• Complex Narrative
• A Relatable Protagonist

We then asked whether each participant believed the film opening to be more important than the rest of the film. As the pie chart below shows, the majority of people believed it did. However, a few were unsure, with one even stating "Yes and No; Yes because it helps to establish the film and will be what causes the audience to stay and watch, yet No because the ending/ revelation is just as important to the film's narrative! If the ending is poor, it will counteract the ingenuity of the rest of the film."

Finally, we asked what 3 aspects would make the participants more likely to watch the rest of the film if they were to see them in the opening. Just as before, the answers were wildly unconnected. However, the most commonly stated aspects were:

• Unstereotypical Location
• Ambiguity
• Captivating Narrative
• Foreshadowing
• Raising Questions
• Minimal Character Introductions

From this we have decided to aim our film at students and young adults and to focus heavily on creating a complex and intriguing narrative. Further to this, we aim to include mystery and high contrast created through low key lighting. We aim to use unstereotypical locations and raise questions within our opening that could be answered later in the film. Finally, we aim to have as minimal character introduction as we can. By applying these aspects we will be able to attract our target audience as we know that these methods are usually successful.

By Olivia Calver

Audience Questionnaire

After deciding on which genre to use for our film opening, it was important to ensure that it would be suitable for our chosen audience. Due to deciding to aim our opening towards a mass audience, it became clear that we should create a film suitable for as many ages as possible. Therefore, we created a questionnaire to explore what people of different age groups look for in thrillers and, more importantly, in their openings. Below is the list of questions we decided to ask potential audience members to help us determine what aspects of thrillers we should include in our film opening to make it more successful.

1. How old are you?
2. Do you watch Thrillers?
3. What is your favourite Thriller and why?
4. What would you expect to find in a Thriller?
5. What one thing would you say is most important to include in a Thriller?
6. Do you think the film opening is more important than the rest of the film and why?
7. What 3 things would make you more likely to watch the rest of the film if you were to see them in the opening?

By Olivia Calver

Chosen Genre

We decided to create a thriller as it gives us more creative opportunity in terms of narrative. The generic conventions of thrillers are easy to contain within our piece without minimising potential narrative ideas or causing the film to appear too similar to other films of the same genre. Further to this, we decided that a thriller film played better to our strengths as we had already gained experience of how a thriller opening works through our Resident Evil remake. This caused us to decide to follow the thriller genre because we felt like we had a firm understanding of how to construct a successful thriller opening.

Generic Conventions of Thrillers:

• Slow intro music to build tension
• Crime at the core of the narrative
• Complex narrative structure
• Extraordinary events in an ordinary situation
• Themes of identity/mirroring
• Protagonists "flaws" exploited by antagonist
• Low key lighting

• Close ups

These generic conventions are all fairly basic and can easily be fitted to any chosen narrative theme. This will make conveying our opening as being that of a thriller much easier.

By Olivia Calver

Mindmaps on 3 Genres

By Olivia Calver

Our Institution

We plan on being an independent institution as it allows us to have a smaller, more specific target audience when it comes to creating our film which allows us a wider scope for ideas. Not only this but due to having little to no budget it would be extremely difficult to create an opening which is engaging enough for a mainstream, corporate audience. We believe that by being an independent company we will have a better opportunity to showcase our skills as both writers and creators when it comes to producing our own film opening.
This reflects the nature of independent film companies such as Strike Entertainment and Archer's Mark, who both produce films with more diverse films with less generic narratives. Archer's Mark find their financial backing through creating advertisements for big companies such as Nike and, Skype and EA Sports whilst Strike Entertainment gained their funding from Universal. However, Strike Entertainment dissolved in 2013 and therefore it appears that finding financial backing through your own means rather than becoming reliant on another company will provide a more beneficial grounding fro the company - something which we wish to achieve.

By Olivia Calver

Film Openings

The opening to a film is always the most important aspect as it is the audience's first impression of the film. Due to this, we want to make our film opening as enticing and professional as possible. To help with this, I decided to look up some of the most successful film openings of all time and analyse what made them so effective.

Lord of War (2005)


This opening is effective as the titles are unobtrusive whilst still being easily readable. The soundtrack works well in conjunction with the genre of film and the mise of the scene. Further to this, the camera follows the bullet, creating intrigue and causing the viewer to feel attached to the bullet. The use of camera in this way is the stand-out factor of this opening, causing it to be regarded one of the most memorable film openings of all time.

The Dark Knight (2008)


This opening is effective as it uses many action-packed shots which cements the genre of the film whilst building up a sense of mystery. The scene establishes a complex storyline which is to echoed in the rest of the film whilst creating a sense of unease within the audience. It is this which makes The Dark Knight's opening so successful.

Reservoir Dogs (1992)



The opening scene to Reservoir Dogs is effective as it uses a combination of close-ups and slow motion to help establish characters and their personalities. This method of establishing characters also indicates the genre of the film as a drama. The opening remains simple, helping to create a sense of ambiguity and causing intrigue within the audience which will make them more likely to watch the film, thus making the opening successful.

From this, I have discovered that for our opening to be successful it must establish the film's genre and narrative as well as including some interesting shots which will entice the audience.

By Olivia Calver

Resident Evil Re-Make

Evaluation
This has aided us for when it comes to creating our own film opening as it has allowed us to identify the importance of the storyboard and shot lists, as well as the important of filming each shot multiple times. It has also taught us that the editing process takes up the most amount of time, however it did also helps us in terms of practicing with both the physical and digital equipment that we have access to. Finally, it has taught us the importance of titles and their timings which is something we will now consider much more thoroughly for our own opening.

By Olivia Calver and Samuel Skinner

How Our Re-Make Was Made

When we made our remake, the first thing we went about doing was determining which order to shoot in. We decided to attempt to film the shots in the order they appear as the location seldom changed and this made it easier to keep track of what we had shot and what we hadn't. After filming, we immediately went and uploaded our footage onto the computer so that we would have multiple copies of footage, in case we accidentally some shots from either the computer or the camera.

After this, we watched the film opening again multiple times to refresh our memories and compared it to the footage we had filmed to ensure we had enough footage to create a sufficient remake. Once we had decided that we were satisfied, we began to select the best takes of each shot and "rejecting" the takes we were not going to use. This made it easier for us to find each shot when it came to editing.

We then placed each shot in its correct position within the opening before trimming the clips down to the correct length. After doing this, we added in the titles, carefully following the title timeline from the real film. Finally, I composed a piece of music to accompany our opening which suited the genre and added it to the clip. Finally, I muted all the individual clips before exporting the finished piece.

By Olivia Calver

Resident Evil: Afterlife Re-Make Shot List

Scene No.	Shot No.	Duration	Shot Type	Camera Movement	Location	Int/Ext	Equipment	Description
1	1	6 secs	Aerial Exposition Shot	Move Left and Pan Right	Chelmsford	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es	Fade through black to exposition shot of city.
1	2	5 secs	Establishing Exposition Shot	Pan Right and Move Left	Chelmsford	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es	Cut to closer up towards buildings. Continue panning.
1	3	6 secs	Establishing Exposition Shot	Pan Right and Move Left	Chelmsford	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es	Cut to closer up towards buildings. Continue panning.
1	4	4 secs	Worms Eye View	None	Chelmsford	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s	From 0:23 to 0:25 the focus pulls out allowing titles to come into focus.
1	5	2 secs	Long Shot	None	Broomfield Main Road	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s	At 0:28 the focus pulls out, taking the shot out of focus.
1	6	4 secs	Mid Shot	None	Broomfield Main Road	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s Umbrellas	The focus changes to a woman stood holding an umbrella and the new titles.
1	7	1 sec	Mid Shot	Slight Tilt Up	Chelmsford	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s	Mid shot of traffic lights as they change from red to green on a street.
1	8	4 secs	Mid Shot	None	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s Umbrellas	People in the street walking past with umbrellas.
1	9	8 secs	Aerial View	None	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Umbrellas	Slow motion as people walk down street with umbrellas from above.
1	10	25 secs	Close Up	Tilt Up	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s	Slow motion tilt from bottom of woman’s feet to waist.
1	11	13 secs	Aerial View	None	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Umbrellas	Slow motion as people walk down street with umbrellas, woman stood in centre of shot.
1	12	13 secs	Close Up	Tilt Up	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s	Slow motion tilt from the woman’s waist to halfway up face.
1	13	12 secs	Long Shot	None	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s	Slow motion people walking on street “unintentionally” revealing woman then recovering.
1	14	7 secs	Mid Shot	None	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s	Clear umbrella passes in front of the woman, obscuring the shot slightly, then reveals her stood in the rain looking grumpy.
1	15	11 secs	Long Shot	None	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s	People with umbrellas walk directly towards the camera/ away from the camera.
1	16	29 secs	Mid Shot	Pan Down and Right, around the woman	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s Dolly/s	Camera pans around the woman stood in the rain showing the rain dripping off her face.
1	17	7 secs	Mid Shot	None	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s	Man walks towards camera, looking questioning.
1	18	2 secs	Mid Shot	None	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s	Woman bares teeth at camera.
1	19	1-2 secs	Two Shot	None	Chelmer Valley Entrance	Ext	Camera/s Lens/es Tripod/s	Woman runs at man with teeth bared.

This is the shot list we plan to follow for the re-make of the Resident Evil: Afterlife opening. As you can, the only planned differences between the true clip and our re-make is the loss of helicopters due to us not having the budget and the location, being our local area rather than Tokyo. The shot list will give us something to follow so as to ensure we do not miss any required shots as well as allowing us to film the different shots out of order and piece them together in the editing stage, thus saving us time and equipment.

By Olivia Calver