the plot was that two teenage girls start walking home from a party and night starts to fall. Through a serious of panning and tracking shots the two are introduced into a dark wooded area, suspense and tension starts to build (key convention to the thriller genre) as the editing pace would increase. Shady characters areseen to be floating through the trees in and out of shot; the two start to panic and begin to run home which then leads to a anti climax where they collide into an ordinary couple as they turn a corner. I think this idea is good as it has thriller conventions of suspense, tension and an anti climax however we didnt all agree that this type of opening is not as creative and original as we want ours to be.
We then spent a lunchtime fleshing out our individual ideas and began to form our
final idea; we used the concept of being "abducted" an formed a more complex plot with a strong narrative which hopefully will allow the audience to connect and relate to a further degree. The opening would not be fully understood because more of the plot would-be revealed later during the film; I feel that having this deeper story gives more depth to the opening.
The first plot point revolves around the family being "marked" by a pyschopath type figure; with an unhealthly obsession with the family, marked being the possible film title. Our opening starts with the son being abducted/kidnapped by this stealthy, dark figure and then swiftly moves onto a montage of footage showing how this begins to affect the family and their relationships. As a group we had started to put these ideas down into a storyboard where we found our concepts and visualisation of this plot was slightly different individually however this proved a positive as we decided to create the ideas we all agree on and when it comes to our animatic and later production we can evaluate some of the scenes and whether they fit in the opening and present meaning towards the audience. We used some flashbacks in our sequence to demonstrate what has happened and present time shots to portray what is happening currently to the family.The openings continuity will have to be clear enough for the audience to follow, as the flashbacks may disrupt this.
The sound we decided upon was a musical score soundbridge across all clips introduced first by the sons ipod song, with the music contrasting the onscreen action - we thought that this will create an eerie effect as the music is slightly upbeat but mournful when paired with whats onscreen. Something similar to "Watchmen"'s opening in which upbeat local music is played over a graphic fight scene. As the opening sequence ends the ipod is seen slowly falling to the floor where then the music stops as rain starts to hit the screen, and the light starts to dim. The connotations of this shot is that hope for the son to return home is slowly fading and the music finishes which represents this also.
To evaluate our group I would say that we all played specific roles in this idea creation progress with each member adding constructively. I am happy that we developed our first idea into something we are all more happy about. The idea we have decided on is in my opinion quite original however may be very difficult to get the way we want it.
