Opening of a Thriller film - Women in Black

Women in Black:

The Women in Black is a horror and thriller film that was released in 2012. David Radcliffe who stars as the main character in the film who is a real estate agent and he comes to the house as a person who lied in the house had recently died. However, when he comes to the house he realises that the house is very isolated and something isn't quite right. He soon realises that the house is haunted and that a women wearing black haunts the house which is why people don't visit the deserted house. The film opens with the names and logos of the production company, EntertainmentOne.

The scene starts off with a fade from a black screen to a shot of two cups and somebody imagining to pour "tea" into two cups. This suggests to the audience that it is children who is pouring the tea into the cups as children play imaginary games like having tea parties. The child then goes to let her doll take a sip from the cup suggesting that they're in fact playing a game. The cups that the children are playing with, look quite old suggesting that they were from the olden days. This makes the audience think about if this may be foreshadowing something that it has and if it links to the haunting  and eeriness of the house. There is non diegetic music in the background of clocks ticking to suggest that time is precious and that the time may be ticking down to something that is about to happen. Also, their is the non diegetic sound of nursery rhyme and a musical box in the background to suggest to the audience that something is about to happen and the tense music is building up to this. This creates suspense and an eerie feel to the house that the children are playing in and to make the audience wonder if something is happening that they are unaware of. The non diegetic sound increases in volume as the girls start to brush the dolls hair to suggest that something is going to soon happen. The doll is something that most people would find scary, and builds suspense up as they wonder why a little girl would play with a toy like that. The non-diegetic music, the diegetic clanking of the teacups and the creepy toys all help build suspense and add to the dark idea that something terrible and sinister is about to happen.

The shot then changes to a three person shot to show the children sitting around with their dolls still playing smiling and having fun. However, this doesn't make the audience feel comfortable and on edge as the build up of the non diegetic sound of a jewellery box makes the audience feel that something bad is going to happen to the children.
 


The shot then changes to a high angle shot to show the children playing happily and then changes to a point of view shot from the door to show the children quickly look up at the camera. This creates the sense that someone has walked into the house that has huge amounts of power as the camera is at a high angle compared to the children to show that something bad is going to happen to the children. This makes the audience question who has walked into the room that they're almost scared and startled to see. The shot then cuts to a three person mid shot of the children all facing the window all together at the same time. This creates a huge amount of suspense for the audience as they wonder what the children are looking at or have been shown.


The shot then quickly changes to a mid shot of three windows in the distance to suggest that this is what the children are looking at. This is well thought out as the three windows panels link to the 3 children that their is to suggest that their is one for each of them.


The shot then cuts to a mid shot of the girls which gives the audience a chance to see each of their facial expressions to get any clues they can about what is happening to them. However, each of the children's faces are emotionless to suggest that they're unaware and are possessed by someone to doing something that they are unaware of. Furthermore, the shot changes to a close up of one of the girls shoe and her dropping one of the cups onto the floor making it smash and also the dolls head to suggest that they're each china. This could foreshadow to the audience what is about to happen to the children and that they're vulnerable and unaware of what is happening to them like the dolls are fragile and for children linking to vulnerability. A cut is then used again to a three person shot where the girls are shown slowly moving towards the window. As the children are seen moving closer and closer to the window the camera is zoomed outside of the window to show them coming up to the window ledge. The audience instantly feel worried as to what the girls are going to do and the non diegetic music adds to the suspense of what is happening and the question of what is going to happen. The zoom out that is used to show the three girls walking up to the window shows that they're being completely controlled through their body and somehow and they're unaware of what is happening to them. A close up is used to show the girl opening the window and putting her knee on the ledge as if to jump. The audience are shocked by what has happened and feel worried as to if someone is going to help them. However, the eerie music reinforces that it may not end well for the girls.

As the girls walk out of the window the non diegetic music increases in speed and volume to show the audience that this is a very significant part and is shown through the music being at a climax. Then a women's scream is heard when a close up is shown of one of the dolls and in the background "my baby". This is significant as it shows the audience that the children had in fact died and makes the audience want to continue watching to find out how it happened.

After this a long shot of the room is shown almost as if the person who was in the room is looking. A black veil and a women's head can be seen on the right to suggest that it was a girl who did this. This creates various different questions for the audience as they want to know why and how this women did what she did.


The Women in Black was a very good film to analyse as a result of analysing it I have seen that suspense can not only be seen through dialogue but can be shown just as good through images and suspenseful music. This has made me think about the choice of music that we decide to use in our thriller opening as the music is a very significant part in making the opening suspenseful. This will help my group and I look at the different ways in which we can create suspense not just through dialogue.

Schedule of our Filming

Schedule of Filming:

We have decided to film at Amy's house as the layout of the downstairs is as close to accurate with our storyboard as to what the characters are going to be doing in between the front room, kitchen and doorway. Furthermore, near her house she has a field which will be useful when we come to film the children being taken in the middle of a field. 
 We are going to film the sequence on two separate days as we want to take time filming and take two shots of every camera angle that we shoot so when it comes to editing we can choose the best one of which looks best and fits the best to make it look as continuous as it can with the other shots we have filmed.

Saturday 4th February - We plan to film the first half of the scenes which involve the parts in the house as we will then have the base of the storyline in, before we film the end parts in a different location of the field. We will then film the parts when the mum walks into the house, gets some food, sees the note, watches tv and the step dad walks in asking where the children are. Having this filmed we will then be able to start to edit the clips together to start the opening sequence. We will use the road leading up to Amy's house and the living room, kitchen and front porch to film these parts of the scene. We are going to take it in turns filming so that we get an equal amount of filming time and so while some of us may not be in the scene we will be looking at the lighting and camera angles that we could change or improve to make it better.

We are unsure about the second day that we will be filming but we are thinking some time in the half term.

Thursday 2nd March - We will film the second half of the scenes this day as it is a day that we can all do and it gives us enough time before hand to perfect and edit what we have already filmed. We can add music and other effects to make it as good as possible. We will make sure that any scenes that we need to re film we do this before we start to film the new scenes so we can add these if any scenes are needing to be improved for lighting or other purposes. We will follow our storyboard; changing things if we need to, to improve it. After filming the parts that we need to improve we will then go on to film the other scenes. We will start by filming the scene where the step dad tells the mum that they kids aren't where they were supposed to be. We will then go out onto the field and film the scene where the children are in the middle of the field with tape around there mouths. We will make sure that we wear the same clothes as we did on the last filming day so it is continuous. We will bring the props of some tape where we can tape the children's mouth to make it look as realistic as possible.




*  Updated dates - Tuesday 14th March- After editing what we have got we decided that we need to re-film some parts as it doesn't look as effective. We are going to re film the part where the dad walks into the house as after looking at the aggressive approach that we had at the start we realised that we may need to make it less aggressive so we can build up the tension rather than bring the tension straight away. We will then film again the part where the mum walks into the kitchen from the living room as when we looked back at the filming we realised that half of her head was cut out of the shot. We want to then film parts of the field scene where the children have been taken.

Production roles in the opening sequence

Below the Prezi I made to show the different roles that each of us are going to play and what characters we are going to play.






http://prezi.com/uuhdz5l1nv_8/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Storyboard

Storyboard:

We have all contributed ideas to our storyboard as to what camera angles, music and what we are going to film and say. Over the past few lessons we have completed the storyboard as we wanted an accurate plan of what we were going to do so when it comes to filming it is as smooth and easy as possible. We planned the storyboard out step by step, looking at the different camera angles and music that we could incorporate together to create as much suspense as possible.

In the first section of the opening we show the name of the production company at the start. We decided to use "New Line Cinema" as we have researched different thriller openings and most of them have used this production as it specialises in producing thriller film. The second shot is of the mum walking down the road walking into her house. The 3rd and 4th shot shows a match on match shot of the mum walking into the house. We have decided to add the sound of sirens while the women is walking into the house as it foreshadows what is going to happen later on in sequence. 

The 5th shot shows the mum putting her bag down on the floor while walking into the front door. The 6th shot shows her shouting upstairs to the children however, doesn't get an answer. This shot also foreshadows to the people watching that something isn't quite right. She then walks into the kitchen and sees a note on the side of which she picks up and reads. This is a key moment of suspense in the opening sequence as it is a moment where the audience start to become concerned and suspect something is happening that is unknown to the women.

In this next section of the opening sequence the women reads the note from her "children" which is on the kitchen side and sighs, wondering where her ex husband has taken them. She gets her laptop and starts to work in the living room as she has some peace and quite away from the kids. This is a key moment in the scene as it is silent which creates suspense in it's self as the audience wonder again if there is something more to what the mum thinks that she knows.  The use of a sound bridge from both scenes suggests to the audience that it is a normal day however something bad is about to happen.

In this section of the opening sequence we are showing the mum looking for something to eat and sitting down eating it doing her work. We then decided to make the environment as calm as possible to show that is is very normal for the women, which makes the audience believe that nothing is going to happen. Furthermore, it shows that the mum has no idea that something bad is going to happen. However, the audience sense something as the quiet background creates suspense and worry as to what is going to happen.

In this section of the opening sequence questions start to arise for the audience of what is happening that they don't know about. Suspense is going to be created by the silence that we are using in the scene to make the audience question if something  bad is going to happen. We are using slow cuts to show that the character is relaxed and carrying on with her normal activities with nothing suspenseful happening.

In this section of the opening sequence it is a very significant scene as it is a key moment where suspense and worry starts to arise for the characters and the audience as they start to realise something isn't right about what is happening. This makes the audience want to watch on as the tension is starting to rise and the music becomes more tense to create a dark atmosphere of the foreshadowing events.



In this section of the opening sequence is significant again as it is a suspenseful part of the opening sequence. The mum starts to realise that something bad has happened. When the dad comes in the door we are going to use very dramatic music to show the audience that something bad has happened like they had originally suspected.

In this section of the opening sequence this is one of the most tense scenes as this is when the audience and the parents start to realise that the children have gone missing and they have no idea where they have gone. The music that we are going to use is significant in the scene as it creates the dark, mysterious atmosphere for the audience of mystery and the fear of the unknown. The black screen where we have the music at a climax is significant as when we researched different opening sequences we saw that they used fading the screen to black with tense music to let the audience know that something bad is going to happen or has happened that they will find out later on in the film.

This section of the opening sequence is one of the most suspenseful scene that we have as the long shot of the children in the middle of the field shows that the children have been taken by someone but questions are still arising for the audience. By doing this it gives the audience some answers more than the family know but also leaves the audience with questions as to who and when the children were taken. After researching different openings I saw that they have the title of the film after the opening as it creates suspense and makes the audience want to keep watching the rest of the film.