Our Pitch

In order for us to get feedback for our film opening me, Eleanor and Jasmine presented our pitch of all of our ideas to the class. By doing this it gave us an idea of how many people would go and watch it, who our film is mainly aimed at and whether or not our idea needs any improvements to make it better. When asking the class who would go to see it everyone put their hands up and gave us the following feedback:

• "Very engaging"
• "Plenty of research to back it up"
• "Set in local area"
• "Good enigmas"
• "Good that it's based on a true story"

By doing the pitch I learnt about how important it is to make sure you are organised and know exactly what is going to happen in order to make sure you are making your ideas sound as best they can to really get your audience hooked on your ideas. Our pitch included what our idea is, where it will take place, the characters we will be using, the conventions of our genre, enigmas and the different shots we would like to use.  

Moodboard for Hair & Make-up

Because we are doing a modern twist on the story I have decided to use modern hairstyles on the two 15 year old girls.They will be quite done up as according to the girls at the time they were in the lanes looking for potential boyfriends, meaning they will be looking their best. One of them will have straight hair and a side braid while the other one has beach waves. However for both the girls and Genette I have decided with the make-up to keep it quite natural looking to reflect their age.

Title Ideas

When deciding on a title for our film opening we wanted to keep it short so that it didn't give too much away, adding to the mystery as no one knows who Genette is. Some of our other ideas included:

• Missing 
• Vanished
• Withen Lane
• Without a Trace

After asking some of our friends which one they preferred and worked best we chose to stick with Genette as it was simple and memorable, but those who don't know anything about her would also be curious to find out more, especially as it's based on true events.

Timeline of Events

To help us understand exactly what happened so that the events were clear and in the right order I made a timeline.

Research on Genette Tate

Because we have decided to do our opening based on a true event it meant we had to do lots of research so we knew exactly what happened and understood it so our opening could be as realistic and exact as possible. This meant finding out the exact location and order of events. Here are a couple of pictures of the research I did and what I found out:

By doing this research it means we know exactly where Genette was and what she was doing on the build up to her disappearance. We found out that the areas we will have to film and where our opening will be set will be Sidmouth Road, Aylesbeare and Within Lane. 

Opening Sequence Task

For our film opening task we have chosen a crime/drama genre, as we decided that our storyline was going to be about the disappearance of Genette Tate. Genette went missing when she was only 13 years old and has been missing since for 38 years, making her one of the longest missing people in the UK. Even though the disappearance took place in 1978 we have chosen to do a modern twist on the story.

The first thing we did was research and watch other opening sequences with the same chosen genre and kind of storyline to ours. We watched The Blair Witch Project, Stranger Things as well as The Missing which is another student film with the same kind of idea. While watching these sequences it helped us come up with the different conventions of a crime/drama such as:

• Mystery 
• Realistic characters, storyline and settings
• Tension
• Journey of character development 

As well as conventions it is important to have narrative enigmas within the first couple of minutes of a film as this is what keeps the audience guessing and making them hooked to watch on because they want the answers to their questions answered. Some of the enigmas we came up with that link to our sequence are:

• What happened to her?
• Where did she go?
• How long has she been missing?
• Was it planned?

Through out our opening we are going to use both non-digetic and digetic sound. The digetic sound will be the girls talking and cars going past in the background and our non-digetic sound will be the echo of the girls laughing and emphasised door clicking. Some of the shots that we will also be using our:

• Match on action
• Tracking shot
• Close up shot
• Over the shoulder shot
• Low angle shot

Animatic

This is our animatic for our film opening.

It is important that we make sure we have an animatic because it allows us to check if each shot will work or if you need to change the order of a particular shot to make sure it runs smoother. By doing this it means we can change any last minute thins that don't work properly so we don't end up waiting until filming and realising that something doesn't work.

Storyboard

This is a storyboard for our opening task, by doing a storyboard it gives us a rough idea of the order we will be doing each shot. It is a clear way of planning out our task and enables us to make changes before filming as well as showing which characters will be used where and when. 

Codes and Conventions of a film opening

The purpose of a tile sequence or film opening is to help draw in the viewers attention to make them want to carry on watching. They are used to help establish the genre and characters in only the first few minutes. There are lots of different conventions that are included in an opening sequence such as:

Key credits- production company, main actors & director
Any film openings always start off with the production companies idents which automatically set the standard and exceptions of the film to the audience, as a larger, well known company are more likely to produce a big budget film.This is then followed by a title sequence which include the cast and production team who helped in the making of the film. 

Establishing characters 
It is important to have the key characters shown in the film opening as it shows their importance and role throughout the film. By showing the characters can also help the audience to guess the genre as certain characters are associated with certain genres.  

Enigmas 
Enigmas are usually used to create mystery and tension to keep the audience guessing. It keeps the audience intrigued and makes them want to continue watching as they want their questions answered. Enigmas are one of the most important factors in a film opening as it ensures the audience are hooked. 

Sound 

Sound also plays an important role in an opening sequence as it can help set the atmosphere and the scene. It can also tell the audience what the genre they can expect to see. They can usually include non-diegetic or diegetic sound, however non-diegetic is more common.

Establishing genre 
Throughout a film opening the audience should be able to work out what the genre is, usually done through the conventions suited to that film type, For example in a horror you would usually expect to see low key lighting, eerie music and dark colours like grey and black. 

Idents

Idents are what television programs or companies use to identify themselves and are usually either a short video or a still image representing the logo. They are an identity of the channel for the viewers so they are aware of what channel they are on and can be used to show what program is coming up next. They have many purposes such as branding, marketing, to help raise figures and can be used as a visual stimulation to break up the schedule.

It is important to for the ident to be unique as this is what carries the companies purpose and what they are using to represent themselves. Because of this it is crucial for companies to regularly alter their idents, coming up with new designs and ideas to make sure they are up to date. Key points to make an ident more interesting and memorable are entertainment, tempo, audience interaction, setting and density. 

This example shows just how much the BBC have altered their logo over the years, from their first ever ident back in 1953 to present day. It shows that as technology has improved idents have gone from still black and white images to full colour short videos that we see today. By keeping their idents up to date it ensures that they stand out from the rest of the competition as idents are becoming more and more popular. Because almost every production company nowadays have their own idents as away of representing themselves, when it comes to us creating our own idents for our main task we need to ensure that it is unique and original. 

Other Ident Examples:-