Feedback from MediaMike on Thriller Opening

My group and I had an interesting conversation with the Media teacher, Mike. We described everything about our idea, and he then replied with some feedback. He really liked our idea; however, he found that the idea was basically a 10 minute short film, instead of an opening sequence. He advised us to take the idea and make a short film out of it in our free time, and only use it as inspiration for our final opening sequence idea. My group and I are now very worried about how much of a serious re-think we are going to need in order to come up with a new idea that matches the quality and creativity of our original idea. If it was entirely my choice, I would prefer to go back to my original idea of the man burying a teenage body. However, I am in a group, so I will re-pitch it to them, discuss some of their ideas and hopefully come up with a finalised idea.

Thriller Opening Sequence Test: Editing

Once we finished shooting the various scenes for our test-thriller, I imported all the clips into iMovie to start editing. I started out just by editing the reality scene, set in the school, like a normal shot by shot sequence with good continuity throughout. Then I muted all the audio for each shot as we weren't using a proper shotgun mic and there was background noise from around school. Once I had finished off the reality bedroom sequence, I moved on to adding in the small flashes of the burial sequence, while adding the negative colour effect...

During this process, I matched up the frames so that the body was the same size , and they were at the same point of a step for each clip. This increased the professional look of the editing while making the flickers cleaner so that the audience wouldn't be distracted by the change of scene, but only by the fact that he is suddenly carrying a dead body in the woods. (Note: Each flash was 0.2 seconds, as this was the shortest that iMovie would allow you to trim down to.)
When I got to the final dance sequence, I just did a long "zoom" transition into the woods version instead of doing an increasing amount of flashes. I then just played the clip of the dancing feet for 10 seconds and then added a fade to black. I then added the title, "MUD", in big jagged font.

When it came to editing the music/soundFX, I used my music production software called Logic X Pro. Here a synthesised an echoed, ambient pad, adding multiple different effects to give slight variation in the noise. This continued playing from the beginning. I added the echoed dirty noise sound for each quick flash using another synthesiser, with added reverb/FX/etc. And finally, I imported the song, "September". I Equalised the song at the beginning so that it sounded tinny and small, replicating the music coming from the headphones, and then I gradually took away that EQ to reveal the louder, full quality version, for the audience to hear.
The main negative of this shoot was that we didn't have enough time (or all the required props/cast/etc.) to include every "Switch" shot that the scenes flicker too - for example, the switch between scooping serial with a spoon and digging up earth.

If you struggled to understand everything I just attempted to explain, just see for yourself...

YouTube here...

Thriller Opening Sequence Test: Shooting

Today, we decided to do a test shoot of our opening sequence. We shot with Genny's Nikon D5200. 

We found a location for both sequences that represented what we had in mind for the perfect location. We went into the school basement to shoot the corridor shot; 

the school common room for the bedroom scene; 

and a grassy area for the woods scene.

We began with shooting the corridor section. We found that the un-focused aesthetic was the most effective in this situation and we realised that the actor had to walk a lot slower than we originally thought.

Then we moved into the house common room which replicated the bedroom we will use. Here we had an over the shoulder shot of the boy entering the bedroom;

a wide shot of the boy sitting down at the desk;

various close ups;

[Here, the boy picks up is phone, puts his headphones in, and plays the song "September"]

and a wide for the boy dancing around the room;

[When shooting the dance sequence inside the room, we decided to have Lauren replicate the outline of the roommate's body that the boy would dance around, instead of doing it outside as it was raining at the time and the ground was wet. During this process we discovered that it was going to be almost too difficult to get the actor to dance in a mentally unstable without making the audience laugh, and as a result ruin the tension.]

Once all these shots had been taken to a reasonably high standard, our group split for lunch, and Chris (the actor) and I went off to shoot the outdoor woods scene.

We found the best possible flat grassy patch that wasn't too far away and I briefed Chris on how we had to replicate the following shots, but this time, in the "woods".

Firstly, the shot of him carrying the body towards the camera (replicating the corridor shot)...

[At this point, we realised that we had no one to be a dead body, so we shot without one, just to get an idea.]

And secondly, the dancing sequence...

[I used the wide shot (replicating the bedroom shot) at first, and then I tracked his feet around the imaginary body, while trying to not keep it that steady.]

That's a wrap!

Thriller "Switch" Shots

1) Wide Shot - Boy walks down corridor holding files in arms // Boy walks through woods carrying body in arms.

2) Close Up - Boy scoops cereal from a bowl // Shovel digs in to mud/earth.

3) Close Up - Milk splashing on lens // Mud splattering on lens.

4) Close Up - Shot of roommate's face sleeping in bed // Roommate's face covered in blood underneath layer of earth.

5) Wide Shot - Boy dancing round his room, listening to "September" // Boy dancing round dead bloody body covered in earth, in woods.

6) Side Tracking - Close up on shoes walking/dancing through corridor/room // Close up on shoes walking/dancing on earth/leaves.

Group Thriller Sequence Development 3

We finally came up with a peach of an idea. Instead of having a transition between the reality state and then the vision state, we would flash and stutter between a combination of the two. This means we incorporate parts of the burial scene into the bedroom scene but in different forms. For example, as if the boy is eating a bowl of cereal, we would flash between him putting the spoon into the milk, and digging up the earth with the shovel.
As well as this, we can finally incorporate the song "September" in an effective way. Near the beginning of the scene, the unstable boy plugs in his mp3 player and listens to "September", and the audience can hear as if its someone else's headphones playing (sounds very tinny/thin/distant). And then when we finally cut to just the scene of the burial, and the music fades into a full quality version, as if they were wearing the headphones.

Group Thriller Sequence Development 2

We started by deciding that filming a large group of teenagers, for the party scene, will be very challenging even if we are permitted to do so. Instead, we began thinking of different substitute ideas. We thought that it would be very effective to start in the bedroom, where the song "September" is playing loudly through the hi-fi. There is a clear contrast between the two sides of the room. One is warm and bright and mature, with a cool-kid character (victim) dancing around to the song.

On the other side, it is dark and cold, where the mentally unstable boy is sitting and staring at the blank wall. 
We get close-ups of the victim, even though the audience doesn't know his role in the sequence, but they can recognise him if they were to see him murdered later in the scene.

Group Thriller Sequence Development 1

Genny's Initial Idea
This consisted of an opening featuring an autistic or mentally unstable boy that was dreaming of multiple ideas for murdering a boy he knows. He is sitting at his desk, in his bedroom, staring at a blank wall. We are sent to a flashback-type scene. This flashback will consist of one of the other thriller ideas from our group member that we select.

Flashback Ideas
Jonty: My thriller Idea 3, when a man carries a dead body through the woods and buries it / burns it.
Chris: A man drags a body up to a car and shoves it into the boot.
Lauren: A "Jack The Ripper" type character builds up to murdering a woman.

Opening (Reality Setting)
Set at a teenage boarding house where a disco/party is taking place in a common room. 

The song "September" by Earth, Wind and Fire is playing loud. There is a quick close-up of a boy dancing (who is later featured as the victim). The camera moves up stairs - down a dark corridor ...

- and into the bedroom of the boy, sitting alone at his desk. The bass from the song downstairs can be heard (contrapuntal music). 
He is tapping his pen very fast, quietly whistling the song, "September". 
We are then sent to the scene of the murder, and the music fades to nothing. 



Murder (Jonty's Setting)
http://mediastudiesjontyharrison.blogspot.com/2015/11/thriller-idea-development-1.html

MindMap