INFLUENCES FOR MY THRILLER

One of our biggest influences when we were thinking of ideas for out thriller introduction was 21 Jump street. What we really liked about the introduction to it was that there was a lot of very fast paced, fast moving clips put together and also longer slower ones for when the titles come up.

What we also really liked about this movie was that it wasn't a scary or horror thriller so the suspense was build from other means rather than something scary.  

We also took alot of influence from certain music videos, including The A Team -Ed Sheeran and We Found love - Rihanna. What we really liked about these videos is the story line of them and how they show the themes of the music video directly and indirectly. 
They both have themes of the high life and a party life style but also the darker sides of it such as drug abuse and the implications of it. 

These themes that are presented in the music videos were also shown in the 21 Jump Street introduction. 

Another thing we liked from these music videos is not only the story lines but also how some things in it have been shot, for example we really liked from the 'We Found Love' video the idea of being in the bath fully dressed giving the impression of drug abuse but without actually showing this happening but rather the after effects.We particularly liked some of the shots they had, for example in the A team video we really liked the idea of the girl putting on her make up in the mirror and for ours we are trying to recreate a similar idea with the girl applying the make up but we want to show it from a different angle. In the 'We found love' video they also show the idea of having a lot of fast paced clips and then also a lot of slow clips.

Another one of our influences is the movie Taken. When we started thinking of ideas for out thriller we thought what the whole movie would be about and worked backwards from that. The movie taken is about a girl who gets kidnapped and sold for trafficking, we would have liked our movie, if we were to make the whole movie to follow that theme. 

MY FAVOURITE THRILLER FILMS

Limitless is one of my favourite thriller films because i feel that it pushes the boundaries and is very different to other thrillers. I find the ideas that the movie presents very interesting and although it is based on fantasy and sci-fi ideas it brings it into the 'real world' and makes it seem very real and believable. 

Limitless is a 2011 thriller film directed by Neil Burger and starring Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, and Robert De Niro. It is based on the 2001 novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn with the screenplay by Leslie Dixon. The film was released on March 18, 2011.

Limitless is about a writer who is offered an off market drug by his exgirlfriends brother that would act as a stimulant and allow him to acces every part of his brain rather than just 20%. The movie follows the consiquences and implications of the drug and involved other people who are also trying to get hold of the drug.

Another one of my favourite thriller films is James Bond Cassino Royale (2006).

OPENING SEQUENCE

Another thriller introduction i looked at was the opening title sequence to Coraline

The clip starts off with the

The first title that comes up is the production company, it comes up in the middle of the screen.

Follow are two other production companies are associated with the movie.

Next is the title of the Movie.

After is the actors name listed.

The next title that comes up is the lead animators, this fades on and off with a doll being held in the background.

The title after fades in and out in the same way, the next title is art directors.

Concept idea follows with the same transitions.

After is art directors with the same theme.

Following is storyboard supervisor. 

After is the editors.

Then visual effects.

 Following that is music by.

Then supervising animator.

Then director of photography.

Then produced by.

Then produced by. 

Then based on the novel by, this title only appears if the story is based on an already existing book or screen play.

The final one is written for the screen and directed by, this title is used when it was originally a book and it has been rewritten as a screen play with the purpose of being made into a movie.

In order of appearance:

00:03 Production company

00:07 Production company associated with the movie

00:12 Production company associated with the movie

00:18 Movie title

00:22 First actors name

00:25 Second actors name

00:30 Third actors name

00:33 Fourth actors name

00:38 More actors names

00:42 Final actors name

00:49 Lead animators

01:00 Concept artist

01:04 Art directors

01:09 Story board director

01:21 Editors

01:25 Visial effects supivisor

01:33 Music by

01:46 Supervising Animator

01:55 Director of Photography

02:01 Produced by

02:10 Produced by

02:14 Based on the novel by

02:19 Written for the Screen by

OPENING SEQUENCES

Another Opening that i have looked at is Fallen Angel (1945) http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/fallen-angel/

The opening sequence starts off with the name of the production company 

After this on a road sign the names of the main actors come up and scroll across the screen. 

The name of the movies follows in the same format as the previous. 

Following this more names, the names are not titled but i would assume that they are also actors names. 

After this the screen play title comes up, this is different to the other clip i watched because in the previous one, the director was the first one to appear and the screen writer was after. 

On the next road sign there is director of photography, music and the musical director. 

The following road sign showed the art director, set director, associate, film editor, customers, make up artist, special photographic effects and sound. 

OPENING SEQUENCES

I came across a really good website called The Art of the Title (http://www.artofthetitle.com/) when looking for opening sequences of thriller films.

One of the opening sequences i looked at was Crave (2010) i really liked the opening sequence, i found it very interesting and......... 

The first title that appears is saying the director, it has a black backdrop and the writing is white.

 







While the Director title is still up the back drop changes but the title stays the same. The title leaves the screen with the back drop, the pole the title is seen to be wresting on spins out taking the title with it.

The next title that comes up is who makes the screen play, it comes on from by a ripple effect. In the sequence there is lots of mechanical ideas that move that in the title sequence that could be used to give pain or torture, the titles are seen to move on as if the weapon would be used. This is shown first in this sequence here. 

The next title is the who the story is by. It is pulled onto the screen by the machinery, i have noticed that the transitions of the titles is dependant on what is happening in the background, for example if there is a pulling motion the the title will be pulled on. This title has almost been spun on as it has been pulled across the screen by the mechanism. 

The following title is the producers. In this sequence the machine has been used to represent pulling a person apart and the wires to represent blood. As the 'person' is being pulled apart the title appears from where the suspected tear would be. 

The next title is the co producers ripples from top to bottom, the machinery in the background is of sharp point cogs that is going with a similar motion of the title. 

The title leaves the screen with a shutter sequence as the cogs start to spin, this gives the idea that it has been cut up in a similar way to what the sharp pointed cogs are intended to do. 

The sequence leads you onto a piece of machinery that looks to be that of a huge magnet that as it moves up it reveals the title of the director of photography. There is also a disjointed 'man' figure similar to that which was seen earlier in the sequence also with the same wires coming out of it that represent blood. 

The setting then changes from the previous, the screen zooms out (along with the precious title) showing the whole sequence of the past title transitions as one. 

The scene then moves on to a different setting, still following the same idea with the machinery, however in the sequence you see the crafted people moving, one of the people holds a gun up to the other and shoots him, you follow the travel of the bullet as it travels towards the man and cuts his head off revealing more of the wired blood. The title appears in the way that you would expect the blood to have traveled through the air behind the now dead man. The title that is shown is the Production designer.

The next sequence is of one of the men sawing another in half from top to bottom, the same idea as the previous is presented with the title coming on as a blood splatter. The title that is shown is who it is edited by. 

The next title is that of the Music director, this is presented along side a mechanism that i think has been used to represent an instrument such as a keyboard.

After this you see more machinery and then another one of the wooden men sawing another one in half, the man is sawing from left to right and the title appears to fade in from left to right. The title is for the Costume designer.

The scene then zooms out exposing three more of the wooden men sitting behind, with masked faces that signify comedy and tragedy, the faces then change so that they all swap so if they originally showed comedy they now show tragedy and visa-versa. As the titles are spun on. The titles show the casting.

You can see from not only the previous sequences but also the ones to follow. that the men are being controlled by the machinery and they without them they would be lifeless and unable to move. The machinery is the ones that are controlling the killing rather than the men themselves. This is most evident in the next sequence when it is shown that the machinery is pulling one of the men back that is holding a hammer, the man is then released slowly to hit another man on the head with the hammer and shattering the mans head. The title once again appears as to how the blood would have splattered out. The title however just reads a name rather than saying who he is. 

The next is of two of the men pulling a heart apart revealing more of the red wires and also the title in the center. Once again there is nothing to indicate who this person is or what they did, just a name. 

Following from this there is a sequence of one of the men shooting himself in the head with a gun, the title appears along the travel stream of the blood. Again with just a name. 

The next sequence is different to all the others, no one has been killed however there is a man and a child figure in it, the man is handing the child a lollypop and as he does so the child lets go of her red balloon. In all the previous the blood has been covered in red, in this one the balloon is red. 

The next list of names that come up are also not titled and follow the same ideas of how the men are being treated as puppets.

After the names have finished the title of the movie is shown at the end of the clip, this is strange because usually the title of the movie is never showing at the end of the opening sequence. Another that is strange about this opening sequence is the fact that the casting in order of appearance is in the opening sequence. It is usually at the end of the movie. The fact that is at the beginning supports the theme of the concept of the men being run by the system and that they are going against the system or usual running order. 

I think that this is a good opening sequence because, although it isn't the actual story line with the actors, it gives a good indication of what the movie is going to be about without giving anything away about the actual storyline. I also think that the transitions of the titles are very clever in they way which they are done and how they are shown and that they link to what is going on in the background.