Opening Sequences.

As we had to create an opening sequence, we had to consider the importance of the openings of films.

• Opening sequences have to attract the attention of the viewer in order to persuade them to watch the whole film- therefore they must be exciting and interesting to the viewer. We feel that with our films supernatural and action elements we have achieved this.
• They must set the scene and tone for a film, as well as fitting the conventions of the genre- we think that we have established our film as a thriller relatively successfully.
• Opening sequences often introduce the main characters and give an idea of the plot and content of the film. Our sequence ends with the death of the character focused on- we decided to do this to create confusion and demonstrate that our plot is non-linear- the viewer will find out the background to this if they watch the film.

Criticisms

Throughout our filming process we have encountered many problems, and so far have managed to resolve them all. Our plot has evolved dramatically since we came up with our original concept- it has undergone many complete changes before reaching our final idea. This has been due to differences of opinion within the group, practicality and problems with effectiveness.
We have also had conflict between the group, caused by poor communication and problems with members, which has hindered our progress.

Casting

We thought carefully about who we could cast in the roles of our characters. We needed someone to play the main character, who is essentially a normal man, and someone to play the corpse (in the original idea). Firstly, we planned to ask two drama students to take these roles, as we felt they would be an ideal choice, but due to conflicts of schedule they were unable to film. After much deliberation we decided that the parts should be played by members of the group - this was more practical for our plans, as we had several filming sessions each lasting several hours and kept changing our plot. Tom played the main role - as a drama student we felt this would be a good idea, and he fitted the character. Becky played the dead girl in the original film, and then the girl in the visions in the final film.

Progress and overview

We have now completeted our filming - we are currently perfecting the editing and hope to be finished soon. We have stayed with the more supernatural storyline we chose to follow and believe that this will be effective once it is finished.

We filmed the majority of our footage on various dates between the end of December and mid-January. We had several filming sessions each lasting several hours. This was to ensure that we were thorough with our filming and got as many shots as possible to the best of our ability.

On the 28th and 30th December, we filmed all of our outdoor scenes, including the crash- we filmed the car crash on the first day, as that was the only day the car was available, and we felt this woud be the sequence which would require the most time for editing. On the second day, we filmed the indoor scenes for the original idea.
After these filming sessions, we continued the indoor filming. On the 2nd of January we filmed any scenes we needed set in the kitchen and living room. On the 12, we filmed the scenes set around the bedroom, and the sequence in which the character finds the girl dead in his room.

It was around this point that we changed our idea- we felt the shots we had were not of a very high standard and did not work as we had envisioned. We decided to take a change of direction and planned out a rough new idea. On the 11th of February we spent several hours filming our new idea. The first sequence is all set within a living room, so we managed to get all this footage in a short time, which was more practical. Finally, on the 16th of February we filmed all the shots needed for our vision sequence, which could all be done within college. Since then we have been in the process of editing.