This will be the main character throughout our opening. The opening will be surrounding her and the decline of her mental health. This character will enter the story a happy, healthy teenager with a strong friendship with character two, however over time she will become a vacant shadow of the person she used to be.
Lauren Barlow - We have chosen Lauren Barlow to star in our opening. Lauren has experience in acting as she currently studies Musical Theatre at Stratford College. She has a lot of experience in performing arts as she has taken on leading roles in school productions and has performed in front of large audiences such as Wembley Arena. With a lot of acting experience we felt she would be able to understand the complexity of the character and would be able to portray it well. She is also fits our age range perfectly.
Character Two:
This character will be character ones best friend. This character will deliver the main psychological element to our opening as she will be what provokes the mental decline of character one. Although it isn't directly shown exactly why their relationship declines, this keeps the narrative open for the audience to question what happened to the second character, some evening questioning the existence of her. This character could be a genuine friend, or a figment of the first characters imagination. This will also be implied by the constant appearance of the second character whilst the first complete breaks apart.
Lauren Bricknell - We have chosen Lauren Bricknell to play our second character as she has also had a lot of acting experience as she has taken leading roles in local performances. She also studies musical theatre at Stratford college and has a great understanding of representing different characters. We felt she would understand the character well and she also fits the characters age range as she is a teenager.
Our opening will be based on the friendship between two best friends as their relationship slowly falls apart resulting in the decline of character 1's mental health. We will present this story through flashbacks of memories between the two. These will be linked back to one continuous shot of the two sat on a bench. The memories will begin happy showing the two characters full of life and energy. Gradually these memories will turn sour and become sadder, eventually leaving character one in a vacant, emotional unstable state. The bench scene will start behind the bench with the two actors backs facing the camera. The camera will then turn in an anti-clockwise circular motion towards the bench. As the camera gets closer to the bench, it will show character two missing and character one will be sat alone staring into oblivion. There will be a close up to reveal her face looking vacant and hollow. This will then cut to black, followed by the title sequence. The themes present in our opening will be: friendship, mental health, trauma and death.
Our opening will be from the perspective of character one. Therefore we will focus on the emotions she is feeling during them. For example in the happy flashbacks we will focus on her smile and her happiness. Whereas in the sadder flashbacks we will focus on the loss she is feeling and the trauma she is experiencing. Character two will be character one, our protagonists, best friend. She will be a happy, healthy teenager. In the sadder flashbacks this character will jump in and out, therefore making the audience question her existence. We decided to make both character female as they are seem as innocent, this would have a greater impact when character one becomes emotionally corrupt.
For the scenes filmed on the bench, we will be filming on a large garden in front of an old looking house. This will represent her looking back at past memories, as the house will hold a lot of her history. For flashbacks set outside we will be filming if rural, remote areas e.g a village on quiet streets. This will make it more personal as the scene won't be full of distractions from other people on busy streets. This could also enforce the idea that these events are taking place inside her head as the setting they are in is deserted. We will be suing natural lighting during these scenes to make them seem realistic.
Other flashbacks will be filmed inside. Happier scenes will be filmed inside a cosy living room, this will give a sense of fondness and happiness. We will use props such as pillows and blankets to also make the scene appear cosy. This will reinstate that the two friends were both comfortable and happy during these times.
Some darker flashbacks will be filmed inside. This is so that we have better control over the lighting of the scene. For these scenes, the lighting will be bleak, dull and gloomy to reflect the feel of the the characters in the scene. We will also film a flashback of character 1 looking into the bathroom mirror, the lighting in the bathroom will be uncomfortable, stark and similar to that of a hospital. This will give the impression the character is disorientated and sick.
We will be using a wide range of shots during our opening. For the bench scene we will use a medium tracking shot moving anti-clockwise around them. During flashbacks we will use lots of close ups to clearly display the emotions of the character during the time. We will also use a close up of character 1's face as the last shot in the sequence as she looks directly into the camera, thus breaking the fourth wall. We will use over-the-shoulder shots while they are arguing.
During the editing stage, we will use filters and adapt the tone of shots to also help set the mood for some scenes. For example we will darken, put full, grey, blue tones over darker depressing sadder scenes. Where as happier scenes, we will brighten and whiten colours to make them seem dreamlike. We will also add in flashes to white and black transitions between clips to represent gaps in time and memory (between the present and past).
1. Block - Deciding where the actors will be standing and where the camera will be positioned.
2. Light - This is time for the DOP to light the set and position the camera. 3. Rehearse - Time for camera rehearsal of the first set up with the actors and the crew 4. Adjustments - Time for making lighting adjustments and other adjustments needed. 5. Shoot - Shooting the first scene (repeat the process) Blocking a scene is simply working out the details of the movements actors make in relation to the camera. You must make sure the actors, crew and camera all move smoothly and harmoniously together. This is often done to create a path for a character and make sure everything fits together. It saves time and ensure everything will play out the way the director wants it to.
One thing I really liked about the film the Perks of Being A Wallflower was the title font they used at the beginning of the film. The white typewriter font (courier) on the black background looks simple and classic and creates a sense of nostalgia which I think would reflect well in my own film.
Another section of this film that inspired me for my opening was the
scene with Charlie's mental breakdown. This subtly plays memories from Charlie's past which have resulted in the deterioration of his mental health. An example of one of these was the car crash which killed his aunt. This short flashback is what inspired the shot flashes of memories throughout the opening. It links to past to the present for the viewer and makes it clear that the mental breakdown is a result of all his memories flooding back at once. These flashes back and fourth between the present and past display Charlie's fragile state of
mind. There are also subtle actions throughout the shot of Charlie walking down the street, for example him pulling at his tie, therefore suggesting he is struggling to breath. These hint at whats happening without outright telling the audience.
Another element of this clip which I thought was good to add into my own opening was the minimal dialogue followed up by the phone call to his sister. This tells the audience that the flashbacks are inside Charlie's head. The phone call with Charlie not being on screen suggests to the audience that Charlie is very far away from reality. Followed by the shot of his empty room makes the audience think something has happened to him. The editing of this is what really inspired me, the way the shots are fitted together to create an emotional impact is very successful. There isn't any extreme flashes or transitions to suggest its a memory it just displays the clip which makes it more powerful as these memories are very prominent in the characters mind as this is what sends him over the edge.
Teen Wolf - TV Show
In this television show one of the character called Stiles, becomes possessed and faces a mental battle between the good side which is Stiles's character vs the darker spirit that has possessed him. He becomes very aggressive and troubled as he slips further away. This gave me inspiration as Stiles went from a normal, happy relatable teenager into a trouble, unrecognisable and frightening character, this is similar to the main character in our opening. We want to create a similar tone in our opening like the tone on Teen wolf of lost happiness, emptiness and loss of hope.
The makeup of this character also inspired me as it really emphasises a lack of sleep of the character with the red around the eyes. It signifies restless nights and a unsettled mind which is what we want our main character to come across as. It also creates a large impact on the audience as its disturbing. The cold toned filter and low key lighting also create an eery tone and emphasise the darkness of the character. This is something we will use for our own opening.
Up (2009)
The film Up opens with a 5 minute montage of Carl and Ellie's love story. The montage starts with happy memories from the beginning of their relationship and some of their first happy memories together. However throughout the montage these scenes get sadder first with the news of the couple not being able to have children and secondly Ellie's death which ultimately leaves Carl alone.
The music is one element of this that really inspired me. In the beginning during the first few happy memories the music is happy and cheerful. However once the memories become sadder, the music changes tone and becomes sadder with it. The music is noticeably the same tune but slower and sadder. This really pulls the whole montage together making it extremely emotional to the audience. I think the music is what makes this montage successful and we thought we could use a similar process for our montage opening.
Another element which I liked was the lack of dialogue. This makes it more believable as a memory. This also leaves room for the music to capture the emotions and the tone. Less dialogue works well with montage and this is something we will consider when creating our opening.
500 Days of Summer (2009):
I got inspiration from these two clips as they show both the same sequence of events, one clip on a good day and one clip on a bad day. They show the same scenes with the same people in the same location but the events on the different days reflect the different mood he is in. This is something we will include in our own opening as it reflects the change within the character. This film 500 Days of Summer also inspired me through its non-linear narrative as you see flashbacks out of order. This makes the film really interesting as when Tom (the main character) tells people (usually his sister) about his memories with Summer they are exaggerated and perfect, this leads the audience to think his relationship with Summer was perfect. However later in the film we see the same flashbacks without the distortion of seeing it through Toms eyes. This shows that the memories weren't that perfect. This tells the audience how delusional Tom was and that he was more in love with the idea of being with Summer than Summer herself.
This use of a non-linear narrative would work well as we are trying to tell a story in a short space of time. We also want to be able to create a clear change of tone even in the same locations. This will show the clear emotional shift in the character.
In order to build a captive story for the audience, we will need to put as much information into two minutes as possible to hook the viewer, therefore we decided to use a montage technique for our opening. We will use a non-linear narrative as it will jump backwards and forwards in time through the use of flashbacks and flash forwards. We will use these flashbacks to confuse the audience and add mystery to the opening. This will conform to Barthes enigma code.
We decided the narrative will follow two characters who are close friends. Our main character (character 1) will be the main focus of the plot. Our opening will show a montage of character one transforming from a happy, sociable relatable teenager girl to a damaged, vacant empty shell of who she used to be. The second character, her close friend, will play a large part in her decline as it will show scenes of fights between the two as she gradually becomes more distant. The montage will follow both the girls through happy uplifting memories to eventually dark and tormenting fights and dark lonely memories following the disappearance of the second character. The loss of the best friend will make the audience question whether she was real of just a hallucination, this conforms to the genre stereotype.
This mood board shows a visual representation of my film opening:
Our opening will have an open narrative as the audience will not be completely confident at the end of the opening what was real and what wasn't. The audience will question the existence of the friend, whether she was there or was a fabrication of the first characters imagination. This is appropriate for our opening as it will keep the audience watching, there would be no reason to watch if they had all the answers.
Psychological thrillers are recognised within the thriller genre as they focus on the characters mental and emotional status resulting in their loosening grasp on the reality they are surrounded by. A common storyline used in this sub-genre is the main character battling their own mind to stay sane. Therefore to create a successful psychological thriller opening we will need to display the decline of the mental health of our main character throughout the opening. To do this we will include a protagonist and an antagonist. The antagonist will play a large part in the mental stability of the protagonist. We will also need to confuse the audience and make them question whats real and what the protagonist is imagining. We will do this through different techniques such as: cantered angles, flashbacks and jump cuts. We will follow a first person narrative, this will allow the audience to become familiar with the character and understand their mind better, therefore in some parts the audience will experience the decline for themselves. This is a key element in the psychological thriller genre. We will also offer the audience a brief back story to the main character, this will show the audience what life for them was like before the trauma, this would play a large part in the recovery towards the end of the film.
Typical elements included in psychological thrillers are:
Mental Illness
Reality
Loss of identity
Death
Perception
We initially planned to base our film opening around two best friends who argue which ultimately leads to the diminish of one of the friends mental stability. However as we aim to make our audience question reality from the imagined, we then changed this and make the antagonist more ethereal and out of reach. This would make the audience question whether the friend was imagined, therefore reflecting on the mental health of the protagonist. This will also add enigma to the opening as the audience won't be completely sure of whats real and what isn't.
Like a typical psychological thriller we won't be revealing everything during the opening of the film. This will keep the audience hooked and will make them continue to watch the rest of the film. As the opening will show a brief montage, it will quickly show the vast difference between the protagonist at the beginning and the end of the film. It will shock the audience making them want to fill in the blanks, therefore they will continue to watch the rest of the film which would answer their questions. The lack of answers will build suspense for the audience.
