'When a stranger calls' Opening Sequence

We firstly see the porduction company 'Screen Gems' which is in association with Sony. Whilst this is introduced on the screen behind a black background, the digetic sound in the background is an eery phone ringing. This makes us straight away link back to title, anf we start to think whos ringing? and whos answering?
The voices then appear, on one end of the phone line sounds a normal vunrable teenage girl, and on the other a creepy sounding man.
The shot is then of a house, where we can see a window with a light on, we expect this to be where the girl has answered the phone, and the tilted low angle shot looking up could be where the man is standing on the other end of the line.
We establish straight away by the voices that these two may infact be the main characters, and the film is based on them.
From this enigma we can tell this is a horror film, without seeing any characters just by the background sounds.

We then move setting to a funfair, and whilst we are using the shot type 'tracking' of two children, the first name of 'Brian Geraghty' is shown in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.
Following with some eery, jump shots showing a man where we cant see his face, to a girl on a merry go round. In the background we then see the house again, and the phone rings once again. This causes a very dramatic atmosphere, and makes the audience want to find out why this man keeps calling, and where he is? This is where the second name 'Katie Cassidy' is shown again in white font in the bottom left hand corner.

Whilst on the phone we hear some non digetic sounds of the funfair, but also some heavy breathing. This creates tension, and would make the viewers be on edge.
The background noise is mainly of the screams from the funfair, but behind it there is a slow eery music playing, when the lightng is very dull, and u cant see any peoples faces.

Whilst at night time down a dark street we are introduced by some more names, and this eery music has gotten louder. This is making the atmosphere more thrilling.
We are then focused on one house, which would make the audience think this is the house where the main action will take place. There is then a lighted pole, which reads 'JESUS' which could be a represntation of death.
From then on the camera seems hand held, as if we are the enemy and we are looking at our victim, we can also tell this as we can hear the heavy breathing which brings suspense. We are then shown many fast zooms and flash backs of the funfair and children, which is quite creepy.

This is when there is a third phone call. But this time we only hear the girls voice, we are then shown the house again, and then quickly the shopt is swept back to the funfair, this is very jumpy, and has the audience on edge.
In bold white letters 'When a stranger Calls' is then placed in the centre of the shot, and the digetic sound sounds like knifes being dragged across something, which could be a connotation linked to the film.

Preliminary Sequence

Before we begin to work on our own opening sequences, we got given the chance to experience the use of the camera and how to do various shot types in different setting. As a group we went to many different areas of the school to see how different light sources affect the outcome of the picture, and we all had a go at using the camera on the tripod. This was also a great chance to get practice on different shot types such as a pan and a crash zoom. Which are popular shots we may use in our final piece of work. We then got a greater understanding of using the new editing softwares that were still very new to us. We learnt how to extract different parts of our filming and join them to other parts using techniques such as fade ins. This was a great success to practice for our real sequence.

Recent Progress

We can finally see an effective opening coming along, and it actually looks very good. The acting and camera shots are spot on and the editing is looking really effective. we still need to convert our voiceovers and backing sounds to complete our opening, but as a group we are very happy with our progress so far, and look forward to seeing the finished sequence.

We then decided to think of a production name and logo for our opening. I decided to do a mindmap of all my own ideas and then would show my group to see what they thought and mix together our ideas.
Together we all decided our top 5 production names were:

• lightbulb productions
• newhouse productions
• wonkey donkey productions
• transform productions
• lighthouse productions

Together we decided that 'Lightbulb Productions' sounded the most professional, and the logo was much easier to make it stand out. Efosa added together our logo and production name onto a black screen and edited it in to the beginning of our opening. It actually stood out for me, looked very effective and professional, and worked well with the theme and genre our film uses.

Pillow Talk Vs Fringe Essay

“How are the sequences from ‘pillow talk’ and ‘fringe’ different? Discuss the differences in pace and style of editing as well as the effect the editing has on meaning/the audiences reception of the extracts.”

Editing plays a very important roll in the TV and film industry. Without it, film would consist of boring and unenthusiastic shots.

Editing involves a variety of shot types and fast-paced scene changes. this technique cleverly joins together different sequences involved.

In the two sequences I compared, I noticed the editing in both, tries to alter the frames and shot types, to give us a different perception on certain characters. When the scene seems more up-beat the pace of the new frame comes sharper and more frequently, like in Fringe. Whereas in Pillow Talk, the frames come less often, and dissolve out less rapidly.

Pillow talk, directed by Michael Gordon in 1959, is a relaxed, intimate conversation that often occurs between a man (Brad Allen played by Rock Hudson) and a woman (Jan Morrow played by Dorris Day) through telephone line.

As it is mainly focused on the phone line between two characters, the director cleverly uses various camera shots and editing styles.

The main style of editing used is a split screen, where the camera dissolves from an original shot, into one containing the position of two characters in different setting. In this where someone answers the phone, and the other is calling.

The first cut is a simple dissolve from the two men talking, to mid shot of ‘Jan’ in the mirror. From then after, the shots seem to all be straight cuts. Beginning with the split screen effect.

During the split-screen, a zoom occurs to show the facial expressions of both characters. Where the cuts are not very frequent, we see the sequence to be very laid back, and not so serious.

When we see the man and woman out together, it is a very relaxed conversation with two typically good looking people on a date.  The shots differ according to the character that is speaking.

We do in fact see both characters in the frame, but the camera angle seems to be focused on that one character whom is talking. There doesn’t seem to be much editing used in this sequence, due to the fact that the conversation seems to be slow. This in the outcome would attract more of a female audience, as it is focused on love and being in the position of finding love.

In ’Fringe’, created by J.J Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, we are following F.B.I investigations of a series of unexplained often ghastly occurrences, which are related to mysteries surrounding a parallel universe.

 Premiered in 2008, we already can see that the editing and style of this sequence will be more current, up to date, and more intriguing than such of in ‘Pillow Talk’.

The extract itself seems more mysterious, as there are so many more cuts according in the amount of time. The camera angle is shown many times at a worms eye view, this seems to give the person in the shot more power.

Having quicker straight cuts to a new shot, gives the audience a build up of tension, and I also found that to introduce other characters a ‘pan’ shot is used.

It begins showing a conversation between a man and another man whom is on video.

When we are introduced into the next set, which is outside showing what looks like an important building, we are drawn to the flying machinery in the sky. The editing used next shows the machine disappearing, then onto a pan shot.

After this we are introduced to another set, what looks like a serious interview maybe held inside this building. The pace and style of the shots are still more fast-paced then Pillow Talk, but come less rapidly at this point.

Overall, as the audience watching both of these extracts thouroughly, i most certainly enjoyed Pillow talk over Fringe. This is because i love a rom-com, and have never been very interested in the whole sci-fi thriller typed films. Pillow Talk was girlie and i can relate the situation between the two characters, and i liked how comfortable it was to watch. Whereas Fringe was very boring and gave me no interest, it also seemed a very fast-paced programme which you would have to watch thouroughly to understand. So after all my reviewing id much prefer to watch Pillow Talk again.

Further Editing and Media Film Showcase

Before showing an audience our progress for our opening sequence, as a group we tried to neaten some of the shots up and add in some last minute effects to make the sequence that much better. Still by using final cut, we faded in some of the cuts and also added in the credits showing who starred and directed etc our film.
We then carried on working on GarageBand to mix together some sounds and music that fit our film genre. We decided that a music box track would make the film sound eery. We aren't fully satisfied with our sounds yet, so are still working on them before we add them into our opening.

We then decided as a class to show an audience our work so far to get some feedback on our opening sequence so we can go back and improve to make our work even better.