On location for my opening sequence

My filming location will be in Hopwas quarry. I visited my desired filming location recently which helped me visualize my ideas plus develop and form new concepts. On my visit I captured photographs of various sites I wish to film. As shown below I then used software on my phone to then edit these pictures. Through doing this I feel it has helped me visualize what my final piece will look like; as I wish to add similar effects on my film shots. As shown by the before and after picture it creates a more atmosphere image as it adds definition which exaggerates the image creating more drama and displaying my thriller/horror genre. 

Casting

Casting

Name: Oscar Black 

Age: 21

Gender: Male

Occupation: Student

Characteristics: Withdrawn, lonely, clever, attentive, caring

Name: Zombie

Age: 45

Gender: Male

Occupation: n/a

Characteristics: Malicious deadly, violent heartless, twisted, sinful

Storyboard

Thriller conventions

Though my questionnaire was based on horror films I have decided to form my idea around a thriller. After going through my idea I felt that though it had horror traits the main feature of my opening is that of mystery and tension.  After deciding I was going to do a thriller I completed research into the typical conventions of a thriller which gives its distinct genre. 
Commonly I came across a correlation in thriller films containing a protagonist and a villain with plenty of suspense. Famous thrillers like Psycho and Inception all follow similar traits though are based around opposing story lines. Commonly the film has a growth over the time with suspense and suspicion. Little is usually disclosed until late on and therefore it uses much of the audiences own imagination. Usually I also found it is mainly from the one person’s point of view, showing the journey they are on and the obstacles they face. However other points of view are sometimes included and through these shots the audience sometimes feel sympathy. Action and movement is often a common trait in such films creating scenarios which leave people guessing (and usually wrongly) this, I believe, is the most loved aspect of thrillers which distinguishes it from other genres. Suspense builds with the growth of the film as more, is commonly, slowly revealed. The films usually act as a puzzle and as the film progresses more puzzle pieces are added creating a bigger picture. As thrillers progresses more is revealed yet the underlining story still lays partially dormant. Normally the motive of the acts committed throughout being revealed at the end.
The main protagonist in thrillers is commonly a male who is accustom to danger by their job or lifestyle (like for example James Bond) or typical citizens whom have been dragged unintentionally into situations. They usually aim to represent a particular group of people or a belief for example in 'Cabin in the woods' the group of teens.Their role is usually to overcome the evil and come to a resolution. The villain is also commonly a male generally tall and largely built with a very shadowed identity making them very mysterious.  Villains are usually disturbed by something that has occurred within their life or feel they have control over something. 
other characters may exist within the storyline however through situations like betrayal, disruption and fatality the focus is pulled back to the main characters. Females are apparent in thriller film but stereotypically take on characterises like innocence and helplessness- commonly falling into the role of the victim. The type of thriller typically sets there appearance. In so they either wear little, like in slasher-thrillers (Like Texas chainsaw massacre) or contrasting this a lot more like in period thrillers (such as 'The Prestige'). Through the costumes there is also much revealed like personality with as villains and mysterious characters usually wearing dark colour like black (for example Venom in Spiderman), whereas the protagonist wearing poignant colour like white (for example in Hard candy).

Target audience

I produced this questionnaire to examine more into what typical UK audiences are now looking for in horror films; which I can then consider when making my opening sequence to my horror movie. I choose to focus on horror as found from previous experience that these where typically peoples favourite genre of film. Purposely I constructed my questionnaire to be short and consist of simple straight forward questions consequently enabling more people to complete it therefore giving me substantial data to then interpret. Also all of my questions are multiple choose because I have noticed that people find these easier to fill in and helps me keep my data contained into this genre as well as giving me data which is simpler to manipulate and examine.
Through the use of my questionnaire I found ¾ across all ages as well genders preferred psychological thriller, to other horror sub-genres. I also discovered that the majority of boys found it scarier to see things on screen in comparison to females where 85% of them found it scarier to imagine something. 
Plus I found that the majority of people did not like horror films that where not scary, yet they loved the adrenaline rush and thrill aspect of horror movies as this was chosen by 75% of the partakers.

By the use of the questionnaire I also found that the majority of ages would like a film set in a prison, yet this maybe bias towards younger ages as only a mere 5% of the partakers where over 46. As shown age range was a downfall of my questionnaire and therefore is hard to generalise over all ages. 

Film ideas

Horror

RomCom

Thriller

We examined the current tabloid articles from the ‘I’ newspaper. As a class, we then collectively discussed issues, which prompted us to wondering about aspects of the current stories in the press, which we could potentially incorporate into our opening sequence. When reading the newspaper the bigger story undeniably caught my eye and once read where indeed shocking, but also common and I therefore felt that it would not stand my final piece in good steed to be much like that of conventional opening sequences. In contrast smaller stories, often missed by many people, seemed to propose much more original stories which where more distinctive and unique. Therefore my attention was focused on developing these stories to create more interesting scenario. I then projected these envisaged ideas into thought showers. Once started I feel my concepts grew forming more detailed ideas, from which could then be expanded on to then form perhaps the underlying notion to my opening scene.