Thought Processes About Final Idea
What is our opening sequence about?
Our opening sequence/ film story line is a hybrid genre of a psychological crime drama, about a young girl of around 18 who gets into a relationship with her new boyfriend of around 25. At first everything is fine and the couple are happy but as the story unfolds we start to see hidden disasters within the relationship.
The opening sequence starts off with a long shot of the young girl sitting on the floor in a dark room, with a stream of light from the window hitting her. As the camera starts to zoom in slowly the clips fade to black showing the producers name and actor's names. This happens several times and each time as we go back to the girl in the room the camera zooms in more and more, until we reach the girl. A final black screen is shown of the title and then it goes into a close up of the girl's hand, holding a bloody knife. From here the camera pans up the girl's arm and we can see cuts and bruises until it reaches another close-up of her face, here we can see that she's been crying, her make-up has run down her face and she has a faint look in her eyes. Then The flashbacks start to happen. In a sepia or black and white effect, quite bright we see the young girl and her partner holding hands and swaying with each other in a field during the summer, all happy like a normal couple, Non-diegetic music being played over the top, quite happy and joyful, synchronous to the clips being shown, followed by another shot of a close up of the girls face. this happens twice until the third flashback changes. From a point of view shot (The camera acting as the girl, so us as an audience feel like we are her) The girl is sat on the floor, With a low angle shot we can see the dark shadowy figure standing over her, in a dark black and white effect, until the shadowy hand hits her and she falls to the floor. (The camera falls over and lies on the side making it look like the girl has fallen over) During the third flashback the music changes like a scratch of a broken record player, and turns into quite a dark piece of music, again synchronous to the clips, helping to create a mood toward the audience. Finally the girl snaps out of the flashbacks, all the music cuts off and all we can hear is police sirens from outside with flashes of blue light across the girls face, she looks up, directly looking at the camera and dropps the knife, and this is how the opening sequence ends.
Camera Shots and Angles
Throughout our opening sequence a wide range of camera shots and angles have been used. We start by introducing the young girl first as she is the main character through a long shot, by doing this the audience are able to see what she looks like, whilst the camera's zooming in as well. They can see that she is wearing hardly any clothes, so she's exposed, this helps them to see the bruises and the marks on her body, along with her being upset as all her make-ups running this makes the audience ask themselves what's happened to her? and how did she get all them marks? As well as the close up of the bloody knife, the audience will think what has she done with it/ who has she killed? Already using 3 enigma codes, And breaking female stereotypes as she's seen to be quite strong to have possibly killed somebody and she's an independent woman as she is shown on her own in the apartment.
During the violent flashback a point of view shot is used. The camera acts as the girl on the floor, this looks like us, the viewer is her, and this is happening to us, playing on the psychological side of the film, that the audience have to think about what's happening and piece it together but feel like they are involved from the point of view shot. Whilst the point of view shot is happening, a low angle is used, so it's like we are looking up at her boyfriend. The audience don't actually see his face at all throughout the opening sequence; they just see him as a dark and mysterious character. Our production group wanted to leave him as a mysterious character as again we play on the psychological side of the genre, were creating more enigma codes for the audience such as What does he look like ? And Why can't we see what he looks like?.
Mise-En-Scene
Our production group chose 2 settings for the opening sequence. One in a small dark room, where the audience first see the girl before she has the flashbacks, the same room being used in the third flashback when her boyfriend hits her. We thought the fact that the room is dark and all we can see is her makes it more mysterious, we can't see anything but her and this knife, so the audience don't exactly know where she is or where the apartment is placed. A secluded area is typical to a crime drama, The person who commits the crime such as a murder or kidnapping usually goes to a place that's deserted so nobody can hear them scream and they can get away with what they commit so that's why we chose an empty room.
The second place that we chose was the open field/park in the first and second flashback, contrasting the dark and secluded area, the couple are actually out in the open, in front of other people or out in public the boyfriend acts all happy so no one can suspect what is going on until he actually gets back to the apartment where the audience see him hurt her.
Our opening sequence only contains one prop which is the knife connoting violence. We chose a knife to reflect the idea of knife crime, whilst the domestic violence is also being shown in the background. We chose not to see the young girl actually kill her boyfriend, or to see his body, creating another enigma code of was it her boyfriend she actually killed? By what the audience piece together, they think that she has killed her boyfriend but without them seeing the body or her killing him they can't actually confirm that, leaving the rest of the story open.
There aren't a lot of costumes used either. The young girl is shown to be wearing 2 costumes, one in the dark scenes of violence and at the beginning of the opening sequence with her wearing a black vest top and a short pair of shorts. We wanted to make her clothing quite revealing so we could see bruises and cuts on her, from her boyfriend hitting and hurting her. As well as it shows her to be putting herself out there, as it would have taken her to be quite flirty to attract the older male in the first place. During the long shot of her at the beginning and the short clips of her between the flashbacks we can see her face, her make-up has smudge, and she's all teary eyed, This helps to show her emotions and the psychological side as she must have been thinking about the situation a lot and the actions that she chose to make her so upset that her make-up runs. She also wears a flowy dress in the flashbacks of them in the field during the summer, again quite revealing but typical to that type of weather, The audience sort of see her face from a side shot, and an occasional front view, they can see that she is heavily made up though, being able to see this through the sepia or black and white effect to show that she wants to make an effort for her boyfriend.
The older male isn't shown a lot in the opening sequence as we chose to keep him mysterious and portray him as this dark shadowy figure. The only time the audience really see him is during the summer flashback with his girlfriend. His backs turned to the camera but he's wearing quite a lot of clothes; jeans, and a long sleeved top/ jumper, even though it's quite hot outside. This being a binary opposite to the young girl as she's wearing a strappy revealing dress again showing her to be quite flirty when her boyfriend's fully covered up.
Lighting
A range of different lighting is used throughout the opening sequence. Firstly during the long shot of the girl, a spot light is used on her, so the audience are able to see her make up and get a good look at the main character. The contrast between saturated and de-saturated colours in the flashbacks. Saturated colours are used in the first flashbacks of them in the field all happy, as they will be very light washed out looking flashbacks to make them look older, compared to the desaturated colours in the flashback of the her boyfriend beating her, quite dark vivid colours are used, this helps set the mood toward the audience and as the lighting changes their mood should change with the clips as well.
Editing
There isn't a lot of editing used within our opening sequence, mainly at the beginning when we zoom in on the girl, fading the scenes to black to show production names and the names of the actors and editors, etc. fading back into the image of the girl, each time getting closer and closer, until after the last clip of film name fades into a close-up of the knife and the opening sequence starts. We chose to do this as there aren't really any other appropriate times to include the title scenes, and the fading between the black slides and a closer image of the girl sitting on the floor grips the audience to want to watch the rest, as the short little clips of her create a tense effect. We will edit in a police siren effect at the end of the opening sequence too to make it sound like the police are outside her apartment/room. We want to incorporate this as a lot of crime movies include the police or detectives, and we didn't want to make it too psychological as the main genre is crime.
Enigma Codes
Our opening sequence contains quite a few enigma codes, mainly from the psychological side of the genre, the audience are left to think about a lot of things, such as:
- Why is she holding a knife?
- Who has she killed?
- Why is she covered in cuts and bruises?
- What happens in the relationship for him to want to hurt her?
- Why does she want to be in a relationship with a man 7 years older than her?
- Why aren't her parents involved in her life?
- What does she do with the body that she's killed?
- Why does she feel killing him is the only way out of the situation?
- Why does she stay in the apartment after killing him?
- What happens with the police? do they take her away?
- What does the boyfriend look like? / Why can't we see what he looks like?
Theorists
One theory that our opening sequence has followed is John Bergers. His theory was that men see women as objects and are inferior to them. which is exactly what happens in our story line, The young girl portrays herself as quite flirty, heavily makes herself up to try and get her boyfriend to like her even more, when he sees her as this weak object and results to beating her. He knows that she won't run away or tell anybody, because she knows he'll just beat her more, and that this is what she wanted in the first place, for him to acknowledge her. We break this theory in the end by the young girl standing up for herself even if she does it in the wrong way, by killing him. By her doing this she's actually also portrayed as this strong independent woman who in the end realises she doesn't have to depend on this man, that she's better off without him.
Another theory that we follow is Claude Levi-Strauss', He came up with the theory of binary opposition, which again is exactly what our story follows, the sense of good and evil. The girl acts all good an innocent at first when she's with her boyfriend, she's happy and will put up with whatever to be with him, until she turns into this slightly evil psychopathic character by standing up for herself and killing him. The boyfriend is also seen as this evil character as he takes advantage of the girl because he knows he can get away with it, until he dies because of it.
Some may argue and say that we also follow Aristotle's theory as well, he had the idea that every story has a beginning, middle, and end, which is sort of what happens in our story. The beginning is where the couple are all happy; he acts happy towards her so that she learns to trust him, thinking that nothing could go wrong. Then the middle happens, where actually things do go wrong, he starts abusing her, hitting her e.c.t keeping her enclosed in this tiny room/ apartment so she can't escape and tell anybody. And the end where she gets fed up, and everything's built up inside of her that she lashes out and kills him as her only form of escape, even though it's not the end to the whole story, the whole situation comes to a proper ending.
Target Audience
The target audience for our opening sequence/film is from around 15 onwards. A lot of people start getting into relationships from this age and throughout their lives, and they should be aware that not all relationships are happy and easy, that sometimes after while things can possibly take a turn for the worst. As well as knife crime, whether you are in a relationship or not people can stab you at any moment. We think that people around this age may have had an experience of one or both of these crimes, maybe they were the ones to stab someone and have dealt with the consequences of that or were the ones to have been beaten or hurt buy a partner; It links to personal relationships and identity, that they can relate to whats happening or know someone that it has happened to, or even if they watch it to become more aware of the topic.
This also leads on to the point of Ideology. People live their everyday lives, happily whether they are in a relationship or not, or whether they just like to have fun, or are stuck in the busy world of work, totally oblivious that things such as knife crime or more so domestic violence are happening at this very moment and no one is able to help. Whether the victim escapes from the situation or not it leaves them traumatised for months, even years after, and them being able to trust someone else again whether that is friends or a partner takes a lot of time and effort. Along with knife crime, people are very aware about the topic, they understand that it happens daily on the streets, yet barely anyone does anything to stop it until they, or a close friend/partner are stabbed or effect by the situation. Just because it doesn't happen to them doesn't mean that it doesn't happen at all. And that's what our story line is about. The hybrid cross of the two crimes, knife crime and domestic violence makes people aware that things like this still happen today and are happening right now.
