Analysis of 'Devil' opening

In class Miss Foster showed us this film opening of 'Devil'. The opening is based upon a peculiar upside down shot of the city skyline, I found this was really effective as whilst you are watching you are left wondering how this relates to the film, a thought I had was as it is upside down and the film is called 'Devil' this could represent hell. Although I thought the shot was effective I thought it took away the attention from the actual credits, which should have been focused on more, as the audience are too focused on the shot.
I also liked the shot of the elevator which presents danger as the camera shot follows it down, presenting it as intimidating and showing something significant is about to happen. The next shot was of the floor and panned along, this was effective as it presented the more important credits and also was a smooth transition to the man waxing the floor. The ending actually terrified me as it was so out of the blue, a person flying out of mid air onto a truck. This was a really effective film opening as it leaves the audience gripped and wonder what will happen next.

The opening titles of the film really inspired me in thinking about what titles we will use for our films. It also showed how we could make our own titles, from looking at this simple title it allowed me to see how easy it would be to do something similar by simply filming our hands.

Overall, I really liked this film opening and drew inspiration from it for my own film.

Final plans for film

We have officially set a date next weekend to film our opening, we have discussed ideas with Marge and have agreed that she will talk about experiences from her own life, rather than following a script.
As Marge has had many life experiences in theatre, stage and dance, we thought we could include this into our film by her discussing this. Depending on the footage we get of Marge, we have not  yet decided if we are still going to use flashbacks as they may not be necessarily needed in the film. If we were to use flashbacks, instead of our original idea of a young girl running through the woods we would change it to fit around the idea of theatre and perhaps use flashbacks of someone on stage or perhaps someone dancing.

In todays lesson we edited our footage of our visit to Forty hall, here is a run through of our film idea.




Today we also sorted out who our main character will be, Marge. Marge is an experienced performer and has had a lot of experience in front of the camera, we also thinks he will be perfect for our film as she has had so many life experiences that she can translate and bring to our film.

Now, we can't wait to start filming!

Filming Practice at Forty Hall

Today me and Valentina went to Forty Hall to practice for our filming day next week. We found parts of our location which we would use for our flashback scene in the woods, due to the amount of trees around we thought we could do an over head shot and attach the camera to the tree using a gorilla pod when we have our proper day of filming. We also did a run through of the film, doing practice shots and scenes in order to see how the film would work with the location.

Flashback Practice

In Fridays lesson, me and Valentina experimented with the Flips and filmed some shots to create the impression of flashbacks.Valentina filmed me running up the stairs and opening the door and I was filmed talking about the past. We uploaded the clips and edited the scenes in iMovie to create a sequence of events that changed from past to present,  we created the impression of flashbacks by using sepia and changing the brightness, exposure and contrast in the clip. We also used transitions between the clips to make the flashbacks look effective. We were really happy with the outcome as the flashbacks looked effective and me and Valentina have drawn the conclusion that we are going to use this editing method for the flashbacks in our film.

Here is our flashback practice (I apologise for my bad acting)

Final Idea

We have decided to change our film idea from a comedy to a documentary/thriller.
Today we finalised our idea and have slightly changed our original concept. We are still planning on using an elderly woman and are going to
use flashbacks but we have come up with the idea of doing a mockumentary.



This opening is very similar to how we'd like ours, we think using text on a blank screen would be really effective as a way to set the story. Also, we are hoping to use a similar opening with a character explaining how she is doing an interview with an elderly woman. The film will be based around the girl interviewing the old woman about things from her past and that is when the woman will have flashbacks from her past. These flashbacks will be of when she is a girl and this is when the audience finds out more about the womans past. We have yet to decide what the flashbacks will be of but we are thinking of the girl pherhaps running through the woods looking as if she has done something or seen something.