Divergent

The film 'Divergent' is another film with the same genre of Thriller. However, this movie has more of a Sci-Fi/ Futuristic approach to it. I've decided to analysis this film opening as it is very different to the last opening I looked at.

As the film begins, the first thing we see are the film production companies. 'Summit Entertainment. A Lions Gate Company' and 'Red wagon entertainment' throughout the spinning production names there is a background sound of relaxing winds blowing and chime like noises. As the chimes begin to become louder the title of the film 'Divergent' is placed on screen accompanied by a choir singing in a calm manor. The title of the film appears from the letters being broken up to them forming together, the way the are formed together gives the impression that it maybe a code for something later on in the movie. As the letters appear on screen you can see a clear contrast between the yellows and browns making the word 'Divergent' stand out even more.
the first shot of the film footage is an establishing shot of what seems to be a field in the countryside. As the footage includes a summers morning sunrise and a clear blue sky with relaxing music playing in the background it tricks us by making us think that the genre of the film would be something along the lines of a Romance and in fact not a Thriller!

When the camera begins the pan up through the grass everything seems normal until the camera transitions into panning left where you get a glimpse of an abandoned ship which makes you question why it is there?and who has left it there? creating enigma!
A tracking shot is then used to look over the abandoned city, as we are looking over the abandoned city, it makes the audience also question who once lived there? and does anybody still live there? whilst a tracking shot is being used a piano is playing the same keys making us feel empathy and sad for the reason why the city has become abandoned. Different tracking shots are used of different locations of the city to prove that nobody lives there.
To much surprise the next scene is a low angle shot of people walking on the streets the expressions in there faces are smiling showing us that they're happy however there is a clear divide between people through the colours of there outfits which we assume they are fit into different levels for quality of life.

The Stepfather

Within the first 10 seconds music which we would refer to being almost 'Sci-Fi' related begins to play among a black screen with the film production label 'Screen Gems'. The sounds starts to become more recognizable as the black screen fades into an establishing shot of a car on a road. A tracking shot is used to follow the car, the shot gradually spins around it until the shot switches to a point of view of somebody throwing a newspaper. We don't know who the person is but the jerkiness of the camera suggests he's in a rush.
Whilst the camera is panning the white houses along the street the opening credits fade into different sections of the screen lasting about 4 seconds each, the writing has been moved into the section of the screen which has most white in creating a contrast between colours black and white. You can clearly tell a cool tone filter has been added creating a a depressing tone to the movie which suggests something serious is about to take place.
We then move onto a close up shot of a piece of paper where the focal point is the word 'canceled' as its the only bit of writing on the sheet which has been highlighting, this has created enigma as the audience will now be curious to who has cancelled the order and why.
There is a sudden change of scenery where the camera pans left across a very overly organised shelf of men's grooming tools (razor, electric razor, scissors etc.) as the shelf is so tidy it gives the viewer the impression that maybe the man is a sufferer from OCD or another disorder.

This shot then moves onto a low angle shot which is positioned to be looking at the mirror, at the beginning of the shot the screen is blurry which then fades to a clearer shot of the main who we guess is the main character. as the shot fades the title appears in the left hand side of the screen, we assume the reason behind the writing being so small is because the director has wanted our attention to be focused on the man as he must have a lot of importance to the movie.

Real Media Artefact
When researching Agoraphobia me and my partner came across a video on YouTube about a man suffering the same condition. The short film demonstrated a great example of the beginning ideas me and my partner started to create between us on what we could include in our future film opening.

Agoraphobia- A short student film

Within the first few seconds we are introduced to the clip through an establishing shot, the purpose behind the establishing shot is to make it clear that he is suffering from Agoraphobia and doesn't want to leave the comfort of his own home. It then quickly changes to a wide shot of a light build on the ceiling from the main characters perspective, this shot is held for four seconds long which suggests that he is bored of his condition as he's staring into space'.

Throughout the short film the director has used a voice over of the main character talking, The voice over has been used to create an idea that he is trapped within his thoughts as his condition is a mental illness which would occur in the brain. The voice over is at a slow paste which is harmonizing with the backing instrument of a piano, This adds to the dullness of the video which overall illustrates a sense of boredom/repetition of his daily routine.

What really interested me about this film and has inspired me to adapt to it in my film opening  is the sense of enigma which has been created. When watching the clip their are so many questions that run through my mind, such as, What triggered this condition? Will he ever conquer his fear? Why doesn't he just leave his house? etc. what plays a main part in creating the enigma is the fear of the unknown. We can only presume what triggered this mental illness. 

Online Article

For our classes overall film opening brief we all got given an exiting twist we had to include. The twist being that we have to base and incorporate ideas from an article into our production. Me and my partner decided straight away together that we wanted to base ours off of a mental illness for our movie opening as illnesses can be varied and powerful, if understood and approached in the right way.

After doing research on the internet me and my partner came across this article about a man suffering with Agoraphobia and how he dealt with it.

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/13877853.Too_afraid_to_leave_his_home_for_20_years___Man_s_agoraphobia_cured_by_hypnotherapy/

Once reading this me and my partner 'Cordelia' decided that we want to pick Agoraphobia as our mental illness to study.
The reason why I thought this article was such a powerful and inspirational article is because we find out how Jeremy managed to cure his Agoraphobia.
In the interview Jeremy says "It felt as though I was suddenly upside down, dangling from the earth by my feet and that I was going to fall from the ground" he also mentions that the illness affected his relationships between his family, friends and most importantly his self esteem. I find interesting that he described his illness as the feeling of dangling of the earth by his feet, being that he would feel shaken up and sick to his stomach about it.

 When reading the article I had a clear vision in my head for a beginning idea, the idea being that we would film somebody at home in their own environment struggling with this illness and not wanting to go out. As we are only going to create an opening scene we would have to focus the condition at its worst point to get a inside to how people deal with it or at least try to.

Agoraphobia definition

Noun 

An abnormal fear of being in crowds, public places or open areas. The illness is sometimes accompanied by anxiety attacks.

Audience Profile

As a group we decided that the best age to suit our opening film clip would be aimed at ages 17 and above. The reason why we decided that the target audience would be older than the researched audience for a thriller genre was because we plan to make the thriller around a psychotic event where we would need a mature audience to understand and appreciate.
Thinking about Ethnicity, we didn't want our film to be aimed at any Religious groups as we wanted it to open to a wider/varied audience.

To see if our Genre of a psychotic thriller would appeal to the target audience set, me and my partner asked a few friends to see if they would watch and be interested in a movie from this genre.

Question asked: Would a psychotic thriller appeal to you?
 Natasha(17) -Yes     Alyssia(19)-No
Madeline(17)-Yes
Robert(58)-Yes
Linda(42)-Yes

The results from the questionnaire show that the psychotic thriller would appeal to our target audience, which are the results we wanted to hear!

Audience Research Secondary Sources Linked To Genre/Target Audience

The results of a survey taken place to a wide variety of the pubic show that the audience of the thriller genre tends to attract males aged 15 years and on words. The reason behind the genre branching out to more males than females and interesting teenagers may be because of the excitement and unpredictable moments held within the genre. The genre may attract more males as the stereotypical role within a thriller is usually held by a male so it may make the viewer feel that they can relate towards the leading man within the movie.