Filming 3

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I decided to change the first shot of the eye to focus more on one specific eye rather than both of them. This one is the time the eye opens at night, and the one in the morning and will use light from the outside to light the scene instead of the lamp in the room. I also made sure to look directly at the camera, because in my first few takes I was looking at the screen instead of the camera, and that ruined the shot.

Filming 2

Here is the unedited first shot that I've filmed for openinng. I'm trying to decide if I like showing both eyes or if I should change it to only one eye being shown opening. That way, when this shot is done again later in the opening, I can use the other eye to show even more of a difference between the two scenes. Or maybe I could do one eye at the start and two eyes when he wakes up for real. The audio in this shot won't really be heard at first, since there's still going to be audio playing from the first flashback/forward at the very start, and after that it'll go totally silent.

Filming 1

Today I'm planning in what order I'll be filming the scenes for my opening. Since my opening repeats some similar scenes, I'm thinking that I should film both scenes back to back in order to not have to set everything back to how it originally was. After those, I'll film the final scene after the opening, that takes place during the day. The scenes at night that take place in the bedroom don't actually needed to be filmed at night, since I have blackout curtains there that can work for either day or night. The scenes downstairs will have to filmed at night, since there are many windows, but those scenes do not last too long. Those scenes do take more specific camera work that I want to do so it'll probably take longer to set up each shot. Those are the scenes where the tensions starts rapidly rising, especially when going back upstairs to the bedroom. Hopefully I can film some stuff soon since I'll be gone for Spring Break.

Bo(a)re[d]

     Here is the first page of my storyboard. The text above each drawing is the description of the shot, and the text below each drawing is the dialogue/sound effects playing during that shot. My opening begins as flashes of upcoming scenes are played at various speeds and opacity for a few seconds, growing louder and louder, until the sounds cut off as our main character, Scott, opens his eyes. (The name of the character will not mentioned during this opening, but I wanted to at least give my main character a name to put in the credits.) 

The quiet stillness of the next few shots before suspense starts to build will contrast the loud and fast start of the opening. Tim walks to the bathroom as the camera watches him. The feeling I want to build is that every shot outside of Tim's room will be shot as if the cameras were watching him from the shadows. Tim would go wash his face and then go downstairs (but that's not on the first page of the storyboard). Doing the storyboard helped me figure out how I wanted the story to go, as I could visualize it way better by drawing each shot or scene in general.

Page 1

Why color?

     Color and color schemes in movies are important pieces of storytelling that help to subtly establish the tone and the literal look of the film. Color can be used for symbolism, foreshadowing, or giving insight into a character's life in relation to the colors they're associated with. Most people would not assume that a movie with a bright yellow color scheme would be a horror movie, but that could be used to subvert audience expectations. Bright colors like yellow, red, blue, and green are most commonly associated with feelings of joy or excitement.

    On the other hand, darker colors are usually associated with dramas, thrillers, and horrors. 

    These two frames above (from Fight Club) use these dark colors in different ways. The first frame uses the colors to show a very clear duality, both in the colors, as well as what is shown in the frame. Alternatively, the second frame uses these extremely dark colors to show a dark moment literally.

The articles below gave me lots of information about how important color is to tell a story, and how color is an extremely important visual element.

https://www.horrorbuzz.com/movies/the-most-commonly-used-colors-in-horror-movies/

https://www.cined.com/film-color-schemes-cinematic-color-design/ (photo 2 and 3 come from here)

https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/color-palettes-famous-movies/

https://www.learncolorgrading.com/choose-color-scheme-film/

But why titles?

A good movie title should draw people's attention, and ideally be memorable enough to make them want to see it. A title should allude to what the movie is about without giving away too much. A great example is "Alien". 

From that title we can obviously tell that the movie is about an alien, but not much else. Is this taking

place in space? Has the alien come to Earth? Does this take place in the past or the future? We don't know the answers to these questions, but we are intrigued by this simple yet effective title.

Contrary to this, a movie title can also summarize the plot of the movie without having to give away what happens. Some examples of these titles are "Escape from New York", "Saving Private Ryan", or "Finding Nemo".

In conclusion, titles must serve to either intrigue the audience, or give them some vague information about the story while keeping the big surprises hidden.

Here are some articles I read while writing this post:

https://roobla.com/22976/top-10-movie-titles-that-outline-the-plot/

http://15minutemoviemethod.com/the-importance-of-titles

https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3552546/dying-art-horror-movie-title-sequence/

https://ihorror.com/horror-movie-titles-almost/