After my failed attempt of trying to create a simple title transition for my opening sequence, I realized that I had absolutely no idea how to edit properly so during my free time I taught myself ( in baby steps ) how to split and reverse clips using Adobe After Effects. The clips in the video are the ones I took using my GoPro when I went to Maldives last year (2016):
Today we did research for inspiration and reference that we might be able to add into our opening. I looked for some music and sound effects that might be appropriate for this:
The sound of the vinyl crackle would be played along with the music as the music would be played on a turn table to suggest that the vinyl player is very old.
I, Claire and Prima agreed that this would fit best as the sound of the woman in high notes almost makes it uncomfortable to listen to. The song is not english language therefore the audience is even more curious of what is happening and is more engaged to the opening. We decided on this as we were inspired by the film "Insidious" specifically in the scene where the song "Tiptoe through the tulips" was played - when added along with the other micro-elements, was really effective.
Another diegetic sound that we thought of adding is the paper sound effect as we are panning through her desk. Again, the sound is slow and uncomfortable, building suspense and suggesting disruption as well as danger.
For the film opening, we want to create suspense and build tension by revealing information about the character little by little (of how unstable she is). Before drawing a storyboard, we searched for the following pictures in order for us to have a brief idea of our composition for each frame that we are going to shoot.
We decided to do some tweaking to our initial idea and storyboard that we planned. Here is our second idea for our sequence:
1) Solid black background with faint diegetic sound of someone walking along the hallway
2) Sharp cut to hallway -
During the lesson, we discussed about the lightings that we were going to use. We searched images of creepy hallways and as a result we agreed to go with the greenish/blue lighting/colour as this makes it mysterious and creates a sense of unease.
3) Camera slowly zooms in from an empty eerie hallway with a door at the end of the hall and continues to zoom through the peephole of the door where we see a woman sitting at her desk
4) Camera pans the room to her desk where we see her wall full off cut out faces and magazine pages and there is a point of view shot of the woman working. The audience sees her wrinkly old hands cutting pieces out from magazines. Things on her desk include : tape, scissors, magazines, sewing tools
5) She gets up to leave (camera still in point of view) to the bathroom and stops in front of the mirror, her face and identity is revealed to the audience for the first time as an old lady.
6) Shot cuts to the back of her head while looking at the mirror, showing a few grey hair and skin of her back
7) Extreme close up shot as she slowly pulls a strand of grey hair. This connotes violence and frustration (and her insecurity) the character has towards herself (self destruction).
8) Strand of hair lands in the sink and we see that there are many strands (emphasizes her old age)
9) Woman walks out of the toilet and camera zooms out to wide shot of her room gradually
where body/leg can be seen hanging out of the bathtub with blood dripping
This is the storyboard for this idea and a video to explain the camera movement in each frame:
AESTHETICS: ORPHAN As we watch the movie, there is a gradual change of lightings from the beginning to the end. Initially, ambient lighting used which makes the atmosphere appear bright and normal. However later on in the movie where Esther is in the toilet kicking and screaming, the lighting and colours become darker. This suggests that there has been a change in mood and emotion, and that everything is no longer normal. The dull and minimal colours in the scenes gives a sinister mood, foreshadowing danger for other characters as we approach the ending of the movie.
We will apply this to our film opening by decreasing the saturation of our film (also using colour correction and adjust the lighting) and have it mostly dark/black to create the same mood and feel.
DON'T BREATHE
During the scenes in the basement (which is during the climax of the film), the lighting and temperature of the movie changes to a cooler tone of blue and grey. However, when the characters are not in the basement, the colours are warm, consisting of orange and brownish tones. The colour these scenes succeed to create a very eerie and mysterious feel to the film (building up tension) by using strong shadows along with these colour selections. We thought of applying this to our own film opening by emphasising warmer tones throughout.
Has mental illness - wants to look young; she does this by killing young, beautiful girls and using their skin to sew onto her face
Lonely, depressed, and insecure
Single - lives alone in an old apartment
Killer
Her Appearance:
Doesn't look her age (around 40)
Skinny, always have narrow/slanted posture to reflect her insecurity
Pale, white skin
(Slightly) Wrinkly skin
Thin - to give an impression of fragility and weakness
Tall, Slender
Inspiration -
1) Annie Wilkes from Misery (1990)
Annie is a psychotic, former nurse who is a number one fan of romance novels, including the Misery series by Paul Sheldon.
She has some type of mental illness that seems to border the lines of being manic-depressive, and is also suffering from a severe case of paranoia.
There is a connection between Annie and our character as they are both mentally ill and obsessed over one particular thing to an extent where they are no longer humane.
3) Mother Gothel from Tangled
Her similarity with our character is that she wants to stay youthful. She achieves this by trapping and keeping Rapunzel in a tower, using her power.
3) Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs
Jame Gumb or known as “Buffalo Bill”, is a transsexual, and particular disturbing antagonist for kidnapping overweight ladies and removing their skin as if they were cattle. He does this to create a female skin suit to hide his manhood.
He links with our character as they both own a workroom in a basement, and kills women for their skin.
4) Evil Queen (Ravenna) from Snow White and the Huntsman
She captures young women into her Kingdom to drain their youthfulness. The reason for this is to be immortal, young, and beautiful for eternity.
5) Esther from Orphan
Esther is really a 33 year old woman (who looks like a 9-year-old) with a rare disease that stops her from ageing (in appearance). She goes into peoples homes all sweet and innocent, then tries to engage in sexual activities with the man of the family. When he says no, she takes revenge and kills all the family.
Like our character, she is a murderer and has absolutely no mercy/regret after killing people. She is emotionally unstable as she is constantly having mood swings, and raging.
