Research True Blood Opening Sequence

The opening sequence for True Blood, like the opening sequence for Dexter, does a very good job of portraying the characters themselves, or the type of characters that are the main feature of the show - vampires (having not seen the show, I don't know how many there are, if they're all main characters, etc. so it's one of these, but I'm not quite sure which).

For example, the opening is shot in the style of old films, with film grain being on a lot of the scenes throughout, not to mention the actual content of the scenes being rather old fashioned (with children at one point, which often suggests age when accompanied with the film grain). Vampires, in general, are often known for their very long time span, so the age of the film itself links in to the vampiric characters. They're also classed as "undead", which is suggested in the first scene of a marsh, a common setting used for death-related events (which is also used in the latest series of Dexter, where he finds barrels in a marsh filled with the dead bodies of various women).

Overall, there are a tremendous amount of close-ups used, which seems to be a common occurence in film and television series openings, especially prominent in the openings for American Psycho, and of course Dexter.

Key Points

• The credits don't obstruct the view of the scene for the audience - they're always placed over blank or unimportant areas, such as at 00:12 when the credits are over the sky rather than the building, or at 00:16 when the credits are not over the faces of the gospels singers.
• The scenes shown always relate in some way to the series, not just the overall atmosphere - the seductive scenes mixed with the old scenes portray the vampire character's nature fairly accurately.

Ideas for Music

Having rethought what it is we'll be doing for the opening, the idea came for the majority of the scene to be dubbed over with music. We came across this website:

http://www.musopen.org

Which lets you preview and download from a large library of royalty free music, the majority of which (or all of it, we've not really looked that far into it yet) is classical music. Overall, classical music would fit with the general theme of what we'll be doing, so this has proved to be a valuable resource.

Because we don't want the scene to be completely grim or dull in tone, we decided that the musical piece we use should be a tad jazzy, whilst still obviously keeping it very classical. There's one piece in particular that we've found interesting so far, that feels right for the piece we're doing - Bach's Sonata I in B Minor:

 

Of course, we're still looking, which should be over with soon seeing as the pace of the scene itself should be based around the pace of the piece we choose to play.

Audience Profile

Age	The age of the audience will generally be around 18-25 (young adult), due to both the graphic implications being potentially inappropriate for a younger audience, as well as the general shock factor probably being not to the taste of an older audience.
Gender	The gender of the audience will generally be male, due to the content of the film being more in like with stereotypical male interests when it comes to media (death, and the use of thriller elements) - females are generally more attracted to films with happy endings.
Income	The income of the audience will generally be average, aimed more at the middle class of society as opposed to upper class or lower class - upper class may find the tone of the film somewhat inappropriate, whereas middle class people may find it interesting to look into the mind of a killer (hence the success of things like American Psycho and Dexter).
Geographic Location	Those who watch the film will generally be in a heavily populated area, such as a city, due to them being more susceptible to advertising in the media there (more billboards, etcetera.).
Interest	Generally, those who will want to see the movie will be those interested in related media with similar dark tones to them, such as the Poughkeepsie Tapes and Dexter. This means people interested in horror focusing more on the inner workings of the characters as opposed to just killing (such as the audience of slasher flicks) are the people that this film is aimed at.



Research Paul Allen Death Scene

Click the image to go to the video...

This scene in the film American Psycho is probably the best at portraying every facet of the character Patrick Bateman (played by Christian Bale). There are two main sides to his character - the socially acceptable, conforming side, and the psychopathic murdering side.

His conformity is shown throughout in the way he interacts with the character of Paul Allen, and the way he acts around him. For one, the dialogue between the two is overly cheery, and made intentionally to keep Paul Allen distracted whilst allowing his character to prepare for the murder. He even smoothly intertwines his dialogue with his true intentions, at the point where he turns on the music - to Paul, he's just showing his favourite song by Huey Lewis and the News, but really he's turning the volume up so that no one can hear the sounds he makes whilst killing him.

Even the song touches on the way he conforms with society, described in-depth by Patrick himself:

"A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, but they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity and the importance of friends, but it's also a personal statement about the band itself."

And the lyrics at this point and after the murder also link in to it:

"Now I'm playing it real straight, and yes I cut my hair,
You might think I'm crazy, but I don't even care,
Because I can tell what's going on,
It's hip to be square"


"I like my bands in business suits, I watch them on TV,
I'm working out most everyday and watching what I eat,
They tell me that it's good for me, but I don't even care,
I know that it's crazy,
I know that it's nowhere,
But there is no denying that,
It's hip to be square"

His psychopathic side is clearly shown in the rest of the scene, during the preparation of the murder - and the seamless transition from happy and calm to the angry, over-the-top side with the words "Hey Paul!" - and during it, which he can clearly be seen to be expressing all of his pent up anger towards him (he repeatedly hits the corpse with the axe, whilst shouting:

"Try getting a reservation at Dorzia now you fucking stupid bastard!"

Overall, I think this scene will be extremely inspirational when it comes to deciding what to do for our two minute sequence, both in terms of content and focus to detail.

Research American Psycho

The character traits of Patrick Bateman, the main character in the movie American Psycho, is the kind of character traits that I think we should try to aim for in the coursework. The movie does such a good job of combining the two separate lives of Patrick - the social businessman and the emotionless psychopath - that it should be a clear source of inspiration when designing the characters involved in the scene we're constructing.

Some research done into the film's production and marketing (though it won't be useful for the coursework, I thought it'd be nice to know some of these things for future reference):

Research The Shining

This scene in The Shining is a good example of a scene done from the perspective of the victim. You can see that this is the perspective taken in this scene, due to the focus on the actions of the killer whilst having clear sight of the emotions of the victim that no doubt clouded the character's judgement (Shelley Duvall's clear overacting at these parts clearly portray this side of the character, whilst the actual actions she takes - standing somewhat stationary in the corner - show the cloud in judgement).

The camera work is also very erratic, which no doubt mirrors Wendy's feelings at the time - desperate to escape, and very aware of her impending doom (the main focus on the axe Jack is holding, and the door as he breaks through it).

Overall, camera work and actor are working in perfect unison in this scene to portray the way that Wendy is feeling, creating a very tense, dramatic scene, which is just what's needed for a horror film to actually be good, even with her overacting being somewhat obvious.

Research Dexter Opening Sequence

This opening sequence for the television series Dexter, based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, is heavily inspired by the opening sequence for the film American Psycho - both of these openings take completely normal actions and objects and create obviously sinister undertones by use of clever editing and camera angles, as well as the use of certain things (such as red liquid, a sauce of some sort, being used to clearly represent blood).

As an opening sequence, this cleverly portrays the personality of the main characters themselves (Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, and Dexter in Dexter, who I'm hesitant to call the protagonists because of the moral implications that come with it) - both Patrick and Dexter are sociopathic murderers, though with somewhat different motivations to their actions, who blend in with society perfectly whilst maintaining their destructive ways. The character of Patrick uses murder to vent his stress, but this hobby soon gets out of control as he takes a downward spiral into insanity - Dexter, on the other hand, lives by his father's rule of only killing those who deserve it (other murderers), and controls the scenes of his murders completely, wrapping the kill site with plastic and murdering them cleanly and quickly: however, this doesn't make him a good character, as the only reason he does this is to vent his desire to kill things whilst remaining on what some would call the morally right path, in an attempt to keep to his father's wishes.

Overall, these opening sequences do a great job of showing what the character's themselves are like, and we could do something somewhat similar to these for our film project, though as yet it's undecided.

Initial Ideas

After watching some films and the like, the most appealing idea for what the genre of the film will be seems to be:

Horror

We intend to take heavy inspiration from films such as American Psycho and The Shining. Various ideas for what we could do with it have arose, mainly to do with three sections - the perspective of the filming, the focus of the action in the film, and the content of the film itself.

Perspective

• The killer's perspective
• The victim's perspective
• A camera's perspective

Focus of the Action

• If from the killer's perspective...
• The focus should be on the actions of the killer, mainly through the use of close-ups. This could be based on the opening scene of American Psycho, in which various objects are made more sinister through the use of close-ups (cutting some food, for example).
• If from the victim's perspective...
• The focus should be from behind objects, in order to imply hiding from the killer - for example, having shots of the killer from under a table, or around an archway. Low shots should also be used in this perspective, in order to imply the dominance of the killer over the victim(s?).
• If from a camera's perspective...
• The camera should have erratic movement and zooming, sort of like various mockumentary films, like Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead. A lot of the shots would be from behind glass, or even outside, in order to imply the presence of an outsider.

Content Ideas

• It could be a title shot, such as the one used in American Psycho (and, more recently, the opening for Dexter, which was inspired by that opening).
• It could focus on the narrative of a man during his daily routine, with sinister undertones.
• It could focus on the interaction between a paranoid agoraphobic and a travelling salesman who comes to his house.
• It could also focus on a sociopath's interaction with the world, using lots of obvious cuts between scenes (such as those used in Shaun of the Dead), and focus on the character in shot rather than those he interacts with, in order to be portray the emotion (or lack thereof) of the character. Sinister undertones in his actions should be used as well, for example during a conversation with someone in a kitchen he could need to go somewhere, but is interrupted constantly by someone continuing a conversation - the character should then be shown to glance at a drawer of knives and sigh, or someting similar.

Film Brief

Preliminary Exercise

Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Main Task

The titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Both preliminary and main tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum four members to a group.

Coursework Guideline