Realistic props make the film seem more professional. To get some of our props looking genuine and realistic we had to alter some of them.
Above were the different stages of painting the gun to make it look like those we see in real life films.
After experimenting with our fake gun, we decided to change it to one we felt was even better due to the fact it seemed for realistic with better features on the gun such as the trigger sound effect. Also, during filming the gun we was initially was going to use was very difficult to see due to the colour of the gun (black) which clashed with our lighting. Therefore, a change in gun was required so that the gun can be seen using brighter colours (silver).
We needed to have a good controlled location to be able to shoot our film. Here we drafted up ideas and concluded the different places we could film our opening sequence and our final decided location.
Here are the final location shots where we have decided to film:
Front Door
Passage
Bathroom
Kitchen
Living Room and Kitchen
We decided to pick this location as it was a family members house. This allowed us to feel comfortable whilst filming and the freedom to experiment without causing an inconvenience and without the fear of being told we were not allowed to film. Also the flat had certain aspects from our storyboard that were possible to create. Another reason why we picked this setting was because of the set decoration. The plain white canvas with little furniture allowed us space to film and made colour of our props (the gun/knife/fake blood) stand out against the colours of the environment.
Here are soundtracks/sound effects that we may use in our opening sequence as influences. Due to no dialogue in our opening sequence, sound effects will be crucial in our opening sequence to emphasise the genre of the film. We will specifically give an example and analyse which parts of the soundtracks will suit different scenes of our film:
These are soundtracks that we may use during our opening sequence
1)
From about 0:11, this will most suit the scene where the victim enters the house, as it has a fast background build up beat which accentuates that something serious has just happened.
From about 1:41 to 1:59, this will be suitable in the scene where the hitman is introduced, when he pulls out the gun. This is because the momentum of the background beat slows, which emphasises suspense and fear.
From about 0:00 to 0:09, this could be used when the hitman is aiming his gun at the victim.
Around 4:07 to 4:15 could be used when the hitman shoots the victim and walks towards him.
2)
3)
4)
These are ideas of sound effects of when the gun (prop) is going to be used in our opening sequence:
Here we looked at other films for potential influences in terms of costume, which relates to the roles of our characters.
We started small and immediately both agreed that our killer should wear leather gloves. Leather gloves build an identity and help audiences conclude who the character is by just looking at the gloves. Also it provides a deadly look which makes the character look cool, smooth and sleek.
We took a look at some films where the killers wear leather gloves.
We looked at other films as influences for costumes idea where the characters of the film plays a similar role as the characters in the opening sequence. We specifically looked at characters from other films who featured wearing smart suits, as we believe it emphasises and portrays the role of a hitman/assassin. Below are a few films we looked at from different scenes and shots in which we where interested in:
1) Reservoir Dogs:
2) Goodfellas:
3) Dirty Harry:
4) Quantum of Solace:
We then decided that the best look to go for in terms of costume is the formal look. We agreed that this look was professional and provided a serious attitude.
We stuck to a plain and simple look with not many colours, as colours illustrate vibrance, happiness and many other positive emotions and not the serious/cool look we were going for.
We created a film schedule so that we would know approximately how long is needed for each scene, involving what each characters costume and the props & kit involved in each scene.
At the end of filming, we believe we followed the filming schedule fairly well. Some scenes took slightly longer than we thought and some took slightly shorter. Despite having some scenes that consumed additional time such as organising props and costume etc. we believe that this wasn't a major issue due to the fact that we both were casters in our opening sequence.
We need certain props to be able to create a realism in the opening sequence. Some props that we needed were:
Fake Guns
Fake Knife
Plain White Mask
Fake Blood
Fake Blood:
We needed fake blood to create certain effects in our film. We looked at the use of fake blood in different films and then tried to find a brand of fake blood which emulated, the fake blood we saw in films. We looked at films which used fake blood really well like American Psycho, Dawn of the Dead and Resevoir Dogs.
Fake Guns and Knives
A film in a genre like ours always needs weapons to emphasise different characteristics which represent themes in our films. Weapons like guns and knifes are needed in our film mainly due to our film being in the crime/action genre, and typically these films have weapons like these in them. We needed the weapons to look real in our film to be able to take the film seriously. We took inspiration from films like Cariltos Way, Hitman and Scream in terms of weapons.
PlainWhite Mask
We wanted our killer to have a mask but stay unique. We looked at films who had unique simple masks which still created fear. After looking at examples like Scream, Friday the 13th and Saw and decided to go with a plain white mask as we believed as the lack of colour and emotion given from the mask makes our cold hearted killer even more horrifying.
Fake Blood
Fake Knife
Fake Gun
We believe using these props would help the audience to establish our genre as fake knife and gun are mostly used in our influences such as Godfather, American Psycho and Hitman. This also relates to our theme of violence and crime.
We evaluated an opening sequence in more detail noting everything the happened in the opening 2-3 minutes. We used American Psycho as our example. Here is what we found:
