Planning opening credits - Miss Georgiou

The main-title sequence or the opening credits of a movie can be considered the most important piece in a film. Other than trailers and marketing elements, they are the first images the audience sees when the lights go down in a cinema. These quick clips, which in total last about two minutes, outline the filmmaker's intentions and set up the expectations of those watching. 

 All of the actions within the sequence (book pages turning, making tea, drawings), are in a dull colour tonality. This is a plot giveaway to the audience; that the film is dark, and makes it seem more chilling, as the images used are quite provoking. Especially as he crosses out the eyes on the photograph of a little boy. The actions within the sequence become increasingly sinister looking, as only a pair of dirty hands are shown performing them. These hands imply to the audience that they belong to an odd, and most likely central character to the film; so the audience already feels like they understand this character, without being shown his face, or knowing his name. The actions are not shown in chronological order, and often 'double vision', and flicker across each other; however, the actions seem to focus around making something.

As well as having a dull tonality, there are flashing lights at odd, erratic moments, often coinciding with the screen titles changing. This is an indication that the film is jumpy, and is likely to spook them. The screen titles are also written in the style of a young child's handwriting, which from our other research, we have found that many ghost films include a young child, as they seem to make films seem much creepier. This is probably because most people associate children with innocence and naivety, and reversing that stereotype can evoke some powerful emotions. 

The music follows the action on screen, as it starts off quite slow, then when the hands seem to be creating a plan or an interest in pain, the music picks up pace. It uses slow held on notes, and an uncommon drumbeat, to produce a catchy and listenable, but mismatched soundtrack. 

When analysing a film I decided to look at Insidious, as its opening scene is conventional to a thriller, being dark and mysterious. The Bright red blood like title appears first with a screeching sound over the top. The first scene that the audience see is a house, however the whole scene is dull and colourless, which allows the names in blood red underneath to stand out. This effect carries on into the next frame. This could make the audience think that it is set in a different time, such as the 1920's. The words also split into two, half of it staying red but also the other half fading out like smoke. Also in one of the scenes, there is a dark figure, we cannot work out if it is a ghost or a person as the whole scene is in black and white. 

Another thing that stands out in the opening scene is the editing used, it fades in and out creating suspense and tension.  In the opening scene, they also use high angles and low angles, it reveals the setting to the audience, almost giving away part of the story, but in turn pulling them into the story more.

After looking at several different thriller openings, as a group we decided what to include in our own one. For example we liked the basic colours which we found in Se7en and insidious, 
In our thriller, the order of the title sequence will be:

Production company: LAN production
Actors: Noah Lown and Lucy Mumford
Camera: Alex Flanagan
Music: Heather Everingham
Editor: Noah Lown, Lucy Mumford and Alex Flanagan
Producer: Noah Lown
Writer: Lucy Mumford
Director: Alex Flanagan
The film title: The woods

The style of the writing will be a dull font which looks rushed. The colours will be dark and red. The colour red can connote blood and will entice the audience. The whole credit sequence will be dark slow and obscure.