Citizen X - Brief research into sound

Citizen X During the opening credits and the first scene beginning the non diegetic sound is used to create an eerie atmosphere as the soundtrack creates ominousity. The first image we see is of the woods, this is a still shot that lasts around one 1:40 and the opening credits are seen over this image. Then we hear the diegetic sound of a train as it gets closer and then enters the image, the train passes and continuity editing is displayed as the scene smoothly changes from the shot of the train to a tractor of the same colour and a similar diegetic sound. The non diegetic music is still being played over the top of the diegetic sounds and this helps the shots link smoothly.

title sequence research

Title sequence research

Title sequences are at the start of a film and are placed there to give the audience an understanding to who was involved in the production, distribution and exhibition of the film. They usually last two to three minutes and give the audience their initial impression of what the movie is going to be like. So thus the reason why title sequences need to be so impressive. A title sequence can look however the director wants it to but normally it reflects the movie in some way. For example the title sequence for a horror movie is likely to have very little colour if any strong hints of red which is usually associated with danger, death or blood.

  

Because the title sequence reflecting the film it should put the audience into the right mood for when the movie begins. If the audience were watching a horror movie then there would usually be some tense music playing in the background trying to make the audience feel tense. If a title sequence wasn’t very good then the audience may not like the actual movie as much.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnW1fRrmlwI

In conclusion to the research I discovered that our title sequence should be fairly dark with a bit of red showing through and some tense music playing constantly throughout.

Location description

Location description

Our first two minutes of our film has two main locations in it both very different. One of them is in an outhouse and the other outside on a dark road.

Outside (road)

Firstly the first minute or so will be shot entirely outside on a dark road in Great Houghton with fields surrounding it. There are bushes either side in certain parts and lots of gaps in these bushes where somebody or something could be hiding.

Inside (outhouse)

The remainder of our two minutes will be shot inside an outhouse. The outhouse has minimal lighting at most times and gives the impression that it will be cold inside. By having minimal lighting it will suggest fear and unpleasant things may happen here.

Development of the storyline

We gave out 10 questionnaires to people around college in order to get feedback on our original first two minutes so that we could make improvements and develop our idea.
To give them an idea of the storyline we included a description of the first two minutes of the film and then asked several questions. The first question was 'Does it sound interesting?' our response from this was good as all ten people said yes. We also received good response from the next question which was 'Would you be interested in watching the rest of the film?' as all but one person said yes.
Most people liked how creative and intriguing the storyline was so we decided to keep this aspect.
20% of the people said that they thought the storyline was a bit predictable and 50% of people said the storyline could do with a bit more detail therefore we decided to develop it and now instead of having a film just about a murderer we have created a phychological thriller with lots of unexpected twists in it.

Audience feedback

Group 10 final film

Audience feedback results

Click here for audience feedback