What I Learned From Other Film Intros

     Intros could possibly be considered the most crucial part to any film. While examining just the introductions of films yesterday, I began to fully understand how much of the story is revealed within just the beginning. The start is where a lot of background is displayed so that the audience isn't entirely confused while watching the rest of the film. Most of the intros I watched were from movies that I have never seen before yet I could tell where the story was headed just from watching 2-4 minutes. It also has to be an extremely eye catching part so that the film automatically captures the viewers' attention or else they might leave or turn off the rest of the film because of no starting appeal. Within all the intros I watched, they started off with a company name then begin with the credits displayed over the film. They normally began with the main actors and then transitioned into directors/editors. They probably did this to grab the audience's attention because they are most likely going to know the actors more than they are going to know the directors/editors. Now I have a better understanding of how I should sprinkle my credits within the intro of my film, "The Run".

     "Shawshank Redemption" was one the intros that related to our movie plot the most. It started out in the court, and the man was being accused of murdering his wife and her lover. "The Run" starts out in solitary confinement, and the police officer is asking the prisoner if he knows why he is there. In "Shawshank Redemption" the plot goes back and forth from current to past in order to slowly reveal specific information to the audience and make it suspenseful, similar to "The Run".  After viewing how similar these intros are, I feel better about the choice my partner and I made on deciding how to play the introduction.

Needed Improvements / Revisions

After getting feedback on the first edit of my film, I felt really encouraged by the work I had completed. I felt really encouraged by the work I had completed. The one thing I need to fix is the credits. Right now, the credits quickly scroll up  before the film begins. This gives the intro a more short film vibe rather than an intro to a normal length film. Cameron and I were unsure how to include the credits without disturbing the content of the film. We decided to make it so that the credits show through a typewriter effect that gives a feel of someone typing up the case information in the intro of the film. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the intro turned out.

Locations

While preparing for this film, locations were probably the easiest task to complete.

     For the solitary confinement scene, we filmed inside a racquet ball court at Arlington Park. The only problem with this location was that people liked to graffiti the inside which was painted over with different shades of white. While filming, we had to use only certain parts of the room in order for the background to look more like solitary confinement.

     For where the murder takes place, I had to ask a friend of my parent's they would be willing to allow us to film in the mother-in-law suite. The reason why I thought this location would be best was because the house wasn't updated. I felt that an old fashioned house would fit the main character's background better than a rich-looking, updated house.

     The police scene occurred at an actual police station. I had to write a formal letter to the Chief asking for approval of getting help from the police officers in the film. Once we got approved, I showed up at the police station to film everything.
     The last scene is the main actor running through the woods. This actually happened in my backyard where there is a dense forest behind the pond. Filming at this location was difficult. Some parts of the forest had mud so thick that we had to relocate because everyone kept getting stuck in the mud. When we finally found the right spot, we had to pull some vines out of the way so that no one would get injured while running.

 racquet ball court

Midterm Submission

Realizing Revisions are Needed

     After finishing all the footage, I began to start editing it all together. Every scene looked really good except for the solitary confinement scene. The noise was not consistent, the positioning of people was not consistent, and the scene involved too many short takes.


     While trimming footage and editing it all together, I realized that the shots seemed to just jump from this angle to that angle, and it was too hard to keep track of everything going on. The solitary confinement scene was supposed to feel slow, but the quick cuts from this to that made it feel fast-paced. Plus, there is a shot where the officer goes to get the murder weapon. With the way we filmed it, it looks like the officer is just standing next to the prisoner and then, in the next shot, is half way to already getting the knife. It appeared as if there was a jump in time...which is exactly what we don't want.


     I own really nice audio equipment. The sound was much noisier than Cameron and I wanted/expected it to be. While playing around one day with my microphone on my computer with an audio recording system called "Audacity", I found a setting that blocked out background noise and made the audio sound much more professional than how we originally recorded it.


     So, Cameron and I asked the actor who plays the officer and the actor who plays the prisoner if they were both available on January 7th. Both of them said they were available which was perfect. On Saturday, we are going to take longer takes, hook the microphone up to my computer for better audio quality rather than to my camera, and make sure the placement of the actors looks continuous throughout the entire scene rather than looking as if they jumped in time.

Shot list rough draft

Shot list in order 

Solitary confinement  

Slowly pan down main character's suit 

Waist shot of cop playing with stick in his hand and body facing toward main character 

Stops playing with stick in hand and asks "do you know why you're here" 

Up-close shot of mouth and jacket as the main character answers "I have no idea"  

Side two-shot of main character's legs while the officer walks around the chair and says "tell me what you do know"  

Tight Side shot of main character's face answering "look, all I did was walk into my own house. The door was unlocked..."  

Fade to murder scene 

Murder house 

Over-the-shoulder shot of main character's hand sticking his key in an already open door 

Wide-back shot of main character walking into house  

Close-up shot of main character's eyes panickily looking around the room  

Eye-line match of the bloody handprint smeared across the kitchen cabinet 

Slow pan to the dead, bloody body on the floor next to the handprint 

Cut to a two-shot of two other dead, bloody teenagers lying on the floor spread across one another 

Fade to solitary confinement scene 

Solitary confinement  

Close-up shot of main character's face breathing heavily then saying "they're gone" 

Forward-wide-mid-two shot of the waist and below of both the main character as officer walks away/off screen from standing close to the main character while saying "do you know who would want to do this" 

Over-the-shoulder shot of main character's head shaking back and forth as he says "no" and officer is standing in a corner blurred out 

Wide-Full body shot of main character but only mid-shot of officer standing next to main character 

Pulls up the bag to main character's view and says "we found this" 

Have main character tilt his head up as the officer pulls the bag out  

Fades to murder scene 

Murder house 

Point-of-view shot of main character's hands shaking as he picks up the knife 

Fades back to solitary confinement  

Solitary confinement 

Same Wide-Full body shot of main character but only mid-shot of officer as he continues to say "this is what you used"  

Flash back and forth quickly between looking up at girl in murder house and a wide shot of the main character alone in solitary confinement having a seizure like freak-out  

Finally shot will stick on the murder scene when the girl begins to speak  

Murder house 

Point of view mid shot of girl saying "man, that was a heck of a party last night" with knife in corner of shot 

Shot of main character looking directly at the knife (main object of the shot)  

Pans down to knife  

Pans back up to the girl 

Point of view mid shot of girl saying "what are you doing"  

As the camera pans up and is faced towards the girl the camera will go in and out of focus as if he becoming unconscious of what he is doing  

Final shot will be completely blurred as he starts to walk towards the girl 

Sound bridge of girl screaming fading to police scene 

Police scene 

Over-the-shoulder of two police officers sitting in a break room talking and facing a door 

Police officer will rush into room saying prisoner has escaped 

Jump-cut to police cars rushing out of parking garage (wide shot) 

Over-the-shoulder shot of police officer using a radio  

Running scene 

Wide back shot of prisoner running through the woods 

Close-up of feet running in the woods 

Close-up shot of vine where prisoner pushes it out of the way while running 

Mid-shot of prisoner running towards camera