Opening Scenaration - Miss Miller

Within our opening sequence, our narrative was adjusted only once. This was when we put all of our individual ideas together and altered it into one group idea. This final idea consisted of a little girl walking through a forest alone, and whilst she is walking, she experiences several flashbacks. These flashbacks show the audience the happy memories the little girl is reminiscing on, including her and her older sister playing in the forest she is currently in. The story develops through these flashbacks as the audience begin to get a better understanding of the characters and their relationships with one another. In one of the flashbacks, there is an underwater fight scene between the little girl and the killer, this is triggered by the little girl looking into the river she is killed in. Once this flashback has taken place, the little girl comes to the realisation that she is in fact dead, this is portrayed through the iconography of the white rose. There is some confusion and an enigma created as to who the killer is, this is because we wanted our killer to have a hidden identity but at the same time give hints that the killer could be the little girls older sister. We wanted to end our opening sequence on this cliff hanger as the audience are left in shock and are left wondering what the motive could of been and how twisted the killer must have been to commit this murder. We thought by ending the scene on confusion the audience would want to see more and watch the rest of the film to obtain answers which is the main purpose of the opening scene of films, to draw the audience into the film.

 The first shot that we used in our opening sequence was an eye-levelled shot/from the ground shot. This shot was not originally planned to go into our clip but we decided it would be a good way to introduce and place the first of the credits into.The credits used in this shot show the name of the company name 'Dark Productions' in white, the effect for these used is called tracking which we used for the majority of our credits except our title 'Nostalgia'. We used low key lighting in this shot. For the music, a paceful intense piano harmony is played to begin with. A sound also included in this shot is the crunching of leaves beneath her feet. The scenery is in a forest.
(Use screenshot of shot from youtube)
The next shot is a long shot of the little girl walking away from the camera. Here, we again used low key lighting but with some light coming through the trees to make it visible. The credits in this shot display 'A film starring' again in white to make it stand out, with the same 'tracking' effect. The music is the same as in the first shot; the intense piano which is used in most of the parts where the little girl is walking through the forest with the crunching sound of the leaves as well. The little girl is wearing a pink dress as she is throughout the rest of the opening scene.
(Screenshot)
A mid shot and panning of the little girl is then used with dim lighting and the same music as used previously. The credits displayed here show the name of a main actor 'Yasmin Bhatti'. This then goes on to a point of view shot of the little girl looking at a tree, whilst zooming into the tree the music gets more intense and deeper, around the tree are dark shadows to emphasise its significance. The lighting therefore appears darker than the previous shots. 
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A shot of the same tree is then shown but this time the lighting is alot brighter and the image is blurry to show that it is a flashback. The characters in this shot are both the little girl and her older sister playing around the tree in a happy memory. here, the main sound is the diagetic sound of laughter, whilst the main piano sound has been turned down for this particular shot. They are both in casual clothing and here the little girl is wearing a pink scarf which is going to go on to be the main iconography in the clip. The credits here display my name, one of the main actors, 'Ayesha Bhatti', we put my name here as this is when I first appear in the clip, this again is in the effect 'tracking' and in bold white.
(Screenshot) 
Another longshot is then faded into the clip showing the little girl walking in her pink dress with dim lighting, with the main music of the piano turned back up, but also still hearing the crunching of the leaves beneath her feet.This then goes into a side panning midshot of the little girl walking past the pink scarf on the tree with the same music which then changes for the next shot when the music gets sharper and the beat gets deeper. The music changes as there is an over the shoulder shot whilst zooming into the scarf. Around the scarf there are dark shadows, the same used when zooming into the tree in a previous shot and the lighting has also been darkened here to reflect the dark music. The credits here display 'Director of photography by'.
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After this, it then goes into a flashback the little girl is experiencing of the older sister putting the scarf of the little girl. Here, the lighting is bright due to it being a flashback and the sides are blurred out to enhance the change from reality to the flashback. The little girl and her sister shown are in casual clothing with the use of the scarf as iconography. The scenery again is in a forest. The music used is of the main track played throughout most of the clip - the intense dramatic piano, however, due to it being a flashback the volume is lowered to focus on the deeper sound added in. There are no credits displayed in this particular shot.
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The next shot is of the little girl walking up to the camera with the main sound being the crunching leaves but also the continuous piano subtly playing in the background. The lighting has been dimmed and she is wearing her pink dress. Here, the credits shown display 'Deanna Mathers' following the previous credit saying 'Director of photography by' this is in white with the tracking effect. After this, the little girl then stops, and it zooms into a close-up of her emotionless face with the same music and dim lighting.
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This then fades into a quick high shot of the back of the little girl kneeling by the river. The lighting is dim and the music is the same piano. However, this soon changes when the sound turns into heavy breathing and running and the lighting is completely black due to it being a blackout, after these sounds are played through for a few seconds we then introduced a sound of a little girl screaming leading to the sound of a splash. As this shot was completely black we thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce our film title 'Nostalgia' as this would bring more attention and focus to it. Unlike the rest of our credits in our clip being all white and in the 'tracking' effect, the title is white with a red glow and is in the effect 'glow'.
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Following the last sound heard which was the splash, the next shot was underwater. Here, we see the little girl in her pink dress getting strangled and drowned by her killer wearing a long sleeve black top. The sound of the piano is turned back on to pick up the pace and intensity. The lighting is dim and we changed the coloring of the swimming pool to more brown-green to make it appear more like a river. Due to it being underwater, we decided to put the credits saying 'Director of Underwater Photography', back to the same effect of 'tracking' in white.
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