Phantom of the opera analysis

Part one of ‘Phantom of The Opera’ starts in black and white with little lighting (low key lighting). Within the black and white colours being used it is clear that the black is more prominent.

The lighting is low key, this means that the people and objects are lowly lit. You can see that only half the people’s faces are lit, making a more gloomy and intense feel to the scene. The light that we can see in this scene appears to be coming from above. It is purely natural daylight and coming from the top of the theatre.

Silhouettes are used heavily to add a more mysterious feel. Another technique which was used was to shine light down in rays, which creates a dramatic feel to the scene.

Further on in the scene a chandelier is shown and hoisted up into the air. When this happens light becomes a lot more visible, light is very evident here to add an effect of surprise and shock. The audience would then understand that this is a significant part of the scene.

Colour is then introduced into the scene. A wipe effect is used as colour is slowly brought to life where ever the chandelier passes. The colours introduced are rich colours of red and gold. These are very regal colours and add the effect of the theatre being very grand and bringing it to life.

Light is then visible and not shown in any way to add an intense feel. The light is simply there to light up the theatre and show how it has been brought to focus.

Individual idea/response to the group choice

I was dissapointed at first that the rest of the group did not feel the same as me about the victorian theme idea, as I had high hopes for it and really felt that it would work well and be very inventive. But I knew that the idea would not work if the rest of the group were not on the same page as me about it.
Luckily the second idea that I proposed to the idea they liked and thought would work, we all felt excited about it. I liked my idea of using a 80's theme as I felt that this added more of a edge to our sequence as I find that when I watch horror/thriller movies, I can get bored if its a typical teenager horror or thriller film set in the modern day. So I felt an 80's feel would add more of a funky feel to the sequence and a light hearted feel to the begining of our movie. I did enjoy planning our filming and outfits, I also enjoyed getting into character and filming it as we all had fun and got along and swapped ideas and got our thoughts across clearly. I am sure that the music we have also chosen will go well with our sequence, as I like the song and so does Anna and it gives the sequence a more fun feel.

Week 3 - FILMING

On week 3 we filmed our opening sequence. Anna and I met, and then we both met Catherine, in our costumes. I brought a bag with touch ups for make-up and the camera and other props we would need, we also brought the tripod. When we arrived at the location (A house in New Malden) we all sat down and decided where we would start, which we thought it was right to start the filming at the beginning of the opening sequence that we had planned, this was because the last time we filmed, we started filming from the end of the sequence and then to the beginning, and we wanted to switch things around this time, and this worked well and made more sense. We all worked as a group and knew the ideas we wanted to get across to other people, although we knew initially what we wanted to film, where and at what angle, we did change things slightly during the process and we thought they seemed better, and these worked well too. The dynamics of the group worked well as we all get along and I felt that every idea we each had was thought on and a rational decision was made. After filming each clip we would then look at it to decide if that was what we were happy with, if we were not, we would then shoot that scene again until it was up to our standards of what we wanted to put across to our audience. The filming lasted around an hour or so and we were satisfied at the end of it that we had achieved what we wanted to, and we felt we could do alot with what we had. Personally I was very happy of what we had filmed because I felt that the quality of the filming was great as we had used HD filming, the costumes worked well and the location went well with the story line. I know that we can make something great with this and I hope that all of our efforts show in the editing of the clips.

Week 2 - Planning

On week 2 we had a brainstorm about ideas and finally settled on one. One choice we made was to change the theme more to thriller than horror, this was because the sequence we ended up chosing would be more of a thriller than a horror. I had thought the week before of using a 70's theme of a man being followed home by a jealous ex lover. I told this to the group and we all put in our own ideas and tweaks. From this idea we had all agreed on a story line that we each felt good about and all had our own individual ideas that we would use.

We started to storyboard this idea, we thought about different camera angles we wanted to use. We wrote down a list of props that we would need and arranged a location with our friend Perry, who we had also confirmed with that he would be an actor in our sequence. We also arranged who would play what, where we would film this at our location. We thought about the make-up to use and clothing to achieve our 80's theme. We also thought about what else we would do to make sure our sequence did not look in the modern day, one thing we did was to plan which angle to film from that would not show the TV in the living room as this would give it away as the TV is very living day.

Week 1

One week one after being told of my group with Anna and Catherine I was happy because I like working with these two people and find that it is easy to communicate and get your ideas across very easily.

As I had immedietly thought of the genre of horror I communicated it to the rest of my group and they had both thought about using the genre of horror too. I had had an idea that I thought would work well and that was interesting. I had thought of a victorian theme, set in a abandoned house or something along those lines. Even though the group thought this sounded interesting, they did think it would be quite hard to find the location and the costumes without spending alot. Even though I thought this would be possible with some hard work, it would probrably not be the easiest and most practical idea. We then decided not to use this idea.

Personal response to the brief

When the brief was explained to me I was very excited as I knew that I wanted to do the genre of horror. I watch alot of horror movies and understand what I respond to and find good and interesting in a horror movie.
I started to think about all of the locations and plots we could use. I thought of various locations that could be used and different characters and props. I was happy with this brief as it let you have some freedom to choose what genre and it lets you show what you can do, it also helps you work in groups and make group decisions together as well as putting in your own ideas.