Art of the Title Grid Activity- Evaluation (DYM)

Storyboard for Followed

Summarise your film idea. Provide a brief synopsis and outline what happens in your film opening.

'Followed' is a thriller movie about an innocent girl being followed by a villainous character. In the opening, she is on her way to meet a friend while the man follows behind her, getting closer and closer. He is seen placing a gun in his pocket and eventually catching up the girl. The screen goes black and the audience is left to make their own conclusion about what happens to the girl.

What kind of information has been included in your film opening?

In the opening we have introduced the two main characters. A strong representation of character is given for the girl as being innocent and vulnerable. The villain's face is not clearly revealed in the opening, leading to some ambiguity . Nonetheless, this builds up the evil connotations of the character and leads to suspense.
In addition, we have provided two actor names, the director's name and the film title.

How do the titles link to the main film idea?

The font connotes the thriller genre as it is scrawly and scratched creating an eery feeling as well as a sense of panic and rush. The pure white font contrasts the black background to create a sudden impact of horror and fear.

Summarise the expected audience reaction. What should the audience be thinking by the end of your opening? Is your opening clear or ambiguous?

The audience should be wondering:

• why the girl is being followed
• where the girl is going
• who the follower is
• what happens next? ie. does the girl get shot?

I think our opening shows a clear representation of characters but deliberately leaves the ending ambiguous, open for audience predictions.

Identify three things that you included in your grid that are important in the construction of an opening sequence and explain their role in understanding the film.

• We used a close up of the girl's face to provide a strong character representation in order to emphasise her innocence and vulnerability. This enables the audience to instantly establish an opinion on the character. Since the opening is mainly focused on her, the audience gets the impression that she is a main character in the film.
• We used a range of shots and angles in order to keep the narrative clear and interesting. Using longer shots enabled us to give a sense of perspective and setting while the close ups enhanced emotion and character representation.
• We created a mysterious character by not showing too much of the villain, abiding by typical connotations of the thriller genre.

How effective is your project as a film opening? Explain your answer.

Overall, I think our sequence is successful as a film opening. There is a clear establishment of genre and character representation and it is easy for the audience to get a clear idea of the story. The ending creates our desired effect of suspicion and ambiguity.
However, I feel we needed more of an idea of setting. This could've been done through an establishing shot at the beginning. In addition, the ability to control lighting would've enabled us to create a much better sense of genre and allowed for a more interesting film opening.