A deep voiced narrator introduces Earth. It shows single celled life, then to a drop of water. No one would’ve guessed humanity would’ve progressed this far. It cuts to shots of modern day civilization. The narrator says that no one would believe that our world was being watched. As people concerned themselves with their own problems, something out there was watching us. Like how we would watch other organisms under a microscope. Vast, cool, and unsympathetic regarded our planet with envious eyes. They slowly drew their plans against us.

2.     What is the genre and who is the target audience for this film?

The genre of this film is a Sci-Fi/Action film. The target audience is men aged 18-35.

3.     Describe the opening credits and title sequences, including any company logos or idents.  When do they appear?  What color/font are they using? How does it "align" with the opening of the film?  Anything else you notice?

All the opening credits and company logos appear very silent. Only a droning eerie sound is played over them. They appear very slowly and drawn out. The colors then go very muted as it transitions into the main opening sequence.

4.     Describe it visually -- a shot  by shot breakdown that includes type of shot/movement, if any.

A shot of microscopic cellular life is shown as it keeps zooming out to different forms of life. It finally zooms out to a water droplet. The water droplet zooms out even more and transitions to a shot of Earth. As the Earth spins, it turns red and transitions into a red traffic light. Panning shots of cities shift to static shots of crowds. Drone shots overhead of large cities plays out. Many static shots of monuments and large crowds fade in and out. They all fade out to a shot of our planet as a light behind Earth slowly illuminates the screen. The movie title is shown from the light.

5.     Describe the sound -- another "sound by sound" of the entire two minutes. 

The sound starts off as a low droning sound. Very eerie. As the opening begins, a deep voiced serious narrator introduces the footage. The music ramps up only a little bit as the opening plays out, getting more suspenseful. The narrator’s tone grows more and more serious and almost warning. The background music ramps up to it’s peak as it shows the title.

6.     Describe how you felt at the end of the two minutes.  Did you want to know more?  What was left hanging, if anything?  What questions do you still have?

I felt very on edge when I was watching the opening. The sound design certainly helped make me feel suspense. It felt like something was about to strike. I wanted to know more and wanted to know what out there was watching and about to strike Earth. I wondered what they looked like, why they wanted to hurt us, etc.

7.     How would you describe the editing style in this clip?  Any particular editing techniques you noticed, or length of shots?  

The editing style is very transition/morph based. It’s almost like a montage of different scenes of cities. They’re in no particular setting or location; just a generalized location of humanity. The shot length was either long and slow pulls out or medium length shots of a city.

8.     How did these first two minutes adhere to conventions?

The first two minutes played to dramatic conventions really well. It had suspenseful and serious music, a serious situation, and had longer shots. The only sci-fi conventions it really played on was introducing life and humanity while introducing a other worldly threat.

9.     How did these first two minutes break with conventions?

The first two minutes broke conventions by presenting humanity very straight. It didn’t show any fictional visuals or introduce aliens or anything upfront. It played up to the idea of it, but never showed it. It was very serious in tone.

10. How did these first two minutes represent social groups or people or issues?  

The first two minutes represented humanity as a whole as a social group. Instead of focusing on different groups of people, it chose to do all of humanity in contrast to the alien threat. It presented the issue of men busying themselves with their own problems while another form of life observed them. It almost represented humans as unknowing and basic creatures that are being observed under a microscope.

11. Why do you think this film was distributed on this particular site?

The film was distributed by Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks. Paramount would handle theatrical and international release while Dreamworks would handle the international home distribution. This was clearly another blockbuster style film in the style of Independence Day. By Spielberg not showing the design of the aliens, it made people wanna go see the film to find out. And they did. The film earned $81 million worldwide and was the fourth highest grossing film of 2005.

For my script, I wanted to consider the representation of the figures I was portraying. I wanted to portray the military personnel accurately and not make them a cartoon of themselves. So, when writing I looked into the real procedures that went into launching a nuclear missile. I roughly outlined what went through launching one and wrote that in my script. I wanted a serious tone to prevail throughout my intro, as many sci fi intros before have done.

Editing:

The piece will be edited much in the style of recent sci fi properties. Low-key lighting, silhouettes, dark colors, and quick editing. I researched into how different movies in the genre were edited. For example, in Shin Godzilla; the camera angles went from inconspicuous to handheld and fast depending on the scene. I wanted that level of controlled chaos. I wanted to ignore the more cheesy aspects of some sci-fi films and try to make this like a real event.

I think straight cuts will work best for each shot. Usually with wipes, fades, etc; they tend to take you out of the film. I don’t think there is enough time to spare for an elaborate transition. I think straight cutting is faster and more immediate for the fast action happening on screen.

For sounds, I mostly want to focus on adding them in later. However, with dialog we filmed all of it on set. We recorded audio on sight to capture how voices would actually sound in that soundscape. For music, I think a stock suspenseful track that is free to use would work very well. The added sounds of alarms, voices, etc. will distract from a heavy distinct soundtrack anyways.

This film’s major issue was the sound. We couldn’t get a great sound quality in terms of dialog, though we did try. I think in the future we will use better microphones and think more about our sound considerations. The pacing of the film was also an issue since it was inconsistent and didn’t shed enough light on certain story elements. However, I think the editing was at least done pretty decently. The effects, while crude at times, served their purpose.