The Hangover - Recreating the Opening Sequence

We were given the task of recreating the first 2 minute opening to the film 'The Hangover'- created by Todd Phillips, shot for shot making it exactly like the original.

The title sequence presents the preparation of a wedding; cake, bride's dress and shots of the chairs being set up for the ceremony and how the bride receives a worrying phone call after being told that her husband-to-be has gone missing after the bachelor party goes horribly wrong.

 After being placed into groups of 6; Me, Martha Rumney, Aimee Shingfield, Hugh Risebourgh, Jordan Giles (Esme for a short time); assigned ourselves roles for the process of the film making.  After we would film our scenes exactly like the original film- it would then undergo the editing process in order for it to have the exact audio, effects and placing the scenes in the right order eg. Sounds of the phone ringing, background music etc.

Click for 'The Hangover' Opening sequence

PLANNING 

In order to proceed with the remaking of the opening sequence- we assigned various roles within our group such as director, producer, camera operator and floor manager.  I was allocated to the role of camera operator which I really enjoyed and was an interesting challenge to undergo.  We decided that the best setting which is most similar to the scenes in the film in order to shoot was Aimee's house.  It is very spacious with suitable décor for the 'wedding preparation' scenes.  For the scenes which we used Chris Fox(to play Phil); we found suitable large fields near Aimee's house which was also very convenient for the shoot.  We all placed our input and worked as a team to help each person with their role's- for example giving tips to Martha and Aimee for their directing roles and I was also helped with my filming role.

 We had to watch the opening sequence of the film many times in order to be able to perfect our shots and to make them identical.  We had organised the props which we were going to use; making a useful  list.  Also we had organised the order of the scenes that needed shooting; creating an annotated story board as a visual aid for the scenes.  We were all set and ready to film.

FILMING 

After we arranged a day in which we were all available for the shoot- I was given advice from my teacher as she explained some of the camera's features in the video shooting mode eg. the manual focus etc. I did some test shots as I experimented with the camera's features.  Firstly; we decided to film the outdoor scenes in the fields as the daylight was soon to be gone.  We placed Chris; our actor who plays 'Phil' accordingly to each shot as the camera angles differ from shot to shot.  As I used the tripod, the camera then had a steady base as we moved it for the shot without the camera shaking as it would if done by hand.  We made sure that the props and actors were placed in the positions exactly like the film- blurring out the background with a focus on the foreground (the truck in the background) with Chris talking on the phone.

Close up shot 

Mid shot

Medium Close up shot from a different angle

Other scene's outdoors such as the chairs being set up (for the 'wedding'), also required many shots of the different angles and we made sure that we were shooting them to the required standard.  For scenes indoors; we used Aimee's parents (our co-director) for the 'parents' in the scene.  We used a camera dolly for some shots where the angles move round as our actress- Darcie Sadd (bride to be) is talking on the phone to Chris (Phil) and to the parents.  We constantly watched the original film opening multiple times to make sure that our camera positioning was accurate for the scenes.  A big problem that we encountered is that the light faded a lot quicker than we expected therefore some shots are a lot darker that others in the scene.  Therefore it was a problem that had to be solved during the editing stages later.  The team worked entirely well together in helping shoot the scenes and setting up the equipment; therefore I am very happy that we managed to finish the filming in short space of time in one evening.  We all worked to the best of our abilities to make sure that the shots were exactly like the original.

 Original scene (above)

Remake opening scene (left)