Post 12.7: Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel that i have learnt alot since we did our priliminary task.

One of the things i have developed on is my use of editing techniques. In particular experimenting with new things that i haven't tried in film before. For example the splitscreens in our opening scene was something that i had never done and were a risk to attempt, compared to my most difficult edit in the priliminary task which was probably the match on action shot, something that came to me very naturally in this piece. Here i feel that the risk paid off and me and my group were very happy at how the came out.

Another thing that i feel that we improved on since our preliminary task was that my camera framing has became alot better. For example in our preliminary task there are a few shots where there was too much head room, or too much unused space in the shot. I feel that i fixed this on a majority of the shots in ours by conforming with framing conventions such as the different sized shots with different ammounts of space.

One other thing that I felt that I had improved since my priliminary task was that i now have a better understanding of using music in a scene. I feel this way because in our preliminary we used a silly sounding fast paced banjo song called Corncob for our opening which was a slow paced light hearted film. This didn't fit in to well, even though it was entertaining, on the otherhand in our opening sequence I found that the piece of music that we chose, named Rising worked very well, even getting compliments on it in our peer group evaluation.

 

Post 12.6: Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Hardware:

Flip Camera:
When we were filming our group interviews and commentaries we chose to use this. We used it because it is small, easy to use, quick to upload and high quality.












Sony Camcorder:
This is what we used to film our whole opening sequence. It was quite an old camera and it was starting to show with it being a bit slow and also having to use tape. Luckily though it was very easy to operate and you are able to know the ins and out of the camera after about 10 to 15 minutes.








Software:

  
Blogger:
This is the website where i documented all of my work and research going into the project. I found it quite easy to use although it's not compatible on alot of computers which meant that some time was wasted trying to get the work up.

Google:
I used google for alot of my research into the film industry. For things like getting statistics for my reasearch to grabbing pictures off google images to put into my blog.

Adobe Premier Pro CS3:
This is the software that we had to edit our film with. I have used it in the past so i was already quite familiar with it, although I am used to a newer version so there was a couple of things i had to get used to. This meant that i spent alot of time helping out my group by telling them how to cut, mix and edit along with helping a few others out along the way.

Youtube:
Youtube is the website where i uploaded all of my videos. i chose youtube over other streaming websites, such as Vimeo because youtube was the one i was most use to and the one i use every day.

Post 12.5: Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

To address our target audience we used several tactics. The first one was that we wanted to keep the mise-en-scene exciting throughout. To accomplish this we used prop guns of all shapes and sizes. This was good because it would have appealed to the teenagers of our target audience, who play video games and become enthused at the idea of a film featuring lots of different guns. This also applies to the setting and costuming as well because they are both places and clothes that most people can identify with and see on a daily basis.

Another thing that we did so that we could attract an audience was that we created a story around a fantastic, but based in real life character that people can aspire to be. For most boys, growing up and watching James Bond made them wish that they could be just like him, with the gadgets, the fast cars and the women. We wanted to get across a similar vibe whilst at the same time giving him something to fight for with his detachment from his daughter. This also aims towards the older members of our audience who maybe have children of their own and can therefore sympathise a lot better with Carlson. 

When we came to doing our audience feedback we chose to pick 4 17 to 18 year old males (our primary demographic) and one 18 year old girl who we were interested on her reaction from the film because she wasn't the target audience. They all seemed to overall enjoy the opening, including the girl and came across as though they would put down money on a similar product.

When it comes down to choosing a target BBFC rating the optimal one would probably be 15 and over. This is because our primary demographic of 16 to 25 year olds would be more drawn to it as its not too light or heavy on adult content. However we could also aim towards a 12a rating if we wanted to open it up to a larger audience and cut down on the adult content, or on the other hand aim for an 18 rating and go full on with the adult content whilst possibly restricting the audience.

Though on the whole i feel that 15 is probably the best for Dispatch.

Post 12.4: Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

 What we really want is to bring together our fragmented audience so we can reach the maximum amount of people, while still staying within the conventions of a thriller. 

The harder audience we found was the female side. We reached out to them by using the love story between Carlson and the struggle to find his daughter. However the film is likely to appeal mainly to males, as it throws our audience through an adrenalin fuelled roller coaster. 

With a male dominated audience we expect our film to do well in the box office however the film may be damaged by the lack of female themes, on the other hand our film can be successful if it becomes known as a "date movie". Our film is primarily aimed at young adults aged 16 to 24, who are seen to be the main cinema going demographic.

Another audience that would be beneficial for us to appeal to is the modern day console gamer. They would be a good audience to generate interest with because they are into high adrenaline and fast paced games such as the Call of Duty and Battlefield games which sell in millions and send gamers on a massive thrill ride. This is something that we would be attempting to emulate in our film and also something that I think we sucessfully started to delve into and explore in our opening sequence, with the fast editing and exciting music.

If our film went into full length production we would also market it through social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. As technology develops our generation follows social networking in a very active way, which makes it a great tool to connect with the younger audience we wish to attract.

To conclude our film is targeted towards the male audience however we want to use the males to pull in as much of a female audience as possible.

Post 12.3: Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The production company have a vital role when it comes to making films. For example they are generally responsible for providing the funds for making the film and actually producing the film. Their role is to create the idea of the film, shoot all the footage and then edit the footage to create the finished film. The companies however, do usually have people in the crew who will specialise and help in things like writing the script and editing the footage together. They will then usually pass over to a distribution company to to advertise and promote the finished film.

There are many different ways in which production companies raise the funds for creating and making a film. One way is that there are a number of charities which help to fund the production stage of new films eg the National Lottery has a branch which does this in Britain. Also there is the option of gaining independent investors along with companies who may be interested in product placement within the film thus getting their brand out there and known for a wider audience. This is called cross promotion and it is where 2 or more companies come together to promote each other, for example in The Green Lantern they teamed up with Mountain Dew in the USA to make it the drink of the film. As well as these two options there is the option that once the film has been finished you can take it and screen it at different film festivals, which could help to raise more funds.

If I was looking for a distribution company to distriute our film Dispatch I think would choose Universal pictures. I would choose them because they are well known within the Thriller genre into which our films falls. Also they have a wide range of connections with different companies which could help increase our advertising and allow our film to reach a much wider, possibly even global audience. Over time they have converged with other big companies which would also help reach a wider audiences. 

A couple of examples of films distributed by Universal are the Bourne films and also Smoking Aces.

Post 12.2: Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our opening mainly presents people of two classes, a higher educated class represented by Carlson and a Lower, more violent underclass represented by the terrorists.


Carlson:

We wanted to present Carlson as an upstanding member of society. This is why we chose to have him wearing smart business clothes and in a house.
We also wanted show that he is an intellectual man so we chose to go with the stereo type of smart man wearing glasses.


He differs from the terrorists because the film shows that he has a job, with him getting ready to go out to work in the morning.
 
Because he is a MI6 agent we took inspiration on his character from films like James Bond and The Bourne series but also the TV show 24.






The Terrorists:

Group of IRA members

For the terrorists we chose to go for more of an IRA inspired approach as opposed to a more modern Al-Qaeda view. We chose this because we were limited by the actors we had and also so that people would not be offended by accidental racial stereotyping.

We wanted to present our group as members of a downtrodden underclass. To try and get this across we asked them to wear mainly black clothing and we also gave one of our characters a balaclava to fit the mise-en-scene of the stereotypical terrorist costume. We also had their scene take place in an abandoned garage to show that they were materially deprived.
Another way that we wanted to present our terrorists was that we wanted them to look organised as well as violent. This is primarily for the plot as we wanted them to actually pose a threat to a highly trained MI6 agent. In order to make this threat apparent we gave them a selection of prop guns to use in the scenes.


One part in our opening that juxtaposes the 2 groups is the split screen shot with Carlson and one of the terrorists doing up their shoelaces. Here we see one nice dress shoe on a nice checkered floor, where as in the other shot we see a haggard old boot being done up on a rough concrete floor outside. This shot shows the far contrast between the 2 groups and their living situation.

Post 12.1: Question 1

In this video we sat down and talked about our experiances of making our opening sequence, what went well, what could have gone better, what we learnt and what we could have done to make the film better.

http://youtu.be/UuzDH7aYoEs

Post 12a: Evaluation - Audience Feedback

After we completed our film we wanted to know what some viewers thought worked and didn't work. To see this we took a group mostly made up of our target audience and showed them our finished piece and asked them to give us feed back on what the liked and didn't like.

http://youtu.be/AgKYQcO2WsY

Post 11: Final Opening Sequence

http://youtu.be/yUhyqbyCt1M

Post 10: Post-Production

After we finished our filming we then had to edit our opening sequence together. We started off with capturing the footage that we had recorded. It was here we had a problem, due to time and hardware constraints we chose to go against using a logging rush to capture our footage off the camera. Instead of just capturing the scenes we needed we went and captured all of the footage on the camera. This ended up aiding us rather than hindering us because it meant that we had more footage to play around with, thus giving the sequence more pollish in the long run.

The next thing we had to do after this was cut down the scenes to the individual shots. This is so that we can put it into the correct order and cut them down so that they're well paced. To do this I used the razor tool, selecting it with either C or by clicking on the razor icon. After we separated them we then got them all in order and placed them over 2 channels. This was so that if we accidental crossover shots they wouldn't be cut down.

The next challenge we faced was creating the split screen shots. To get this effect I started off by layering the 2 videos on top of each other so that they were running at the same time. I then clicked on the picture that was on top and went over to the effect controls of the video and selected the motion option. From here I then selected scale and lowered it to 50%, I then went to the position controls and placed it so that it was in the corner of the frame. To set the other picture I did the same but just moved it to the other corner of the frame.

One problem that we uncounted during editing was that for some of the shots inside the garage the lighting was very dim, to the point where you couldn't make out the actors faces. To get around this we used a combination of lighting effects and colour correction. We started off by using colour correction to brighten the picture up a bit. To do this we went to Video Effects>Colour Correction>Brightness and Contrast and then dragged the effect onto the video that we wanted to change. To change the brightness we then had to go into the video effects and play around with the numbers until the video looks better than it did before. The second thing we did was use a lighting effect to shed more artificial light in the scene. This was done in a very similar way to the brightness and contrast effect.

When we were done we then had to export the video as an AVI file so it could be uploaded to Youtube. To do this i simply went to File then Export, chose the file destination and then waited for it to finish.

Post 9: Production

Whilst we were making our opening we had a couple of problems. We started off with filming the scenes with Carlson leaving for work. The very first problem that came up was that we were missing a prop, it being the suitcase that Carlson is supposed to put his documents in. Here we realised that we were in fact missing it and that we hadn't checked before hoof to see if any one actually owns one. This meant that we ended up going for a laptop bag which whilst working, it didn't have the same effect as the leather briefcase would have done with the number combination clasp that is conventional in spy thrillers. From this we learnt that it is very important to have all props accounted for before we start filming as it can lead to time being wasted during the time we are supposed to be filming.

Another problem that we came across later on was that when we came to film the terrorist scenes, we had misplaced our script somewhere along the way. This meant that we weren't able to shoot the dialogue scenes that day, when we wanted to get it all filmed at once.
To get around this we organised the same ponies to come back a week later so that we could re-write our original script and film the missing scenes. Here we encountered another problem because we had to compromise our original storyboard and miss the last couple shots due to us not being able to get hold of a van or even a car in such short notice. This meant that we also had to change parts of our original script in which they would talk about how they had changed the plates and how it was parked outside. Instead of using these lines we chose to not mention any vehicle and instead leave it open. I feel that this did work but at the same time it would have added to the mise-en-scene to have a van or at least a car in some of these shots.


One other problem that we encountered when we were filming inside the garage was that it didn't have any power outlets, this meant that we couldn't use any artificial lighting. Having artificial lighting inside the garage, especially towards the back would have been very useful because our shots were all very dark meaning that we would have to try to enhance them in post production, making them look less natural than they otherwise would and also possibly compromising the video quality.

One thing that went well with our filming was that we didn't have to retake many shots. There was a couple mistakes such as Joel (The terrorist wearing the balaclava) dropping the guns magazine and also a couple of framing mistakes here and there but over all we didn't have too much excess footage that we have to sift through. This means that we are able to save a lot of time when it comes to editing because we wont have to choose which shots are better than others and edit the wrong shots out.

Overall i feel that while we did have a few problems and revisions but i feel that we dealt with them successfully and still got what we needed to a good level of quality and polish.

Post 8: Pre-Production Documentation

Full Plot Synopsis: Agent Carlson is getting ready for an interrogation into a recent mission uncovering the true intent of a higher up member of MI6; agent Darwin. At the same time a squad of terrorists are getting ready to kidnap Carlson and his daughter.

They get them away successfully and take them to a secure location.

Months earlier, Carlson was on an assassination mission in Iran were he was ordered to kill a high valued target. Through a misunderstanding with his head agent, Darwin, he killed the wrong pony without knowing and got home to find out that he had been punished for failing the mission, although he thought he carried it out successfully. This led to him getting demoted to a desk job.

In the terrorist’s captivity, Carlson starts planning his escape whilst the terrorists confirm that they have captured him and his daughter, they then realise that they have been double crossed by not being paid for kidnapping Carlson so that he couldn’t get to the interrogation. This makes the terrorists feel a vendetta towards the agent that hired them, Darwin. Instead of keeping Carlson in their captivity they choose to get onto MI6 and get a ransom for agent Carlson. Carlson escapes and frees his daughter leaving on his way to MI6.

While the terrorists start coming to terms with MI6 one of them realise that they have escaped, leading the terrorists to panic and choosing to go after them. On his way Carlson finds a payphone and he contacts Darwin asking to meet in a private area, Darwin agrees and then Carlson and his daughter turn up at MI6, rushing up to the head office, knowing that Darwin isn’t in the building.

Carlson gets up to the head office and sees the Director looking confused about why he is in such a rush. Carlson tells him about the whole affair, telling him about Iran and what has just happened to him and about how Darwin is working against the MI6. After some thought the Director believes him and they send out a task force to track him down.

Darwin arrives at the private location, confused that Carlson isn’t already there, shortly after the terrorist group also arrives, confused as well because they were expecting to find Carlson after following him on the run. During a confrontation the terrorists find out that it is Darwin that’s in front of them and they kill him in revenge for double crossing them. As they escape the task force that was set out to track down Darwin sees them escaping and manages to arrest them.

Opening Sequence Outline: Agent Carlson is getting ready for work at his job in MI6, feeling sad that he cant be with his daughter, at the same time a group of freelance terrorists are getting ready to kidnap him because they have been hired to by an anoymous source. The 2 scenes cut between eachother at different paces, with the terrorists having a fast and intence feeling, against Carlson who is relaxed and lethargic.

Risk Assessment:

 
Crew List:
Hugo King-Irwin: Camera Operator, Terrorist and Director
John Brookes: Camera Operator, Terrorist and Assistant Director
Max Halcomb: Camera Operator, Agent Carlson and Writer
Conor Westlake: Camera Operator, Producer and Co-Writer

Storyboard:

Pre-Production Report:

Our idea is to do a Thriller aimed at the target audience of young adult males. We had to do a number of different drafts of the script, so that it was more thrilling, engaging and so that it had a solid conclusion. One problem that we have encountered is that our cast is going to be somewhat younger than the ones that are presented in the script. We will try our best to solve this problem by casting people who look and sound a lot older than they actually are; we are also able to manipulate their appearance by using makeup and lighting to our advantage.

Another thing that we have found during our preproduction is to use lots of shots. This will benefit our piece because it will give it a good sense of pacing, something that we have found to be very important in the openings of thrillers. We have listed our shots in the shot list and illustrated them as well in our storyboard. This is so that we have something that we can easily refer to whilst we are filming.

Post 7: Focus Group

http://youtu.be/teCDFdWjW3w

For our focus group i went for 4 17 to 18 year old boys, who fall in our primary demographic. Over all i feel that our small focus group made up of our target audience all agreed that it was something that they would be interested in watching and paying bits for. This means that if it looks good for these members of our demographic it will probably look good for many other members of my target audience.

Post 6: History of Chosen Genre

Crime and Gangster Films are developed around the sinister actions of criminals or gangsters, particularly bank robbers, underworld figures, or ruthless hoodlums who operate outside the law, stealing and violently murdering their way through life. Criminal and gangster films are often categorized as post-war, film noir or detective-mystery films, because of underlying similarities between these cinematic forms.

Some iconic crime thrillers:

Scarface (1932): One of the earliest crime films to deal with the subject of a man’s rise and fall from the top. Widely received upon its release and still regarded as a masterpiece it led to the 1983 film of the same name, which in turn was also highly successful.

The Maltese Falcon (1941): One of the first and most successful book adaptations of a crime novel, it was nominated for 3 Oscars and is number 109 in the IMDB top 250 today. It is also still reference even today I TV, Films and also Videogames.

The Night of the Hunter (1955): A very successful film that showed a darker and more serious side to the crime thriller with it focusing on manipulation and subterfuge rather than straight up violence. To this day it is still seen as an iconic piece of cinema with it being number 190 on IMDBs top 250.

 Bonnie and Clyde (1967): One of the first films to show bloody violence in colour, it showed that women can also be seen as violent figures. It won 2 Oscars and is still seen as a defining cult film for its genre as well as others.

The Warriors (1979): One of the most successful cult films of all time with a huge following, it showed a stylised and glamorized depiction of 80s gang culture along the east coast whilst depicting violence against both police and other gangs.

The Untouchables (1987): A remake of a 1959 film of the same name, is has become one of the most iconic films surrounding the fall of Al Capone in the 1920s, with an all star cast and acclaimed director Brian De Palmer it went on to become very successful and win an Oscar.

Heat (1995): A highly successful film about robberies and organised crime it had an ensemble cast including Val Kilmer, Al Pacino and Robert Di Nero. The film is well renowned for being incredibly action packed and having phenomenal shoot outs.

Task 5a - Macro/Micro Analysis of an Opening Sequence from Your Genre

“The Green Mile” directed by Frank Darabont is based in modern day and 1930's Louisiana during the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a time that had devastating effects in virtually every country in the world, rich and poor. During this time entire crops failed due to the the farmers not being able to keep their crop nourished, rich and successful people were living on the street in complete poverty and people all around the USA were going on journeys looking for work anywhere in the country (as seen in “Of Mice And Men”). The film got very high critical acclaim when it came out with 13 awards and 23 nominations. Now 10 years on it is still very much recognised as an excellent film with it being number 83 on IMDB's top 250 films list, between “Once Upon a Time in America” and “Amadeus”.

From the very second that the film starts we can hear very tranquil music. This is used to set the scene of a very open area. It does this by slowly entering the film with the picture then fading in also, it helps set the scene of vast open fields and marshland by echoing with what is happening on screen. Another thing that this music does is contradict with what is happening on screen. It does this by letting the viewer hear a very chilled out and relaxing piece of non-diegetic music whilst being accompanied with a large group of men with pitchforks, guns and sniffer dogs trying to find a man who has murdered two small girls. This is called contrapuntal sound, it is where what is being shown conflicts with what is being heard. The reason why they would have done this is to give the viewer a sense of mystery as to what is going on (at this point the audience wouldn't have known that they were looking for a killer), and therefore keep them interested in what is going to happen, the way that the contrapuntal music has this effect is because it also distorts the other sounds as well, such as the the dogs barking and the stallion shouting for his two daughters, Katie and Cora.

After this very small introduction it fades to black revealing the title card. The title card reveals the name of the film in a smart white on black style that a lot of films also do. The reason as to why it's white on black rather than black on white is to show the tone of the film. For example the film is about death and prison meaning that it isn't going to be very positive and happy. This is why black would be used as the primary colour because the colour black is used to symbolise darkness, darkness being a common fear in children and therefore it subconsciously brings up memories of those childhood fears. This is also reflected with in the film, where John Coffey asks “Do you leave the light on after bed time?”.

After the title card fades to black again you hear some mysterious words uttered and then it jump cuts to the protagonist Paul Edgecomb in the modern day with a big close up if his eyes jerking open from his sleep. This shows tension because of how frantically and suddenly his eyes open. The ambient music stops right before the words are muttered and then the audience is greeted with a very fast cut to his eyes, this makes the audience know that there is a change in tone because they are no longer hearing the music. The reason why I think that Darabont chose to do this is to show that Paul Edgecomb is a character that has picked up a lot of haunting memories from the past, therefore giving him a deeper back story along with a stronger connection with the audience.

The film then continues to show Paul Edgecomb go about his morning routine in the old peoples home in which he lives. The reason why we see him do these mundane things is to show that he is a character that the audience can relate to and that by seeing him do these things that most ponies would do brings them closer to the character. The reason for this is to show us that although he has experienced a frightening past he is also a normal human being.

After he washes his face and combs his hair he walks out into the hall of the old peoples home where some non-diegetic classical music is playing, and where he greets a couple of other inhabitants of the old foalks home. The classical music is used to show that they are old and that it's the music of their generation. The reason why the director made him greet people when he was walking down the hall was so that he would be more likeable by the audience and seem like a loving and kind character.

Task 5: Title Timeline

I watched the opening of Se7en, and took note of the time stamps from where certain audio and visual ques took place, but most importantly i was looking for where the credits came in and in what order.

This is useful because it shows us good points in the opening where to put our titles and in what order, it also shows us that we should include important genre conventions, alot like what Se7en did.

Post 4b: Narrative/Character Research

Dispatch – Carlson character research.

Carlson is a Mi6 agent as I researching mi6 agents threw the internet I was confronted with page upon page of mi6 agents following the James bond look. A very clean cut man with a suit and tie. Also very well built. Seeing as there is so much information on mi6 agents looking like this it will be hard to create something different.  However seeing that Carlson is more of a darker character therefore depicts him having a bit of a shadier look.

Life as a MI6 agent is obviously a very hard and lonely job. In October 2007 Alexander Litvinenko ( a ex Russian spy) was poisoned and died 3 weeks later.  Litvinenko was rumoured to have been trying to persuade ex Russian spy’s to sell secrets to mi6. The whole event was publicised massively however nobody knows fully what went on even 5 years later. This story has made me think about how we want our story to develop rather then Carlson being taking by force they will have to do something cleverer then just using guns in the day light.

Of what I can find on the internet a typical mi6 agent will be making at least 16k a year at the low end of the scale. Therefore I want to depict Carlson to have an image of a typical everyday worker. But of course we know that he is a mi6 agent.

As we know Carlson has served over 4 years in the English army in Afghanistan.  In a risk assessment taken 3 months ago Mi6 and SiS are still in a tier one risk in a national security risk assessment.  With Al Qaeda still marinating the main threat, meaning it would be hard for them to operate in England; therefore our terrorist group will most likely not be Al Qaeda or the Taliban.  However Carlson would have gained experience from fighting in Afghanistan near Helmand province.
 

Carlson would have learnt this from an early stage.

• Prevent- to stop people becoming terrorist or supporting violent extremism
• Pursue- to stop terrorist attacks
• Protect- strengthen our protection against terrorist attack
• Prepare- where an attack cannot be stopped

Post 4a: Plot Development

Dispatch

Genre: Spy Thriller

Target Audience: Males aged 15 to 40 who enjoy spy thrillers such as the Bourne films and James Bond
Logline: MI6 agent and his daughter are betrayed and kidnapped; he sets out on a journey to seek redemption

Full Plot Synopsis: Agent Carlson is getting ready for an interrogation into a recent mission uncovering the true intent of a higher up member of MI6; agent Darwin. At the same time a squad of terrorists are getting ready to kidnap Carlson and his daughter.

They get them away successfully and take them to a secure location.

Months earlier, Carlson was on an assassination mission in Iran were he was ordered to kill a high valued target. Through a misunderstanding with his head agent, Darwin, he killed the wrong pony without knowing and got home to find out that he had been punished for failing the mission, although he thought he carried it out successfully. This led to him getting demoted to a desk job.

In the terrorist’s captivity, Carlson starts planning his escape whilst the terrorists confirm that they have captured him and his daughter, they then realise that they have been double crossed by not being paid for kidnapping Carlson so that he couldn’t get to the interrogation. This makes the terrorists feel a vendetta towards the agent that hired them, Darwin. Instead of keeping Carlson in their captivity they choose to get onto MI6 and get a ransom for agent Carlson. Carlson escapes and frees his daughter leaving on his way to MI6.

While the terrorists start coming to terms with MI6 one of them realise that they have escaped, leading the terrorists to panic and choosing to go after them. On his way Carlson finds a payphone and he contacts Darwin asking to meet in a private area, Darwin agrees and then Carlson and his daughter turn up at MI6, rushing up to the head office, knowing that Darwin isn’t in the building.

Carlson gets up to the head office and sees the Director looking confused about why he is in such a rush. Carlson tells him about the whole affair, telling him about Iran and what has just happened to him and about how Darwin is working against the MI6. After some thought the Director believes him and they send out a task force to track him down.

Darwin arrives at the private location, confused that Carlson isn’t already there, shortly after the terrorist group also arrives, confused as well because they were expecting to find Carlson after following him on the run. During a confrontation the terrorists find out that it is Darwin that’s in front of them and they kill him in revenge for double crossing them. As they escape the task force that was set out to track down Darwin sees them escaping and manages to arrest them.

Opening Sequence Outline: Agent Carlson is getting ready for work at his job in MI6, feeling sad that he cant be with his daughter, at the same time a group of freelance terrorists are getting ready to kidnap him because they have been hired to by an anoymous source. The 2 scenes cut between eachother at different paces, with the terrorists having a fast and intence feeling, against Carlson who is relaxed and lethargic.

Task 4: Group Meeting

When we formed the group the first thing we did was sit around a table and discuss the plot of the film together, we all agreed with some points and all equally made decisions. Another thing we did was come up with a genre of the film that we wanted to choose, we all agreed with the chosen genre and gave some great idea's towards what was going to be happening. We decided that a thriller featuring a MI6 agent would be the most appropriate for our group, we all agreed with the idea of this and did not exclude any opinions from members of the group.

After the genre of our film was chosen we then moved on to the plot of the film. Many idea's came up but we had to stick to our chosen genre which was 'thriller', we come up with many idea's that did not relate to the genre so we had to make it suit the specific genre chosen. We started plotting the film by giving a few idea's each of what we thought would be a good idea to suit us and our genre. Some of the idea's that were said by our group members were un-realistic so we had to stick to a certain standard of film that did not involve any special effect e.g explosives, ghosts or effects that would be used by film professionals. We wrote the plot of the film down on the computer and saved our work, we come up with the cast of the film, where the film was going to be based and what the film was going to be based on. A member in our group named John thought that it would be a great idea to base the film on a MI6 agent, all of our members in our group agreed with John and the plot started from there. We then got idea's from other thriller based films and got a idea of what was going to be needed to complete our film. We stuck to a simple structure then noted down where the films was going to be based, what would be needed for our film and the story line for our film.

Post 3a: Further Look At Opening Sequences

In order to get a better idea of what I can do for my opening scene I had a look around for some other opening sequences in order to develop my understanding of what works and what doesn't when I'm producing my scene.

The first film i looked at was The Bourne Identity (watched on a DVD due to there not being an opening on youtube).

The Bourne Identity is a spy thriller with a similar tone as the one we are looking to make. One thing that it does very well is that it establishes the film with mystery and does this by using a wide shot of Jason Bourne floating still in the stormy sea. This creates mystery by having him unrecognisable so that the audience ask themselves, who is that? and how did he get there?

Another technique they use in the opening scene is by having the weather as very stormy and dangerous. This is used as a pathetic fallacy by having the weather reflect on the events on screen whilst also setting the tone of the scene and the rest of the film.
During this scene they also use silhouettes to increase the mysterious tone of the film. It has this effect by showing that there is ponies there but by only showing their outline it leads ponies to wonder about whats happening.
Through out the scene it mainly uses diegetic sound but when he is pulled out of the boat an intense film score starts up, thus showing us how important the character of Jason is.
One genre convention that is used in this scene is the use of close ups and extreme close ups when the boats crewman is operating on Jason Bourne. This is used as a genre convention because it adds supence by not showing the peoples faces, therefore adding further mystery.



Another opening i looked at is the opening of Se7en (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY). Se7en is a psychological thriller with a slightly darker tone than what we are looking for but it will be a good one for us to look at because of the acclaim it received.
One genre convention that the opening uses from the start is the close up. Here it is used to hide the killers face in order to add a depth of mystery as to whom the killer is.
A technique that the opening uses is a scratched hoof made font. This is in order to set the tone of the film as a grimy and gritty serial killer thriller.
The soundtrack in the opening also reflects on the tone of the film with it being a low experimental industrial soundtrack with no dialogue until the very end,it reflects on the grimy and violent tone of the film.


Another thing that i looked at in order to get a better perspective on what to do for our piece is watch a thriller opening made by another 6th form group. For this i chose Creeping Shadows, an opening to another psychological thriller (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0JQNvICD4U).
The first thing i noticed about this is that it appeared to take influence from Se7en, i saw this from the close ups of the mysterious objects and also the soundtrack that they chose.
One problem that i saw was that in the opening few shots of the makes there want much diversity in shots or content. whilst they did use multiple shots they were all close ups, with the lighting appearing to change very slightly all on the same object over and over again. This is something that we should avoid if we want to use close ups because it has the potential to bore the viewer.
Another techniques that i feel it falls shot on is the font, i feel this way because whilst it does work i feel that there are fonts that could have worked bettor for the kind of film that they were creating, for example i would have used something along the lines of http://www.dafont.com/sf-gushing-meadow.font as this would have fit the horror/thriller vibe a lot better.
One other part that lets the sequence down is that the diegetic audio is very poor quality, this leads to it being hard to hear characters and to get immersed into whats going on. One way they could have fixed this is by using Foley and re-dubbing the audio.
One part where i think the film succeeded was with the horror/thriller genre convention of the voyeuristic camera, and the idea that the camera is looking in on whats going on from the outside.
I also felt that it got the pacing and suspense down very well with the use of multiple shots and short cuts, towards the end with the longer black picture with the heartbeat in the background worked very well to create a sense of foreboding mystery.

Post 3: Research into Opening Sequence Designs

One piece of information that i found useful when i was researching designs of opening sequences was a 2 part interview with Kyle Cooper, the creator of the title sequence for the 1995 American crime film Se7en, a piece of work which received large critical acclaim and inspired a number of younger designers.
Kyle Cooper Interview (Part 1)
Kyle Cooper Interview (Part 2)


What i learnt form the interview:

• A good opening sequence dovetails seamlessly into the film
• It sets an expectation for the audience
• It should let every one watching forget about everything else and get them excited for whats about to happen
• Font and typography can help set the tone and theme of a film
• It doesn't need to have big special effects to make it good
• You get more freedom with digital images
• It can reflect on the characters in the film
• The opening can be used to set a back story for the film

With this in mind when we come to shooting our opening sequence i think that we will settle on shooting real images rather than having them rendered using another program. This is to not only set the tone of a gritty real life thriller but also to save a lot of time rendering, modelling and animating.
Another thing that I got from the interview is that we should try and keep a sense of intrigue in order to make the audience more excited about the rest of the film. One thing that we must keep in mind when creating our opening sequence, is not to give away the plot, in order to make it entertaining and also mysterious we will have to be very careful not to cross the line with the story and give away the majority of the plot in the first 5 minuets.