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.