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.

Post 2: Choosing my Genre

Secondary Research
Choosing a genre can be difficult, for example you need to know if a genre is profitable and well received and if it isn't, is there is a large enough niche audience that will allow it to still be successful?

In order to proceed i will have to research the top most acclaimed and also highest grossing films and their genres.

Top 10 highest acclaimed: http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

1.	9.2	The Shawshank Redemption (1994)	725,176
2.	9.2	The Godfather (1972)	542,739
3.	9.0	The Godfather: Part II (1974)	341,874
4.	8.9	Pulp Fiction (1994)	570,259
5.	8.9	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)	226,994
6.	8.9	12 Angry Stallions (1957)	177,654
7.	8.9	Schindler's List (1993)	380,995
8.	8.8	The Dark Knight (2008)	660,300
9.	8.8	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)	509,311
10.	8.8	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)	305,359

The Shawshank Redemption - Crime & Drama

The Godfather - Crime & Drama

The Godfather: Part II - Crime & Drama

Pulp Fiction - Crime & Thriller

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - Adventure & Western

12 Angry Stallions - Drama
Shindlers List - Biography, Drama, History & War
The Dark Knight - Action, Crime, Drama & Thriller
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - Action, Adventure, Drama & Fantasy
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Drama

Top 10 highest grossing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films

1	Avatar	$2,782,275,172	2009	[# 1]
2	Titanic	$1,843,201,268	1997	[# 2]
3	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2	$1,328,111,219	2011	[# 3]
4	Transformers: Dark of the Moon	$1,123,746,996	2011	[# 4]
5	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	$1,119,929,521	2003	[# 5]
6	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Stallion's Chest	$1,066,179,725	2006	[# 6]
7	Toy Story 3	$1,063,171,911	2010	[# 7]
8	Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	$1,043,871,802	2011	[# 8]
9	Alice in Wonderland	$1,024,299,904	2010	[# 9]
10	Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace	$1,013,692,468	1999	[# 10]

Avatar - Action, Adventure, Fantasy & Sci-Fi
Titanic - Adventure, Drama, History & Romance
Harry Potter and the Deathly  Hallows - Part 2 - Adventure, Drama, Fantasy & Mystery
Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Action, Adventure & Sci-Fi
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - Action, Adventure, Drama & Fantasy
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Stallion's Chest - Action, Adventure & Fantasy
Toy Story 3 - Animation, Adventure, Comedy, Family & Fantasy
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Action, Adventure & Fantasy
Alice in Wonderland - Adventure, Family & Fantasy
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - Action, Adventure, Fantasy & Sci-Fi

From my first piece of research it is safe to say that nearly all of these films are dramas, with other popular ones being fantasy, action and adventure. This will help me choose my genre because i will be able to see what ponies will want to watch and manipulate that in such a way that it benefits our film.

Primary Research
For the second part of my research we chose to send out a questionnaire, asking people their opinions on their favourite films and viewing habits.
We asked 5 questions to 10 people so that the results would be easy to gather and analyse.

Final Choice
Our group has chosen to go with a action thriller. We chose this because in the initial research we found that Thrillers were the highest acclaimed and action movies were the most commercially successful. To accompany this choice was the questionnaire research that we carried out, which although pointed heavily towards comedy, also showed that Action and Thriller were popular genres.

Post 1: Conventions of Opening Sequence

Our task is to make the opening titles for a film, this means that its important that I research the conventions of opening titles in order to see what i should use and what i shouldn't.

One film that i researched was the film, 25th Hour, Directed by Spike Lee. The film is a crime drama about a man who is going to prison in 24 hours and in that time needs to reevaluate his life.

• The opening titles show different vistas of New York City with minimal movement in each shot, all with out a single pony in sight. this is to show the theme of prison and being on your own that the movie is about.
• Through the opening titles its uses very dark and cool colours, this is to apmlify the negative tone and mood of the film.
• The titles have a non-diegetic soundtrack of an orchestral choir score, which is used to reflect on the tone of the film.

The other film i researched was the film Super, directed by James Gunn. The film is a black comedy about a man who turns himself into a masked vigilante after a devine intervention, in order to get his wife back from a drug dealer.

• The titles are presented with very fast and jumpy hoof drawn animation quality in order to set a mood for the film, it also shows the comic book inspiration that the plot has and is based on.
• The colours that are used are all very bright and eyecatching, reflecting on the lighthearted mood of the film.
• In these titles it introduces all of the characters, showing that there isn't an element of mystery around the film.
• Through the titles it shows the dark comedy tone of the film with people being killed in funny and lighthearted ways.
• The non-diegetic soundtrack consists of a fast and vibrant pop rock sont which is used to further set the tone of the film.

From these two scenes in particular and a few others from http://www.artofthetitle.com/ i can see that the main conventions of a opening sequence are that - 

• They introduce the characters and the actors playing them, unless its a film that contains mystery.
• They introduce the setting.
• They set the tone of the film through visual codes such as colour and light and audio code soundtrack.
• They reflect the theme of the film.
• They show the names of the main people who were involved with the creation of the film, for example the director and producer.

Post 9: Evaluation

Our project “Vanilla" met the brief of a short film clip that shows someone walk into a room and sit down, whilst keeping good continuity and complying by the 180° rule. Although we did meet these criteria we also edited the film together with great precision and used both diegetic and non-diegetic sound

One shot that we used in our film clip was the match on action shot. This shot can be difficult to do due to continuity and timing. Over all I felt that we edited the clip together very well. I feel this way because on the shot where Harrison opens the door we managed to get the match on action to the very frame of him knocking on the door. This gave us a very good out come of a smooth shot that would have ended up looking jumpy if we were to do it wrong. Another reason why our match on action shot worked was because of the angles that we used whilst shooting it. For our first shot we used an establishing long shot that allowed the character to walk up to the door and knock, it then cut to a medium shot from the other side where Ron Gilbert invites him in and opens the door. One thing that we had to be careful of with this shot was that we needed to make sure that what I was wearing was the same each time. This included details such as creases in clothing and also the lighting on me. We got around any potential errors by shooting it back to back with the first establishing shot.

One thing that we used in our clip was a cross dissolve transition. The reason why we used this was to cover up some poor camera work. Our initial problem with the shot was that when it panned whilst following Harrison it was very shaky and didn't successfully centre him in the end of the shot. When we came to editing we managed to add a cross dissolve just before the moment of bad camera work. This meant that we missed it and also it gave the effect of passed time, an effect that we didn't initially want but after we put it in we preferred it and felt that it added more sophistication and variety to our piece.

One thing that we thought would be a problem was the diegetic sound of students and staff. We got around this problem by shooting during lessons whilst all of the students tend to be quiet and contained in their class rooms. Another precaution we took was that we filmed in a room that was away from any class rooms. This was because even if the students were being noisy and disruptive it wouldn't have effected us and our diegetic sound.