Diary Location Shooting 26th January 2011 Wednesday

Today my group and I went out scouting for locations for our opening 2 minutes,

·      We stayed around the leatherhead town area searching for alleys and small-secluded areas.

·      We took photos of three alleys which we think could become useful, two of which are fairly busy and in constant use which may make them harder to use, the third one is smaller and leads to nowhere but it fits in really well with the storyboard.

·      Also in our opening 2 minutes, we need a good amount of space to do a chase scene.

We’ve uploaded the pictures we took onto our blogs

Soundtrack research using the film 'Snatch'

Turkish and his accomplice Tommy get pulled into the world of match fixing by the notorious Brick Top. Things get complicated when the boxer they had lined up gets the life beaten out of him by Pitt, a 'pikey' who comes into the equation after Turkish, an unlicensed boxing promoter wants to buy a caravan off the Irish Gypsies. They then try to convince Pitt not only to fight for them, but to lose for them too. Whilst all this is going on, a huge diamond heist takes place, and a fistful of motley characters enter the story, including 'Cousin Avi', 'Boris The Blade', 'Franky Four Fingers' and 'Bullet Tooth Tony'.

We decided that this clip of snatch would be good to have on our blogs since it shows how they use music to change the tension. For example in this clip there’s a scene where the boxer everyone thought would win gets knocked out and loses, but instead of having a dark piece of scary suspenseful music playing in the background a soft acoustic piece of music starts to play. This makes the scene less threatening and slightly more relaxed. The music used down plays the tension which is what we hope to do in our film.

Soundtrack!

In a previous post i said that we would use non-copyright music for our final piece but we have decided to use copyright music for our animatic as that is allowed . The track we have chosen is called Slam by Pendulum, it starts off at a slow pace and then speeds up as it plays. I think this would be a really good track to use because it sets the pace of the scene and what the film be like; an action packed film full of adrenaline filled chases....... or at least that's what we're aiming for!

For our final piece, unfortunately, we will have to use non-copyright music which I don't think will be as good but as a group I'm sure we will be able to find a suitable track to use

Pendulum's album which has Slam on it!

Idea for our film

 The idea for our film relates to the book 'Scorpia' by Anthony Horowitz. The plot of the book is about an organization of assassins that want to kill all 12-14 years olds in Britain to destroy the relations between the United States and Great Britain. The leader of the organization poisons a member of her own organization when he speaks of retiring. This relates to our plot as organization 13 is an organization of assassins that plot to kill a former organization member when he wants to leave the organization. As the organization needs 13 members, a trial is held for a new assassin to join and so the job is offered to the first interviewee who kills the former organization member.

Media Diary. 18th January 2011 Monday

Today my group and I started on our research and planning sheet, in our two media lessons, this included...

• We completed our new action movie mood board of explosions, great action films and well known action movie actors.
• We started research on props, actors and costume for the movie.
• We need a soundtrack to the clip, so we’ve started looking at sound for the first time with our new action theme in mind on non-copyrighted sites.
• We’ve also started looking at things similar to what we hope to achieve for example movie trailers and books. One of us found a great trailer which relates to the brief storyline that we’ve come up with so far, its called The Tournament and one of us has read a book which might be good research called Scorpia.

We uploaded the action movie mood board onto all of our blogs.

Our Media Group/ Actors for film

Actors & Props:
We will cast family, friends & students of the drama department. Members of our group may also appear in our filming. Props we may need are a gun or several guns, a cigar, a distinguished walking stick, cars, phones, walkie talkies, money and briefcases.

General Planning and Research

Media

Soundtrack Research:
We will source various websites that offer a wide range of free non-copyright music. This is important as it is illegal to feature copyright music in our films. This overall is, I think, a major disadvantage as non-copyright music is usually not as effective as its copyright counterparts which are good at signalling a mood change in a film.

Costume & Location Research:
We will arrange for the characters belonging to Organisation13 to wear suits so that they look professional & powerful. Our ex-member of organisation13 will wear slightly more casual clothes so that they fit into everyday life & don’t stick out so much. Extras will obviously wear appropriate clothes to wear they are and what they are doing.
Actors & Props:
We will cast family, friends & students of the drama department. Members of our group may also appear in our filming. Props we may need are a gun or several guns, a cigar, a distinguished walking stick, cars, phones, walkie talkies, money and briefcases.
Audience research:
 Our film will be aimed at 15-35 year old males interested in movies full of action, suspense & fighting.
Plot:
An group of assassins has named itself organisation13 as there are 13 founding members. One of the members decides he wants to leave & start a normal life but the rest of the members tell him that if he leaves they will hunt him down & kill him. He accepts this & walks out to start a new life. The leader of the organisation hires 3 new assassins to kill the ex-member. What the recruits don’t know is that there are others out to kill their target & that they are competing for the job & money.
Possible characters:
Boss
11 members
The ex-member
The 3 new assassins
Possible acquaintances of the ex-member trying to help him

Changes/problems

Originally we were going to do a horror film but we decided to do an action movie because we thought it would be more original and more interesting to make. As we discussed the thought of an action film, it became more clear that we had a lot more ideas for that genre. As we went into more depth, our ideas all lead to one idea, 'organisation 13'. We thought it would look alot more realistic, having a group of spies than having a group of vampires as the make up would be hard enough to do once, but trying to do the same thing over and over again would be very hard and waste a lot of time.
For the sound track on our animatic we looked through a range of copyright and non-copyright music. We were looking for spy type music or epic music but not overly dramatic music. We found 5 or 6 we liked but we chose Slam by Pendulum. It fit the animatic really well. We didn't find many non-copyright musical pieces we liked. Hopefully we can find something like Slam to fit the film well.
We had two locations to choose from, Leatherhead or Ashtead. We decided Leatherhead was a lot better than Ashtead as the high street had alot more places to run around in and it gave a more realistic feel. We decided to choose from these locations because they were close to home and we knew them well so we could get the best places to film and the best angles.

Mind map of ideas

Brainstorming Ideas for our film

My group and I met up after school to discuss a number of topics concerning our media work. This included:

• Making a mind map of our film ideas
• Splitting tasks between the group
• Organizing meeting times for the group every week
• Storyboarding our final idea
• Taking pictures of the storyboard and other work.

Whilst brainstorming, we found that the genre of action appealed to the group more as opposed to the horror genre we had previously discussed. We came up with a brand new plot and thought about use of camera shots, mise-en-scené  and the timing of each shot. We are finishing the storyboard over the weekend and will take pictures of it soon so to be able to create an animatic for our opening two minutes. We have agreed to meet up after school every Tuesday when a lot of of our filming and written work will be done.

Audience profiling/ categories

Categories         

• Age - Whats suitable? Whats the storyline/ narrative?
• Gender - Male audience dominates. Male audiences prefer certain genres such as horror and action whereas female audiences prefer romance or romantic comedys.
• Where they live - Language barriers can be a problem. Is the area upper or middle class, can they afford to see the film?
• Occupation - Do they earn enough money? What interests do they have? Tv listings - when do they finish work and can they watch tv with the advert?
• Lifestyle Choices -What interests do they have? Knowing what interests they have, for example: favourite magazine, the film company can put adverts into the target audiences favourite magazine to promote the film.
• Politics  - Newspapers lean towards one political party, Newspapers can influence the audience and film advertising in those newspapers can draw in political party viewers.
• Ethnicity - To gain the broadest audience possible, the film requires a wide ethnic group of characters.
• Attitudes - The attitudes of characters can relate to the audience. The audiences can empathsize with the characters and what they are like.

Analysis of preliminary task

We were asked to film a small clip that lasted two minutes so we could see how the camera worked. It had to involve someone walking, opening and closing a door and a short conversation. We found that it is very hard to hold the camera still, so we used a tripod to stop the camera from shaking. We also found that we needed to put a lot more shots and cuts in. we didn’t use a lot of shots and i think it could have looked a lot better. We could have included a shot of the door handle when it was being opened. We also found we had to speak up when filming because the camera didn’t pick up the sound very well. This was very good preparation for our actual filming.

Preliminary task

Romance film genre Clichés

1. The cliché that serves as the basic infrastructure of the classic romance genre is that the female lead almost never ends up with the man she was originally supposed to spend the rest of her life with. The other popular cliché is the formula for a romance story of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl again. Whichever cliché you want to follow, romances all have the same underlying moral message that romances  is an obstacle course, but if you keep your nose to the grindstone, the rewards can be immense.   
2. The cliché that Prince Charming actually exists, but he may be a bit rough around the edges or temporarily unavailable. It helps a lot if the woman initially hates the man or Prince Charming finds the female lead a bit annoying.
3. Romantic films have a habit of wending their way to the altar. Powerful, ubiquitous clichés associated with the genre include the bride or groom suddenly being ditched at the altar.
4. Opposites attract. The traditional belief that opposites attract is a cliché in most films. 
5. Characters often featured in romantic films: The pushy but loveable mother, the harried, befuddled father, the fat mouthy but highly supportive girlfriend who wears glasses, the gay neighbour or colleague, and the male leads loveable slob of a friend. Quite cliché characters.
6. A popular cliché is teenage romance films, teenagers out of town find it hard to fit in so they start hanging around social misfits, goths, vampires etc.
7. Dance can save a relationship. Popular cliché in many teenage films again.
8. Misfortune frequently brings lovers together,  such as the film Titanic.
9. Scenes at airports, taxi cabs or career changing meetings, where the hero realises he could be making the biggest mistake of his life and leaves or changes route to the one he loves.
10. The dead or near-dead make excellent partners. It seems to suggest that the dead make better company than the living. All clichés involving this drive home the fact that a good man is hard to find, as is a good woman.
    
    These are all popular clichés used in many romantic films. Having a unique story as well as a classic cliché makes a good romance film. I had a good plot for a romantic genre for our opening two minutes but it seemed better to stick to the horror genre as we had thought about it more.

Horror film genre clichés

1. Horror movies always divide into several very different categories: slasher, zombie, vampire, mainstream horror, Asian horror and revolting Eli Roth films.
2. Small children are often evil in horror films. When they are not evil they are troubled loners who consort with invisible playmates who are evil.
3. Teenagers in horror movies are usually spoilt brats who deserve to die. Perhaps this is why some horror films are so popular, people want to see those spoilt brats get their comeuppance.
4. Horror films work best in rural areas because of the wide variety of frightening farm tools on hand and no one else around.  One should never trust a handyman or a farmer in a horror film.
5. Horror movies almost always contain a scene in which a woman washes her face in a sink, and when she straightens up and looks in the mirror, a girl missing half her face is staring directly back at her. If she decides instead to take a bath, the bath will soon fill up with hair, blood or a woman with purple skin and one eye missing. Women constantly take showers in horror films. 
6. Its always bad idea to check into a remote, deserted motel for the night.
7. Its always bad to go to sleep if your in a horror film or accept a ride from strangers or respond to a personal ad. Its an even worse idea to get in an elevator.
8. You should never purchase a dirt-cheap house or apartment without making detailed inquiries about how many tenants died in the household before you.
9. Never undergo a medical operation in a horror film, particularly a transplant , because you will end up with the eyes of a witch, the heart of a cannibal or something other quite bad.
10. Never ever ever answer the phone in a horror movie. 

We were thinking about doing a horror film for our opening two minutes. We've brainstormed a couple of ideas and this is a very appealing genre for us to use because my group enjoys horror movies and we had plenty of ideas.

Analysis of Opening Two Minutes of Bugsy Malone

                  From the opening two minutes we can hear a narration over the film. The narration is non-diegetic and it gives the audience an insight as to what is going on. The scene is set down a back road down a back alley, with four gangsters at the opening with guns and one other gangster trapped down the other end. We realise the film is a comedy after we realise the gangsters are played by children and the film is set in the 1920's. The guns the gangsters are holding are referred to as 'splurge guns' which fires a creamy substance referred to as 'splurge'.
                  The audience is given some indication that the film is also a musical as music starts playing about the main character called Bugsy Malone played by Scott Baio. Jodie Foster also stars in this film as a dancer in a show.
                    We can see there is a hostile relationship between two gangs of gangsters hence the shooting in the opening scene. It is expectant that there will be more rivalry following in the film.
                     The film is produced by The Rank Organization which is a British entertainment company formed in the 1930s. It once was the largest and most vertically integrated film company in Britain so quality was expected to come from the film Bugsy Malone. There are titles after the opening scene of leading actors and production crew.
                      We can predict that Bugsy Malone will be a musical with the positivity of it being a comedy aswell.

Bugsy Malone Image

Bugsy Malone Opening Two Minutes

Analyse opening two minutes of 'Definitely Maybe'.

               From the opening two minutes of the film 'Definitely Maybe' we can analyse a lot of what can be expected from this movie.  For a start we can see that the film is producted by Universal Pictures. We can expect high quality films made with care from this popular big American production company. We can see that they are partnered with Working Title productions and so we can assume 'Definitely Maybe' will be a romantic comedy as Working Title specalise in those genre of films.
               The scene is set in a big city with Will Haze (played by Ryan Reynolds) working in an office. This office suggests to us that he has good, well off, but busy office job working in the big city. As a parcel arrives at his office informing him of a divorce notice, we can tell that he has a busy work schedule as his mail is delivered to his office and that the divorce notice could suggest that the genre of this film could be a romantic comedy. As Will Haze walks out of his work place to pick his daughter up from school, the genre of music that plays gives off a happy, feel good vibe that makes the audience feel happy and comfortable watching the film. When Will Haze arrives at school only to find out that his daughter had a sex education class and now 'wants to talk to him about it' we can assume that this film is definitely a comedy with romance involved. Ryan Reynolds character seems to have a happy, laid back lifestyle as when he crosses the road and almost gets hit by the lorry, we can see that he isn't paying attention to the busy street life in which he lives.

Poster of film 'Definitely Maybe'