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Evaluation 3:What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation 3 Script
Our production company, Paradox Entertainment, is directly responsible for fundraising for the production. It handles budgeting, scheduling, scripting, the supply with talent and resources, the organization of staff, the production itself, post-production, distribution, and marketing. Paradox Entertainment are a newly set up company and aren’t popular yet, their first distributed film being The Swan Song. The budget is relatively low compared to other Hollywood films at the quality of this one. This is one of the Unique Selling Points of the film. Even though it has a low budget the film would be able to gross a large profit. For example, The King's Speech had a low budget grossing a large profit even though it did not include any special effects although included traditional British heritage which the American citizens were interested in.

A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for the marketing of a film. The distributor may set the release date of a film and the method by which a film is to be exhibited: for example, directly to the public either theatrically or for home viewing (DVD, download, television programs etc.). The film will be distributed to most UK cinemas, and only a few in the US, I have chosen this to be so because the budget for distributing the film isn't high enough to distribute it everywhere, so for the first weekend, if the box office is high, the film will be distributed to the rest of the US. The money for our film has come from our own budgets, we are very confident with the box office of this film will hit a few million and will cover the spending. The film does not include any synergy, merchandising, special effects etc. so therefore I do not believe it could be a blockbuster film. I would market the film through viral marketing, creating facebook, twitter, Youtube pages, to create global awareness of the film and try and target a larger audience.

The opening credits list the most important members of the production. We chose to include these to mention all the important people helping us making this film possible and such a big hit. This included directors, producers, distributors and actors.

The King's Speech was similarly realised and distributed the same way as my film, due to low budget, no special effects, synergy etc. making around $414 million, suggesting our film can create the same miracle. Media ownership can effect how successful a film is, however tapping into audience trends can equally effect the success of the film.

The home of the James Bond franchise is EON(Everything or Nothing) production company. See-Saw films produced The King's Speech. I would be looking to bond these two together as EON is based on action and See-Saw films already have experience in making a low budget film into a big box office. Often two companies merge and work on films together, it can be a common occurrence as film productions try to succeed.

The steps of the opening two minutes

In this post I will be going through the opening two minutes, how we improved our targets set, and how we believe it turned out better:

Here we improved our titles, and added actors, turning into this:
According to my colleague, our editing software would not allow us to upload our final version, which included the director name, producer, editor and actor names. This let us down as we potentially could of achieved a higher grade than we can without the final version.

Evaluation 8:Improvements for trailer

I believe there is a few improvements I need to study to attain a better and higher grade next year, to do so I may need to consider the following:

The length of the video – our opening two minutes has taken 2.30 minutes which is 30 more seconds than we should've used in reality. The trailer should only really take about 1.45 minutes without all the titles, so 2 minutes at most.

The intensity of the footage – The power, strength, force and passion that the video would bring to the audience has to be very solid. Some of the shots we took were quite poor in terms of effectiveness, they didn't appeal to the audience as much as I would of liked them to, so I will have to make sure more shots appeal to the audience in the trailer.

The quality of footage – some of the shots taken were dark and the quality of it wasn't as good as I had liked it to be. In the trailer we need to make sure to film in lighter conditions in order to have better quality as it would entice the audience with much more effect.

Include a big institution to distribute our film next year - In theory this should be relevant for the institution, if it’s an action film, the institution being Pixar or Disney wouldn't be very effective, as these institutions would distribute the film to the younger generation who are more interested in animation movies. So making an action trailer and setting the institution to Warner bros. or 20th century Fox would be more effective as they produce and distribute a lot of popular action films, so it would reach the target audience set. I think it would work better if I combine next year’s chosen trailer institution, and this year’s ‘Paradox Entertainment’ to reach the audience more effectively and efficiently.

Time Management - Time management is always an issue, no matter how well the time is managed I believe there is always room for improvements, time is a special resource that you cannot be stored or saved for later use. Everyone has the exact same amount of time each day. Time not well used cannot be retrieved. In our opening two minutes some of the scenes we filmed weren’t up to the director’s standards, so we had to take at least 4/5 shots of each part. This consumed a chunk of all the evenings we stayed in after school, in total being about 10 hours, which is an unbelievably long amount of time for 2 minutes of footage. Therefore next year we need to be clearer on what we do, and how long we take etc.

Hype the film - releasing the trailer on social websites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube will create a hype for the audience for when the actual movie comes out. Considering that I would want the largest amount of people to watch it to profit and reach my target market, I would launch Marketing campaigns as such as 'The Dark Knight' with the 'WhySoSerious.com' website including games, interviews, videos and quests to keep the audience interacting and finding out little teasers about the film. This would entice the audience daily, increasing the hype and views for it.

Targets for Evaluation Activities

Evaluation Activity 5: Could you add detail to your notes - what special effects have you used to entice the audience - be precise, explain the editing techniques that you used and why.

UPDATED – explained editing techniques.

Conventional of genre - proof-read - conventions of the genre: fight scene - add a brief note explaining why it is the typical conventions of the genre - link to narrative features. Explain how the music effects the fight scene - how it engages the audience and adheres to the conventions of the action genre. UPDATED – Annotated the music – Dramatic when tense

Add to your annotations similiarities with other movies and what you have identified as the Unique Selling Point of your imaginary film. For example, when you explain the characters costume link it to another film.

UPDATED - Added annotations – Compared to Bourne Series

Evaluation Activity 7: Make sure you mention the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shot. -

UPDATED - Defined them and shown were I haven’t broken them or used them

Evaluation 7:Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

This task has taught me a great deal; not only about working in a group (and those constraints) but also about technical problems that can unexpectedly arise during filming. The filming process took longer than I expected due to a few issues with the camera. I think our preliminary task clearly demonstrated match on action (when the main character walked through the door), shot reverse shot (during the conversation), and the 180 degree rule.

The first problem that occurred and has taught me a few things was the choice of our actors in the preliminary task: it took a long time to film a standard amount of footage as they didn’t take it very seriously; this resulted in a lot of wasted time combined with poor quality footage so choosing the right actors was a pinnacle point in the opening two minutes of the film. Therefore, I have chosen Aran Alisiroglu, Muhammed Rahman, Zubin Parekh and Richard Young to act in the film because they had previous experience in the film industry, acting and directing.

Poor actors - Looking at the camera whilst filming

The next experience I learned was that the footage hadn’t recorded properly as the camera wasn't set up to record on to the memory card so I had make sure in the opening two minutes it recorded and checked after every shot if it had recorded. So this taught me to always check that the camera is set up correctly and is recording on to the memory card – so we will not make the same mistake again.

Another moral was that our group did not have any organisation or planning, as we weren't able to decide on the storyline in the preliminary task, as well as the different types of shots and angles before we started filming; this could have saved a lot of time, the organisation of the group is very important and someone has to plan all the shots, so I have taken the responsibility to plan all the shots we took in the opening two minutes.

With editing, I've learnt and realised that it's not good to use the same type of ending of a shot. This is because in our preliminary, we only used jump cuts for each shot taken in during the task. This isn't useful for filming because good editing would consist of a wider range of ways to end shots as this would be more effective and look more professional in film making. In contrast with our opening two minutes, there's a clear difference in this matter as our opening two minutes contained a good range of fade in/out shots, dissolve shots, wipe shots etc. which proved to be more effective and made it a better piece of film overall, which wouldn't of been the case if we followed what we did the with our preliminary, so we have learnt from our preliminary in this aspect. I also learnt that test filming is very useful as the lighting of a shot can appear very different on a full screen as opposed to a camera screen; it’s normally much darker than you actually think it is. In the preliminary task I wasn't sure how to edit, it took me a few hours to get my head around how to edit in Adobe CS4 Acrobat, whereas in the full product it took me around the same time to edit although I had so much more to edit and choose, therefore I choose Pinnacle Studios to edit my film.

Poor quality of footage as well as a poor shot - would have been more effective if we used the subject in close up rather than medium shot.

In terms of camerawork, I feel that I've learnt that it's more effective to use a wider range of camera shots. It's more effective to use a wider range of shots because it helps to show that you've been more creative in your filming and helps improve the overall quality in many cases, in the majority of films, certainly for our film as it's a thriller/action film. In our film opening, we used a wider range of shot types than our preliminary task (low-angle, ECU, extreme long shot, over the shoulder shot etc.). When you contrast the two when watching them, it's easy to see the difference in quality and level of professionalism with the use of more camera shots in our film opening rather than the preliminary task, showing that there has been reasonable amount of progress since the preliminary task. This showing another thing I've learnt towards our film opening. Match-on-action and shot/reverse shot, and 180 degree rule we correctly and usefully constructed this in our preliminary task, as we had Liam opening the door and shot/reverse shot was used for the conversation between Liam and Richard. This shows that from our preliminary task, we learnt how to do this for progression to help benefit towards our final film opening. 

The 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. An imaginary line called the axis connects the characters, and by keeping the camera on one side of this axis for every shot in the scene, the first character is always frame right of the second character, who is then always frame left of the first. The camera passing over the axis is called jumping the line or crossing the line.

Match on action (or cutting on action) is an editing technique for continuity editing in which one shot cuts to another shot portraying the action of the subject in the first shot. This creates the impression of a sense of continuity – the action carrying through creates a “visual bridge” which draws the viewer’s attention away from slight cutting or continuity issues. This is not a graphic match or match cut; it portrays a continuous sense of the same action rather than matching two separate things

Shot reverse shot is a continuity editing technique used in conversations or simply characters looking at each other or objects. A shot showing what the character is supposedly looking at (either a point of view or over the shoulder shot) is followed by a reverse angle shot of the character themselves looking at it, or of the other character looking back at them, for example. Shot reverse shot often ties in with the 180° rule to retain continuity by not distorting the audience’s sense of location of the characters in the shots.



All the shots in the preliminary tasks were taken shoulder height, so camera work was quite poor.

 

Here you can see that we used a low angle shot to make the Protagonist look more powerful, great, dominant and influential.

The following shot, I believe was one of the most influential shots in the whole two minutes, it was very effective and would entice audience most effectively:

This was an arc shot, a shot in which the subject is circled by the camera, somewhat like the tracking shot. 

I believe another shot which I have learned from the preliminary task that was quite effective was this:

With this shot being an over the shoulder shot, a shot of someone or something taken from the perspective or camera angle from the shoulder of another person. The back of the shoulder and head of this person is used to frame the image of whomever the camera is pointing toward. This type of shot is very common when two characters are having a discussion and will usually follow an establishing shot which helps the audience place the characters in their setting.

Although, looking back at our preliminary task, that lasted 12 seconds or so, was a big disappointment, as we could have managed to do something so much better than a person walking into a library to their friend, we could have included much more action to it, and a better story behind it! However, we only had an hour to film this, so did not have long enough to plan and think about what we will do. 

Overall, I believe the Preliminary task has taught me a little compared to the full product, we have spend many hours on making sure the final/full product is up to my satisfaction, whereas in the preliminary task we only spend a limited time on it, and as I wasn't in charge, I didn't have much say in the product.

Film Production Mark

The mark you received at moderation for your Film Production is Level 3 - 45/60.

Targets: you need to improve the titles in your film - include the names of the actors, the editor, the producer and the director (in this order in the film). Add music to create suspense throughout the film - during tense moments and action.

*NOTE* - MUSIC IS INCLUDED, MAY HAVE BEEN MISSED WHEN MODERATING.

UPDATED – TITLES, ACTORS, EDITORS, PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR

Evaluation 5:How did you attract/address your audience?

I feel that we will attract/address our audience with success. With the use of fast-paced music and impact-beats and using different type of sounds helps to engage the audience with the film and add a certain level of intensity. The fight scene also helps to set the chosen genre of our film (thriller/action) and with the use of our chosen locations. I feel the acting was of high enough standard to address the audience of our chosen genre (through dialogue, body language etc.) and meet the clichés of other thriller/action films.

Our opening two minutes is similar in a way to Bourne Ultimatum. It’s similar to Bourne Ultimatum on the basis of that it has high levels of action in its opening sequence (fights etc.) which was very effective not only to attract the audience, but in meeting the movie genre. This therefore inspired us to follow the same path in our opening. However, we obviously can't be able to meet the same quality and effectiveness that a big box-office film like Bourne Ultimatum (elaborate stunts etc.) has because our film is only a really small budget film so we could therefore not be able to meet the high standards that Bourne Ultimatum achieved, with box-office return of over a billion.

In the video I have used a well known institution to attract fans. I used music to highlight dramatic moment to create a bigger dramatic impact on the audience. I used special effects to highlight Flashbacks and entice audience, I mixed this with dramatic music to have more effect and influence on keeping the audience interested.  I use of Special Effects to highlight Flashbacks to entice audience mixed with dramatic music to have more effect and influence on keeping the audience interested. I used Diegetic sound to make it more lively and entertaining and Non-diegetic sounds so the audience would have real sound to convince them it is a realistic situation. I believe my film is the conventional of action genre as I included a fight and gun scene. Staging a fist fight creates atmosphere for the viewers which leaves them 'on the edge of the seat'. The Protagonist is wearing casual clothes to blend in with the society. Similar to Jason Bourne style, beating the antagonist without looking any different from anyone else, yet has knowledge and skills to beat the bad guys. Presented as the dominant hero of the film, with this comes the stunts and heroic moments almost to impress the audience of his bravery. In the middle of the opening two minutes, the Instruments change to set a different tone and make it more lively. My opening two minutes is conventional yet again because the Protagonist chases the Antagonist. Although, the Protagonist gives up but then comes back for him so in some ways its unconventional. At the end of the opening two minutes the Protagonist kills Antagonist so its a conventional action genre. We used the film title at the end of the film to remind the audience what the film is called so they would remember it better instead of having it at the start, it is conventional, appropraite and relevant title for the film. Here is my annotated video which shows my use of editing, shots and effects in order to make my film conventional and attract the audience.

The most generic technique I used to appeal to my audience was including a fight scene. This is a common notion used by most, if not all, action films in order to convey ideas of action and violence. This is presented in the clip below.

As you can see, having a fight/chase scene, or any violence, is vital in an action film. It is effective in making your intentions clear about what your film is about. It is very conventional and my annotated film presents more conventions my film included, from institution to dialogue.

Overall, there wasn't an individual film I could link mine to, because all action films are alike in the essence of action and dialogue which my film didn’t really include. I think my film is quite conventional considering these points.

Evaluation 6:What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the whole media assignment, I mainly learnt about how to upload various media files and be able to conveniently upload them (previously the preliminary task) and share them to a range of online websites like YouTube, twitter, facebook etc. for people to see from around the world. My Blogger gained over 4000 page views; of which were seen from countries like the US to countries across Europe including Germany, UK and to the Middle east like Israel and to the Far East like China etc. I also learnt how to master uploading and producing PowerPoint presentations through slide share to share through my Blogger account (Including Prezi).

 

 

I learnt that the film industry relies on cross media convergence and multi-media platforms to reach out to its audience. For example, the industry relies on websites like YouTube to release its film trailer (part of viral marketing campaigns) to be viewed by millions of its audience. They also create websites to advertise their films. These turn out to be effective in setting high expectations for the audience and big box-office films and lead to usually great success. In terms of quality, the film industry relies on highly developed software and has the benefit of the availability of 3D to raise the quality to the next level of expectation to from the audience’s perspective, therefore showing the industry is fairly dependent on 3D technology to make high levels of profit. Avatar used motion capture that matched every detail of the actor/actresses physical, facial emotions and actions which was the first time this it was ever used in film, this lead to such high expectations and excitement towards Avatar and raised the level of film for the film industry.

To further make it accessible to my preferred audience and examiners, I embedded the video, from YouTube, to Blogger - another site owned by Google. Inevitably, all sites are very popular and it could be believed to be so because of Google's popular brand image. I have done all my work, from Research & Planning all the way to Evaluation on this blogging site, because it's very easy to use and easy to access for examiners and my target audience, who I believe aren't technology inapt.

Pinnacle Studios is a software which is not very well known but my colleague had this software on his computer so I decided to use it instead of investing money into software. It has exceptional colour grading tools, which are very useful in making sure the film has a professional look to it. I think that one of the key successes to our film was the editing and it was down to this piece of software that we were able to edit successfully.
Although for the Preliminary task I used Adobe CS4 to edit and put all the shots together, I decided to use this software over Adobe as I wanted to learn how to use another software. Using Pinnacle Studio, taught me how to use colour grading, editing, and prepare different images to suit our opening two minutes.

We used the Sony HDR-HC3 to film our opening two minutes. It was easy and straightforward to get used to the camera as it only took a couple of attempts to get used to and master the handling etc. of the HD camcorder. This contributed to the level of quality of the filming in terms of handling and pixel quality as its a HD camcorder.

The film industry relies to the use of high-tech, up-to-date software and equipment in order to keep up with the ever-developing world and expectations. However, they also need to take into account how easy it will be for people to access such outlets and whether they'll make enough profit this way. Camera quality and editing has evolved over time and every film institution uses top-of-the-range equipment in order to film and produce the best quality films possible. Google is a global leader and a good choice of outlet in my opinion.

Evaluation 4:Who would be the audience for your media product?

The certificate of our film is a 15. A segment of our target audience of our opening two minutes is to purposely try to target 15, 16 and 17 year olds as well the slightly older audience. The 15-29 male audience who enjoy watching films was my initial target audience. This is because this age group tends to enjoy films that are fun and fast-paced with lots of action sequences. Despite this, they also tend to enjoy films with a relative amount of complexity and watch films that are well reviewed. However, I felt that my film would also appeal to a younger audience because of the genre of my film and other elements that would attract them in particular the fast paced music and sound used that would attract a large proportion from this age bracket, therefore ensuring that my film would appeal to a wider audience than initially planned to increase recognition. Younger than fifteen, the quality of the film is judged on the amount of action sequences without much plot of talking. This is not what we were going for, but instead we opted for the higher age group as we believe that our film is sophisticated.

The 15-29 male audience also tend to have more disposable money, so this is a benefit for targeting this age group. It also helps the film to have a higher budget, as the institutions would know that they are likely to get their money back from this audience. However it must not be forgotten that this age group has other commitments such as university and school, so the film would probably be more successful if it were released on a Friday or Saturday - when they are not doing so much work. Although,  with our film is that there are a lot of films that are aimed at this age group, and there is a risk that our film will be lost amongst the amount of other action films aimed at this demographic.

To target our target audience successfully we would have to build up hype for the film, which would involve making sure that the trailers and posters are shared on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The images all represent the types of people I expect to go and see Swan Song. I expect them to mainly be students and I feel some will be in full time employment in their late twenties. I expect them to have an interest in action, and real gripping dramas including films like Bourne Ultimatum, Hitman etc. which I feel could easily appeal to the audience represented in the bottom image.

I'd expect my audience to listen to a range of different music genres like Rock, R&B, dubstep, drum and bass etc. across the three categorised segments of my audience of my film. I’d expect my younger audience (15-21) and student audience to be quite fashion-conscious, following popular fashion trends within their age range like urban fashion for example Adidas, Nike and brands like Hollister, Topman etc.

Referring back to the research task which I carried out in November time, the Questionnaire, I asked 87% of the audience which answered were 15 and over, the 15 age classification was purposely chosen because of this. Almost all of my results were answered by 15 and over. 33% of them see their favourite genre as action, even though 60% were answered by males, I was targeting this audience. Suggesting that their favourite action sequence is a chase with 40%, we had to include a chase in the opening two minutes. The most important element for them has been the action sequence (47%). My character, Grove, was countered to have good technique of slyness/cleverness with 53% of votes. 93% would prefer to sacrifice realism for spectacle, which I was quite surprised about, as audience are so willing to see entertaining movies. Lastly, I found out from this research that 67% just expect to see an enjoyable show from action films. 

Overall I think that our film would be of great appeal to the 16-29 male audience through its fast paced action sequences and mature plot. This audience tends to use social networking sites a great deal, and this would be a brilliant opportunity to advertise our film. I think that we positively appealed to this audience in the opening two minutes, as we established our film as fast paced.

Evaluation:Sound

Sound Effects: There weren't a lot of sound effects used in our opening two minutes; a sound effect that was used was when Baker was shot. It was hard to work out how to establish that he had been shot without a gunshot sound effect that would obviously raise the attention of everyone in the playground. Instead we decided to use one of the punch sound effects, which helped the audience to realise that he had been hit.

Soundtrack: Richard and Zubin composed our music in the end, although we planned on getting James Richardson to help us compose the music for it. Zubin was optimistic about him being able to compose the music. The music that we used in our opening two minutes was effective as it built up suspense as the story progressed. This was because the music was especially composed for the film, with Zubin. The track came from his own intelligence. One day Zubin decided to compose the music itself, as our original choice (James Richardson) told us he could only finish it in a weeks’ time, Zubin didn't want to wait that long. The music worked extremely well in the final opening two minutes as it added a new dimension to the drama onscreen. It made the action much more thrilling and I felt as if the action really took off through the way that the music's layers gradually built up, getting faster and and more intense. There are some moments when the music is fitted perfectly to the action. One of these moments is when Grove is running up the stairs which grows in intensity; an extra layer is added as an extra character is introduced. When the instruments change it puts a real chase on, as Grove runs to search for Baker. The tone of music that occurs when Grove starts running after Baker, changes. It turns into a much livelier sound which is softer but more intense. After shooting his enemy the music slows down to a sad theme, causing the audience to think who the Antagonist is and who the Protagonist is.

Dialogue: We didn't include much dialogue in the opening two minutes, due to the fact we focused on trying to catch the audience's attention by the fast paces chases, fight scenes and music. When the guard shouted "STOP!" to Grove, the audience may of felt being struck back as if they are told to stop. We thought this has had a good impact on the opening two minutes. We did not use Additional Dialogue Replacement simply because we didn't use much dialogue which would have been a bit pointless.

Overall: I think that the sound in our opening was successful. All the different aspects of sound worked together. I am happy the way that the sound turned out, but if I were to do it again, then I would make sure to record better sound on the day with it being planned more than just being done on the spot.

Evaluation:Audience Response

‘It’s good, except that the costumes seem a bit amateur.’ – Rheanna Cottam

‘One of the best opening scenes ever to be made.’ – Zubin Parekh

‘Fast paced, quick movements, all what teenagers want to see in the film industry these days.’ – Ryan Taylor

‘I will be short and sweet, it was good’ – Sam McCool

‘Could easily be a blockbuster.’ – Harry Wedlake

‘A jaw dropping experience.’ – John Smith

‘Breath taking experience, still recovering after it!’ – Aran Alisiroglu

'Delightful to watch.' - S Blackwood

'Exceeded my standards, unbelievable film!' - James Young

Evaluation 2:How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Protagonist 

Ross Grove vs Jason Bourne

 

Jason Bourne is a fictional character and the protagonist from the Bourne film series, which plays a very similar character to Ross Grove in our opening two minutes.
 

He is a secret agent that which we actually don’t find out in the opening two minutes, who tackles terrorism with a fast trigger finger and a sly mind. Their costumes are also very similar; casual wear to blend in with the crowd and not stand out, which is a modest view we tried to get across. Both characters' attire is predominantly black, with no bright colours, in order to emphasise the dark nature of their work and the seriousness of their character. I believe wearing slightly lighter clothes (Blue/Navy jeans) help him to appeal to a wider audience, as he is friendlier to look at, but without losing any of the seriousness of the role. 

 

The two different characters also use similar semantics revolving around the military, both athlete and very well physically developed. By observing Jason Bourne’s character these semantics were easy to figure out and it helped a lot with the development of Ross Grove’s character. The was no earpieces used by Ross Grove, also derived from Jason Bourne, as in Jason Bourne film series he uses his awareness and knowledge. Jason Bourne was a big influence on our film making decisions, as he is such a similar character to Ross Grove. Several times we referred back to him, either to take inspiration from him. There are several big differences, such as their fighting style and ways of handling situations and it is clear to see that they are very different characters, but there are some distinct similarities. Ross Grove represents this type of character as a tough, quick-witted, skilled fighter. In the opening he doesn't show much of his emotional side, so in this way Grove presents this type of role as very down to earth and almost like a robot. The action shots below, show how simliar both characters are, Bourne represents the 'lone cop' role really well because he

Evaluation 1:In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Title of the film

This is the opening title that we used in the opening minutes of our film, Paradox Entertainment produce a lot of action films/interrogation films, so we thought that overall, this film industry was right for our film. We also used this film industry as it distribute a wide-ranging slate of some 15-22 films each year, making this film industry very popular. We made the joint decision of choosing these opening titles as it is also effective and gives it the action feeling towards the audience. Overall, whilst using this opening titles sequence, we found that it was right for our film and that it portrayed its way on being effective towards the audience

The title of the film is ‘Swan Song’. We chose this name because Swan Song means Wander, so this would give the audience an insight of the film that something unexpected will happen that the audience have not seen in another film. The title of the film matches the film genre which is action/thriller. This matches the genre because thriller films are known to be a bit mysterious and unexpected so by the title being Swan Song which means wander, this would make the audience want to watch the film to see what happens.

Title font and style
For the title of the film ‘Swan Song’ we used the font ‘MS Gothic’.

We used this because we wanted the title to stand out to the audience and we wanted it to link with the film storyline and genre decided to put it in capitals because majority of the film titles are in capitals which makes it stand out more and makes more of an impression. We decided to keep the background black and the text white. We did this because we found that simple is more effective and you would be able to see the title of the film more clearly. Initially, when choosing the font we decided ‘Diamond SF’. We thought this would have linked with our genre more as it looks more dangerous and casual and links more with thriller. However, we did not use this as we found that our storyline was not the same so the font style would not match. Also, I found that it did not give the opening sequence a thriller effect as it looked unprofessional.

Setting/Location

Our storyline began with a car driving towards the camera, towards the school, so it made sense for the location to be set in school. We decided to set the beginning of the opening outside of the school building. This is a different location because unlike other groups they are not based near school so this is different and not like a typical action/thriller location. Also, this links with our target audience because our target audience is 15 and up so the target audience is in education and relate to this location. 

 

We used this location because the school is very spacious so if something was to happen you could get away with it. Also, there are many classes and rooms to hide in which would be beneficial for the protagonist. We thought that Therfield School would be more enigmatic which links with our title and genre. This also relates to our target audience as majority of our audience go to school still . This way our audience can relate themselves to the location.

We used a classroom because the antagonist was learning and the protagonist came to take his revenge on him, in a way, the antagonist was in the classroom to hide somewhere, it was quite empty and not used as much so this would fit the storyline as the protagonist is acknowledged by where the antagonist is. Also, we tried making the classroom darker which indicated that something dangerous could happen. Just like most thriller and action films, majority of the action is at night such as; James Bond and Bourne Ultimatum. Even though brightness is shining through the blinds, we tried to make it quite dark with some lights rays going in, to make it more attractive.

Costumes and Props
The costumes and Props were used quite simply in our opening two minutes. The protagonist, uses very casual clothes, just like anyone would wear on a day to day basis. Comparing to the Bourne series, who wears normal closes to blend in with people. Ross Grove is wearing a body warmer and a jumper underneath, jeans and uses a pistol. A small weapon just like any Protagonist would use to get around enemies and kill the antagonist with skill and knowledge.

The guards are wearing smart, predictable guard clothes, Muhammed, wearing black trousers, white shirt and a smart jumper. Zubin is wearing a blazer and smart trousers, both wearing smart clothes and representing the 'college' the protagonist is going to smartly. Usually, they typically work in plainclothes (without a uniform), and are usually highly trained to act lawfully in direct defense of life or property.

The Antagonist wore conventional student attire, a smart shirt and chino trousers, Aran had a bag, which makes him the conventional student. Aran isn't wearing a hat, and his clothes do not include any messages on clothing, jewellery, and personal belongings that relate to drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex, vulgarity, or that reflects adversely upon persons because of their race or ethnic group.

Camerawork and editing

Our opening two minutes include a range of different shots such as; medium shot, close up, extreme close up, over the shoulder shot, medium long shot etc. We used a variety of shots because in many films they include a variety of shots to make the film more interesting and to keep the audience interested in the film so they do not lose interest. When editing I had to make sure the match on action was accurate in each shot, for example; when Grove(protagonist) is tripped up by the guard and falls, you then see him fall the same way so it matches. If it did not match then it would look very poor and the audience would not want to watch it. Also, I added effects to some of the shots so the mise-en-scene matches the genre.

This shot was very effective in the opening two minutes of our film and this gave the audience the effect of danger and due to the sort of creepy stare on the antagonist's (Baker) face, shows that danger, violence or a diabolical scheme will occur to the protagonist (Grove). This shot, being a close up of the face of the Antagonist and only focuses on him, giving the audience a scared/nervous effect, which was intended, this also allows the audience to focus on Aran’s facial expressions, with the faint stare and the stare on his face, gives the element of surprise awaiting for the protagonist.

Genre and how the opening suggests it

The Genre of the film was action/thriller which inevitably led to us having to include a fight scene. Films of my film genre don't usually include fight scenes in the opening two minutes, but we decided to use one in the opening two minutes to help link to the films plot and portray the film as the film is based around Grove (myself) being a a good guy targeting specific people on assignments. But we also decided to use the fight scene to meet common action/thriller film clichés like  have high levels of suspense, thrill action etc. and all action films at some point feature fights and conflicts and high levels of drama so it helps make my opening two minutes conventional.

Examples of action films with many fight scenes to name a few are the transporter, Dark Knight Rises, Bourne Series, Rush Hour series. Because there are so many action films that have focused on their stand-out fight scenes in recent years shows that they are necessary and an important part of action films genre conventions. The fact that we involved a fight scene in the opening shows that to an extent my opening two minute is conventional for the chosen genre as it features the common clichés associated with actions films. 

 

Story and how the opening sets it up

The story of the film is about an Ex-Prison Warden Ross Grove is on the loose and dangerous. Armed with a gun, he heads to the local school to seek vengeance. James Baker, innocently studying in his Geography lesson is about get a small surprise. He has trouble getting to Baker, having to fight through numbers of undercover guards. Baker is desperately looking for options. Time is running out and he runs. The chase is on. They are hastily navigating the school when Grove gives up. As he walks away, Baker grabs one of the fallen guards guns and attempts to take Grove out but he sees it coming dodges it and ends Baker.

Special Effects

We didn't actually use any special effects. We were planning to add fire to the guns, but decided it wouldn't look real, only too graphic and imagery. We added noises to the gunshots. Which worked out quite well I thought.

How the characters are introduced

The introduction of characters The protagonist in this film(the main character of whom I play) is given much prevalence in the opening two minutes and the only character that is really introduced in the opening two minutes.  To help illustrate this to the audience, we've purposely used a lot of screen time towards my character using various different camera shots like high low-angle shots, ECU; close up, long shots etc. in order to show that he's the dominant, main character in this film. He's first introduced as soon as he steps out of the car, then walks into the school and takes out the guards, in which he consequently kills his target, "job done". His introduction at the beginning of the film is the typical perception and concept of what my character is like in terms of personality and role he has for the synopsis and the film itself.

His introduction is fairly conventional of action/thriller films, as it's quite common for films of my film genre to introduce main characters in a stand out and bold way within the opening scene. For example, In the James Bond movies, James Bond is introduced similarly to the way that my character is introduced in terms of initial impressions from the audiences perspective, as he is the catalyst in killing the bad guy(antagonist).