For this task I am going to talk about what sort of production company we are going to be and why we have chosen it. The name of our production company is 'Cuff Studios' which we chose because cuff is quite a unique word for clothing and we had to base our name off of clothing. We have chosen to be a mainstream insitiution because we would like to take the challenge of creating a mainstream film opening. A mainstream institution is a company that works on a big scale and they generally top in the film industry. Also we have a lot of ideas towards the story and look of our sequence which will draw in a broad audience instead of a niche audience as that is our target audience. We would like to experience what its like to make a film opening in the same way as what the big six make as they are very successful companies and I believe we will learn a lot of new skills from doing so. Therefore we want our company to be like these mainstream companies; Universal, Disney, Warner Bros, etc, as we have a similar goal to the outcome of their films, except not as extreme because we don't have a big budget like they do. Now that we have chosen what sort of company we are going to be, we need to research into institutional logos and decide what ours is going to be.
For this task, I am going to be talking about the films that have influenced me for my film opening. I am going to look at what ideas they have given me and summarise how I could use these ideas for my sequence.
Deadpool
Deadpool is a mainstream action film that has hugely influenced my ideas towards choosing the genre of my film. I like how it is an action film, but also has a twist of comedy to it because I feel that it makes the film opening more fun to watch as well as intriguing. Its given me ideas on themes as to what lighting to use as it looks quite natural and dull but it suits the genre well. I have gathered ideas about slowly revealing the scene as in Deadpool it begins with lots of close ups and by the end of the film opening, you get to see what the whole picture is. I think this is an interesting of introducing the film and gets the audience intrigued by slowly introducing the scene. It has also given me ideas on location, as to film in city-like location as that is often a popular sort of location for action films. The pace is very slow and calm making the situation seem less serious, bringing out that aspect of comedy.
Hangover
This is a comedy film, and there is a particular scene in the Hangover film that has influenced me with some ideas which is when Stu, Alan and Phil give Mr Chow the money. An idea that I gained from it is the types of costumes to use and character ideas. I like what Mr Chows guards wear as the look smart but casual making them look high in power. I also like how Mr Chow genuinely looks weak because he is smaller than his guards, but still looks high in power because of how he acts, what he wears compared to the others and the position he is in. This scene is exaggerated and not taken seriously which is what makes it funnier to watch, and is the sort of idea I have in mind for my film opening. One other aspect I like is that they are the only characters in the scene, so the attention is directly drawn at them and there is no one in the background.
Redemption - student film opening
This student film opening has influenced me a lot towards narrative as my main idea if based off of this. The first thing I like about it, is that they begin with an establishing shot of London and zoom out to the back of the characters head, so its not directly showing the character straight away. This shot immediately suggests that this is an action film to the audience making it clear on what the genre is. I do like a lot of the shots they use during the sequence for example the shot where the cars are driving in to the car park which it makes the shot more interesting than it actually is. I also like their use of pace when during the fighting scene, the pace is much faster because of the action taking place. However instead of killing the guards, I think he should have just ran and had been chased, but I could involve that in my piece as well. This film opening also gave me the idea of having a brief case, but instead of the guy stealing it, he could deliver it to the person but then what's in it isn't what he expected it to be.
Conclusion
By doing this task I have mentioned some points about the ideas I have gathered from other sources and discussed how I could use them in my film opening. This has helped me overview my ideas and begin to develop a storyline from it.
For this task, I am going to do my own independent research on genre and audience to get some primary information. I have decided to do a questionnaire about what genres people like, and what they expect to see in a film of that genre. I am hoping this will help give me an idea of what genre to choose as I will see what people like about them and therefore I will see what I could possibly include in my film opening.
Questionnaire
I created the questionnaire online using survey monkey. I wanted to find out what sort of content people like to see from certain genres so I have an idea of what they would expect to see in my film opening. I made 5 questions which were; what is your favourite film genre, what do you believe an action film has to have in order for you to like it, the same question but with comedy and thriller, and what do you believe any film has to have to be successful. I chose to look at comedy, action and thriller as these are my top three choices of genre for my film opening. I asked a maximum of 18 people to complete my survey in which most of them are aged around 15-17 and a few are older. Also most of them were female. The questions were multiple choice and the participants were allowed to tick more than one box when answering.
Results
Question 1
For this question, the most popular answer was comedy which I believe is because this genre has made the most films and a lot of people generally enjoy comedy films as comedy can be interpreted into almost any film no matter what genre it actually is. The least popular answers were musical, war, western and documentary. I expected this outcome as there aren't as many films based off of these genres and they aim for more niche audiences because of how they aren't very popular. In my opinion there are a few films that I like that are of them genres e.g. western films I like are Rango, A million ways to die in the west and Back to the future 3. However there isn't enough for me to say I like that genre because there are many western films I don't particularly like. I was surprised that adventure only got two votes as in my secondary research, I found out that it had made the top total box office out of them all. This has helped me decide to use comedy in some way for my film opening because its a genre that most people enjoy.
Question 2
For this question, the most popular answer was 'a realistic situation' which is interesting to find out because many action films like superhero movies don't contain realistic situations. This may be that the participants prefer to watch a film with a realistic situation because they could imagine it actually happening in real life. For example people would prefer to watch something like the film 'San Andreas' or 'Non-stop' because its a realistic action film and similar events have actually happened. I think people like this concept because it allows us to learn about the world and learn what its like to be in these sort of situations. The least popular option was 'cars' with no votes at all which is understandable as you don't need cars in an action film to make it good, but it depends what sort of film your making because for example 'fast and furious 7' is all about cars. What's interesting though is that 7 people said that they would expect to see some sort of chase in an action film which would probably involve cars. Finding this information out has helped me a lot by giving me an idea of what aspects of action films people expect to see or would like to see so I now have an idea of what I could include in my film opening.
Question 3
The most popular option for this question was 'characters with a sense of humour' in which all except 2 people chose. I expected this to be a popular choice because it is necessary that a comedy film will contain a character with a sense of humour otherwise it won't be much of a comedy. The least popular answers were people hurting themselves, an exaggerated storyline, and children. I collected these ideas from films for example Deadpool, he is always injuring himself and its a comedy film. One of my ideas was to have a child as the villain in my film opening, but for the option of children' that only had one vote. However I didn't specify clearly what I meant so people may have thought children in adult humour (e.g. Bad Grandpa) or something like me idea. This has helped because I now know what options aren't very necessary to look at so I am less likely to use them in my film opening if I do comedy.
Question 4
For this question, the option for 'tension' was by far the highest answer as everyone but three people chose this. I expected this because thriller is all about thrilling the audience - causing a reaction to what they are watching by surprising them, causing emotion, or scaring them. To jump scare an audience, the best way to do this is to build up tension which every thriller film that I know of does. If i were to do this genre I will definitely involve tension in some way as I think this is a good way to draw in an audience and this is what most people would expect to see in a thriller. Everyone chose each of the options and there are quite a few that have only 1 choice which are 'investigations', 'a natural disaster', a hero or villain, and 'view the story from a characters perspective'. This has helped me for my research as I now know that these are not so relevant to include in my film opening so it isn't important to include them. I also now know that I must definitely include tension if I go along with this genre.
Question 5
I asked this question to get a general idea of what people expect of successful films which actually the results surprised me. The most popular option was 'A list actors' (class) with 8 votes which surprised me as I didn't think people would be less interested in a film just because of the actors in it. I have watched may films who I hadn't known the actors and in order to learn or find out who the actors are, you are introduced to them in the first film you watch of them, so this left me a bit confused. However I do see how people can be drawn to a film just because of the actors in it, and it can make a huge impact on how big the film becomes and how many people want to watch it. Obviously, we won't be having well-known actors in our film opening, however it was interesting to find out for my research as it's useful to know what others expect. May of the options on this question weren't chosen by anyone so I know that many of these aren't necessary to include for my film opening. It was good to find out that 2 people chose the option of 'well known locations' so now I know that I should consider maybe filming in London as that was one of my ideas and it is a location that is well known by the whole world.
Conclusion
By doing this questionnaire, I have found out so much of what ideas and what aspects people prefer so I know what people expect to see from my film opening and what people want to see. Also these are reliable results as they come from a primary source. This has helped me a lot with narrowing down what ideas are best and have also helped me to analyse each genre and to decide what genre to choose. Also this has helped me find out about what sort of audiences like my ideas so I know what route to go down depending on who I am targeting my film at. To improve my results I could have asked more people who were different ages and more males as I mostly asked females, so I would have a bigger range of different people answering my questions. However I collected good reliable results which I have a lot from.
For this task I am going to create a timeline of titles specifically from the genre I have chosen for my film opening which is action. I have chosen to look at the Godzilla film opening (2014) because I haven't looked at a film like this before. This will allow me to see what titles are used in a different style of film so then I can see more of a variety of what I could have for my film opening.
0.04 - 0.17: Warner Bros. animation
0.19 - 0.33: Legendary animation
0.40 - 0.43: Warner bros pictures and legendary pictures presents
0.44 - 0.47: A legendary pictures production
0.50 - 0.52: A Gareth Edwards film
0.53 - 0.54: Aaron Taylor-Johnson
0.54 - 0.56: Ken Watanabe
0.57 - 0.59: Elizabeth Olsen
0.59 - 1.02: Juliette Binoche
1.04 - 1.06: Sally Hawkins
1.07 - 1.09: with David Strathairn
1.09 - 1.11: and Bryan Cranston
1.11 - 1.13: Richard T. Jones CJ Adams
1.15 - 1.16: Victor Rasuk
1.16 - 1.18: casting by Sarah Halley Finn, C.S.A
1.19 - 1.22: costumes designed by Sharen Davis
1.22 - 1.24: Visual effects supervisor Jim Rygiel
1.24 - 1.26: Visual effects producer Allen Maris
1.26 - 1.29: Sound design by Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van Der Ryn
1.29 - 1.31: Music supervisor Dave Jordan
1.31 - 1.33: Music composed and conducted by Alexandre Desplat
1.33 - 1.36: Film editor Bob Ducsay
1.36 - 1.38: Production designer Owen Paterson
1.38 - 1.41: Director of photography Seamus McGarvey, ASC, BSC
1.41 - 1.44: Executive producers Patricia Whitcher Alex Garcia
1.44 - 1.48: Executive producers Yoshimitsu Banno Kenji Okuhire
1.48 - 1.50: Produced by Thomas Tull
1.50 - 1.54: Produced by Jon Jashni p.g.a, Mary Parent p.g.a, Brian Rogers
1.54 - 1.57: Based on the character 'Godzilla' owned and created by TOHO Co., LTD
1.57 - 2.00: story by David Callaham
2.02 - 2.05: Screenplay by Max Borenstein
2.05 - 2.09: Directed by Gareth Edwards
2.33 - 2.42: Godzilla
Doing this task has given me an idea of more types of titles I could include in a film opening and how many titles could be shown, as out of all the film openings I have looked at previously, this opening has a lot more titles (except Fast & Furious 7) so this would be around the maximum amount I would use. Also by doing this task I have noticed that every film opening I have looked at has had capital letters and as I have mainly looked at action, I believe that having capital letters is a feature of this genre so I will be sure that I include capital letters in my own film opening. Overall this task has helped me by giving me another overview of a film opening that is quite different to the ones I have looked at before which has given me some ideas of what how long I shows the titles for, what animations look good and what the titles could say. I didn't state all of the text involved in this film opening but as you watch it, you can see that the names and titles are written within sentences to do with the film which are then covered up with a animation of tape. I quite like this idea as it is unique and I haven't seen it before and I feel that it makes you more drawn to the titles as it makes the sentence bigger and I felt like I wanted to pause the opening just so I could read what they said. This is an idea I could consider using in my film opening.
For this task, I am going to analyse an action film as that is my chosen genre, so I go look into the aspects of an action film to see what content is included and how it draws in an audience. I have chosen to look at the film opening for Divergent because its a good action film with an in-depth storyline which draws me in as a viewer, and I want to see how I can put this in my own film opening.
Genre
This film is an action film so therefore its a mainstream film. There are many ways that this film opening introduces the genre to the audience. First of all, the location is set in a well-known location (Chicago) as we see an establishing shot of the city. Also the surroundings of the city are full of emptiness, telling the audience that there was a war that has devastated the land and left Chicago still standing but in ruin. The music sets the mood of mystery and sounds quite emotional, connoting that there is an in-depth story which is quite dramatic. Overall, the general point is that in the film opening the genre of the film and the type of film its going to be is made clear to the audience.
Narrative
In this film opening, I like how it begins with showing establishing shots of the area because I feel that it really introduces the audience to the story by letting them imagine what's going on before they are told. After the audience get to visually see what's happened to the world, non-diegetic dialogue is used from the main character over the top of these establishing shots half way through the film opening to then give e brief overview of what happened to the world and how it runs now. I think sing this narration really intrigues the viewer as it allows them to understand what has happened to avoid confusion and to help introduce the background of the story that won't be shown. Doing this puts the viewer in the perspective of the main character as she is telling you everything she knows, therefore the audience know as much as she does. It also lets the audience know that this film is going to have a complex storyline because telling a brief overview of the past represents just the beginning of the story.
Character
A lot of the characters we see in this film opening are representing their position rather than themselves to represent the community, so therefore many of them aren't specific characters. A couple of characters are introduced but they aren't main characters. Also we aren't completely introduced to the main character as we don't really know who she is but she explains about her views and what life is like for her. Seeing the clips of her when she was younger suggests that all these shots represent either a montage or a flash back.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere seems quite dull and sad because of the setting, non-diegetic background music, and the colours aren't bright but very grey and neutral. The only time we see bright colours is when we see the sunrise which may represent the good in the bad. Also because it looks so empty and that just viewing the first shots gives the viewer and idea of what's happened and that its bad. However it also seems quite happy further in the film opening as we get to see that the people are living well and living a unique but peaceful lifestyle.
Themes
The theme of this film opening comes across as quite peaceful as everyone is living in harmony and although at the beginning the film comes across as sad, as it goes on we see a more happier approach to the story. We see themes of courage and justice because of how they are all managing to continue living after the devastation of the world. Though, the main theme that stood out to me was loneliness from the first few shots in the film opening because of how empty the world looks. It begins showing the landscape of the world and it then turns to Chicago, comparing how much of the world there used to be and how much is left.
Setting
The location is set in Chicago but its Chicago in ruin which makes it a much more interesting location as it is a real place that you wouldn't get to experience seeing in this state. This suits the genre of action because it is located in a well-known city. The lighting is very warm at the beginning suggesting sadness but peacefulness. Further in the film opening the lighting becomes more natural, reflecting the natural lifestyle they now live in. In my film opening I will consider using a lot of natural lighting to make the situation more realistic.
Sound
Throughout the whole film opening there is non-diegetic background music. At the beginning of the film opening it is has quite slow violin and piano making it sound quite sad and emotional. This matches with the shots focused on the devastation of the world. As the film opening progresses the tune stays the same but it becomes more dramatic when we first see civilisation and when we are introduced to the faction 'Dauntless' which could be highlighted as foreshadowing the faction she chooses later on in the story. They seem happier and free so the music gets faster and happier to represent how they feel even though the world is in a bad state. Once we are introduced to the civilisation, a non-diegetic voice over from the main character is used to briefly describe the situation whilst showing a montage of shots. I like how this has been done because it puts the audience into the perspective of the main character whilst introducing the baseline of the story to draw the audience into the universe of the film. I feel that my ideas don't evolve around such a complex storyline so there's not much of a story to talk about if I used this concept, therefore I probably won't use it. However I would like to consider using it as I really like the idea, I am just not sure how I could include it. Behind all this we also get some diegetic sounds as well to bring more life into the shots of the film opening.
Titles
As there is a lot of narration, from midway through the film opening, there isn't any titles. All of the titles are shown from the beginning before the main character starts to speak. The sort of titles we see are of cast, crew, location and institutions. It begins with the institutions as they are the ones who are presenting the film. We then get the title of the film, main cast and then crew. However during the titles of the crew when an establishing shot is used on the city, the title 'Chicago' is used to clarify the location as people may be unaware as it is in a different setting. It is also highlighting the location because this is where the whole film takes place so its an important aspect to the story. The director's name is the last title to be shown. The style of the font matches the technological theme of the film as it looks a bit like electricity and it looks futuristic. I like the transitions they use on the first few titles as the lines on the letters join together to form the letter which matches well with the theme.
Conclusion
By doing this task I learnt a lot about the aspect of a complex storyline towards an action film. I know that it isn't completely necessary to use for an action film opening but I do like how it is shown because I find it very intriguing as a viewer and I would like to get that feedback from people who watch my film opening. This task has helped me gather more ideas as I have looked at a different type of action film compared to what I have previously looked at because none of them have had as much of a complex storyline.
For this task we need to decide on what genre we are going to base our film opening on. Our three narrowed down options are comedy, thriller and action so we need to decide which one to choose. In order to choose we need the gather the ideas we have to see what we can make of them and see what genre they fit into best.
Questionnaire
I created a questionnaire to see what people expect to see when watching a thriller film, comedy or action film so I have an idea of what people like about them and what is possible for me to create for that genre. I found out that the most popular genre people liked was comedy so we were highly considering to choose this genre. Most of the participants said in action films they would expect to see a realistic situation, in comedy films they would expect to see characters with a sense of humour and in thrillers they would expect to see tension. Finding out this information has allowed me to understand what is necessary to include for my film opening, depending on which genre I choose, as most people would expect to see it. In the last question about what they expect to see in successful films, the most votes was 'A list actors' which is understandable but I can't make that possible for my film opening. However other options like well-known locations, technology and a complex storyline had some votes too which I can learn from and adapt into my film opening.
Our genre
The genre we have chosen to do for our piece is action because I know a lot about the genre now as I have done most of my research on it and I have lots of good ideas that have improved and developed whilst I have been researching. Some of the film openings that have influenced us is the student film opening 'Redemption', Deadpool and Fast & Furious 7. We really liked the concept of Deadpool, and it had the most votes in the questionnaire, so we have also considered to include some comedy to our piece as well. The ideas I have are along the lines of having someone meeting another person to deal with something but it doesn't go to plan.
Research
In action film openings, I have noticed a lot of things that various films have in common. For example capital letters in titles, fast transitions for the titles, neutral/dull colours, natural lighting, non-diegetic music, little dialogue, etc. I will be sure to try and add these aspects into my film opening to outstand the genre and to make my film match the theme of action films. Since 1995, the genre 'action' is ranked 3rd towards its market share compared with every other genre. It has made a total box office of around $36 and with around 816. In my questionnaire I found out that in action films people expect to see content like big stunts, fight scenes, a chase of some sort, explosions and to be located in a big city. Some of these however we wouldn't be able to perform for example explosions as we are not qualified to do that sort of thing. We could edit it in after filming, but this may look unrealistic making the film opening look a bit cheap. However in the Godzilla film opening there was an explosion which was probably edited in so it is possible, its just got to be done correctly.
Conclusion
I am happy with the genre we have chosen as I have lots of good ideas for our film opening. We chose to go with action because we want to challenge ourselves and make our film opening interesting and intriguing, and by just going with comedy I don't think we would achieve that as well. Therefore by embedding them together I think will make our film opening open to a wider audience whilst being interesting. Action is probably my favourite film as enjoy the complex storylines behind them and they make me feel a part of the story as they help me learn about the world and what it would be like if these sort of situations happened. Now I need to start gathering my ideas together and research on what our institution will be.
