Planning: Source code Film opening genre analysis

Name: Source code
Director: Duncan Jones
Production company: Vendome pictures
Distributor: ACME film
Gross: $54,696,902
PG 13
Date released: 1st April 2011

The film starts off with a man waking up confused and startled. The sound effects of explosions are played to give the audience a hint as to what he was dreaming about or the events that have happened or what will happen. A loud horn of a train fully jolts the character into action as he becomes more and more frightened as to where he is. The audience are made to feel confused at this point and it really hooks the audience in as they want to know why he is so frightened and confused as to why he is on this train. As he looks around he sees a woman sat with him where he has no idea who she is and the audience are as confused as the character making the audience feel for him and slowly learn with this character as to what, why, who, when and how.

As everything seems so abstract and weird for the character experiencing this. Yet the scenery is quite normal for an everyday person but because of this confusion this character has the audience is also confused. This fits in perfectly with the thriller genre as it conveys a certain rush of emotions and seems very fast paced with its dynamic narrative. Normal things are converted into fast paced actions and as the mystery grows with him having a different reflection to what we see grows the woman tries to calm him and says its going to be okay which slightly calms the character down and in turn the audience.... And then suddenly a huge ball of fire bursts through the room as the train explodes making the audience look in shock and it makes the audience fear for the characters life as they cant see them in this explosion and feel for the character they have developed this knowledge with. As this is set in the present shown due to mise en scene with costumes which fit current fashion and trends and locations which fit current day it really makes the audience relate with these people and the film opening puts the audience through so much emotion in the first 5 minutes which fits the code of thriller very well.

Planning: My chosen genre

I have chosen thriller as it will give me a wide range of things to work with and it is easier to hook in an audience with this genre as it can be very fast paced and action packed which is what i am aiming for in my opening. thriller can also be easily paired with sub genres such as fantasy which is also what i am aiming for in my opening.
I hope that i can incorporate a supernatural vibe with thriller as me and Laura want to create an action packed tense supernatural thriller.
I hope to achieve this by using a range of dynamic camera shots making the scenes as fast paced as possible but keeping this emotion filled feel.

Planning: Genre research

Genre is used to define a particular film for audiences.

Different genres are: Thriller, Romance, Comedy, Action/adventure, horror etc

Horror: Horror typically is a story of a creature or threat to a group or one person where they are killing people of the group or posing a major threat to someone.
Thriller: Typically a fast paced emotion filled film with a lot of shocks and surprises thriving with excitement for the audience.
Sci fi: set in space or alien planets with futuristic weapons and technology.
Romance: Typically between a girl and a boy who fall in love with each other.

Overtime filmmakers realized they couldn't just do one fixed genre and they had to incorporate other genres (sub genres) so a thriller might also have a romance sub genre within the narrative of the film. This adds more dynamic to the narrative.
genres define audience pleasures also as someone who goes to watch horror would get pleasure from being scared and adrenaline. Someone who goes to see a thriller would get pleasure from getting a rush of adrenaline and a rush of different emotions. With someone who watches a romance they want to see heartbreak and see feel the emotions the characters feel and feel joy when they get together.

My chosen genre is thriller.
Thriller is a very emotion filled genre and thrives on excitement for the audience and the adrenaline it gives them. A lot of thrillers have action in them or an exciting plotline which puts the audience through a rush of adrenaline.

Films which use the genre thriller are: Source code, Now you see me, the dark knight, taken,gone girl and many more. Many films use the genre for action packed films but some use it cleverly like Now you see me and put the audience through a range of emotions mainly exciting the audience.

Planning: Now you see me film opening genre analysis

Name: Now you see me
Director: Louis Leterrier
Production company: Summit entertainment
Distributors: UMN
Gross: $117,698,894
Awards: none

The scene starts off with an unusual beginning as the character is looking directly at the camera and it seems like he is talking to us personally which makes the audience seem quite connected to the scene. Soon to cut to the woman who he is actually talking to. This scene really involves the audience and gets them into the scene and hooks them in to play along. Some people will also have picked the seven of diamonds so when the seven of diamonds shows up on the the skyscraper the audience would be amazed. This scene really involves the audience and perhaps amazes them which gives them this feeling of shock and amazement. The scene switches to a hypnotists face but zooms out to be a poster and an older version of him is shown. This makes the scene veery fluid and allows the narrative to switch to different scenes smoothly. As the hypnotist finds out about an affair the audience is made to feel sorry for the woman and dislike the man who cheated on his wife so this is a different feeling conveyed as with the next scene with a magician who is caught out and then steals a mans wallet. Lastly a woman who is doing a magic trick but then it seems to go completely wrong. All these scenes make the audience feel different things for each character and in each scene a certain emotion is conveyed. This is very typical of a thriller as its meant to convey a rush of different emotions which this opening accomplishes perfectly.

The opening is very dynamic and shows no definite location which makes the narrative very dynamic and it keeps everything very fast paced and has no time to linger on a trick you're straight onto the next trick preventing the scene from getting boring.

Planning: Genre film opening The dark knight

Name: The dark knight
Director: Christopher Nolan
Production company: Warner bros
Distributors: Warner bros
Budget: $185,000,000
Awards: Best performance for a supporting role, best sound editing

This film starts with dramatic incidental music playing as the camera in an establishing shot zooms into the city. A window explodes and a weird looking man with a clown mask on is scene with the weapon which smashed the glass. As the incidental music rises the man fires a grappling hook. The sound is probably empathized in post and it cuts to a man creepily holding a clown mask identical to the other guys showing this is a plan organised between them. As the incidental music plays there is no sound until the car pulls up with a huge screech. The two men who smashed the window zipwire down and then ambience is introduced to the scene. This shows a classic villainous plot to do something that breaks the law. This scene establishes that these guys are the villains which is very typical in a thriller movie as a lot of the time especially in action packed thrillers the format of a thriller is a villain against a hero.

This scene shows them plotting to do something bad and usually within thriller the bad guys are the ones smashing things and shooting things so already this film has introduced the key elements of a thriller. the clown masks are used to cover their faces and make them creepy and sinister as the bad guy to a thriller needs to be sinister or at least evil.

The music really makes this scene tense and gets the audience hooked into the action. As the scene progresses the clowns explain their plan so now the audience know their plans of what bad things they are going to do. The clowns also have guns which is a very typical element to a villain in a thriller movie.

Planning: Lord of the rings Opening film analysis

Name: The lord of the rings: fellowship of the ring
Director: Peter Jackson
PG 13
Production company: New line cinema
Distribution: New line cinema
Gross:$36,116,967
Date released: 19th December 2001

Titles
The idents start with the most important company first (newline cinema) and then wingnut films which is still important but less important compared to new line cinema. This is very typical with films. As a voiceover is introduced the screen is completely black and after a fair amount of time the title of the film "Lord of the rings" fades in.

Camera/Editing/Sound
As the titles begin a low volume hum is played (non diagetic) a voiceover is played throughout the black screen the audience is given. As the title fades in the soundtrack of the film is played over it. As the camera cuts to different close ups of the rings creation then an extreme close up of three hands with the rings on.As the camera cuts and pans up three elves are seen with their rings. It then cuts to 7 rings on a table with the camera zooming out as seven dwarfs pick up their rings. As the voiceover keeps on explaining things about these rings and the soundtrack playing a long shot of 9 men with rings are shown as the camera zooms out. The transitions used are fades and cuts throughout these scenes. The camera then cuts to a map and pans across it and fades out. The camera zooms onto a specific place on the map (Mordor). An establishing shot is shown of Mordor and the camera zooms in on the volcano. The incidental music is introduced and raises tension showing the audience this is a bad place. As the music rises and the womans voice heightens the camera cuts to a close up of an evil looking figure (Sauron) zooming in and fire suddenly bursts up the camera cutting to a long shot of the figure.

Location/ Atmosphere/ Narrative
The location is set clearly in a time long ago in the past. But also it is established this is a fantasy world with dwarfs and elves. The atmosphere is quite chilling and has a very old feel to it emphasizing this is in the past. The narrative shows us that these rings are of great importance and the other ring is the most important as it has its own story which no one knows. Also the location of where it is made is very dark and stereo typically evil as it has a huge volcano firing out lava and the land is all charcoal black. When Mordor is introduced the calming peaceful atmosphere disappears and Mordor is shown to be this sinister evil place. The mise en scene also shows a lot about this time era as the characters costumes are very old fashioned and seem to be very roughly made and certainly not clothes like we have in the present. Also instead of lighting like we have, they have candles for their light source showing that they have no electricity.

Target audience
The target audience for this film  would be for ages from around 12 to 40 as a lot of people love the franchise lord of the rings. The production company knew that lord of the rings has a very big fanbase and would like to see this movie. Also people who are fans of action adventure or even fantasy as this film is strongly held in these categories.

Planning: Transformers 4 age of extinction film opening analysis

Name: Transformers age of extinction
PG 13
Director: Micheal Bay
Date came out: 27th June 2014
Production company: Paramount pictures
Distributors: Columbia pictures
Gross: £245,428,137
Awards: None

Titles
The opening starts off with the idents of the production companies who made the film the order of these production companies are shown in importance so Paramount was shown first and this is clearly the most important company. As this descends in importance order they turn into steel letters representing the transformers as the scene progresses huge letters appear with the title "TRANSFORMERS" followed by "AGE OF EXTINCTION".

Camera/Editing/Sound
As the idents end the scene starts off fading into space. There is a low volume ambience coming from the ships shown as the ships go past as the camera shows an establishing shot zooming out. Throughout the scene there is incidental music raising tension as the transformers title appears the music score goes quite heroic showing the audience this is the heroic thing which will stop the evil. As it zooms out further and the age of extinction title shows the music becomes a bit more sinister adding empthasise to the "Extinction" part of the title. The camera cuts and immediately the ambience of another place is introduced with the sound of a waterfall shown in the scene. As the camera pans down small dinosaur creatures run around with sound effects of these dinosaurs. The sounds are non diagetic as these are not real and the dinosaurs are added in using CGI so the sound is not comibng from the scene at all for the dinosaurs. As a distant roar is heard in the background the camera cuts and the camera zooms in for a close up of the dinosaur turning around to look for the distant roar. The camera cuts to an extreme close up of a weird looking hand activating some sort of button. The incidental music rises and builds more tension and a sound effect of a voice is added in for the weird creature and also an activation noise for the button sound effect is added in. The camera cuts again and another establishing shot is shown with this land being covered by dinosaurs and a huge ship flying above it. The incidental music rises and shows the threat which is creating the tension. As the camera tilts up more and more ships are shown rising the incidental music even more. A sound effect of a lazer coming from the ship is added in and explosions which hit the ground are added in post.

Atmosphere/Location/Narrative
The location is set in many differtent places but mainly in prehistoric earth. The audience are shown this by the dinosaurs shown widely across the scene and the location sets the era as it looks very natural and undeveloped so it is clearly set in a time where earth was not developed at all and almost untouched by humanity and of course with dinosaurs running about it, it is clearly set in the distant past before the ice age. The scene starts off with so much tension building and then keeps on rising and the audience is made to feel sorry for this race of dinosaurs as they clearly are destoyed in the scene and specifically one dinosaur which the camera and narrative follow for a short while. So the audience are made to feel sad and tense as the dinosaur runs for his life which really pulls on the audiences hearts. The small dinosaur is represented as this helpless little character which is made to make the audience feel for it.

Target audience
The target audience for this film would be from the ages 10 to around 30 years of age as this film is about the transformers which is a huge franchise which many kids and adults love. Transformers is widely known and has a huge fanbase due to old cartoons and the previous films before this one, Some people who would want to watch this might also just like action packed films which is clearly shown throughout the film. Also big fans of Micheal bays work might also want to watch this film. Transformers fits into a lot of categories and has a wide spread of reasons for people to watch the films.

Planning: Good fellas film opening analysis

Link to the opening = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8pQJOeTkFs

Film name: Goodfellas
Year it came out: 1990
Director: Martin Scorsese
Production company: Warner bros
Distribution company: Warner bros
Budget: $25,000,000
Gross: $46,836,394
Rated: R
Awards won: Best actor in a supporting role

Title
The opening starts with Warner bros flying into the shot like a car would as the titles are representing the movement of a car as the sound played over them is the noise of a car zooming across a road. Warner bros are shown first in the titles as the titles are putting the information in order of importance and of course Warner bros are the most important company and then it descends in importance. The first actor to be shown in the titles is Robert de Niro as he is a hugely famous actor and because of his status he is put first in the cast list. The cast list just like at the start goes down in importance. The title then shows some information to the audience to tell them its based on a true story.

Camera/sound/editing
As the titles end an establishing shot is shown to show the audience where the location is set and as the car sweeps across the road with the diagetic ambience of the open road and sound of the car engine roaring the camera pans around the car. The camera cuts to inside the car with a close up of the main characters. The diagetic ambience plays throughout the scene as the actors look around confused as to what they can hear. The banging noise is most likely diagetic as it sounds like its coming directly from the scene. It then cuts to the car still and them walking out to the boot of the car to investigate showing a long shot of them. It then cuts to a shot of the car with the camera zooming in increasing the tension and mystery of what is in the boot. The camera cuts to three gangsters and zooms in as they prepare their weapons and the camera pans to the gangster with the key as he approaches the car. The scene cuts to the guy opening the car boot still zooming in slowly. There is no sound apart from the ambience and the car thudding which raises tension and makes the audience anticipate a shock. As he opens the boot the camera cuts to the gangster with a huge knife and stabs the man in the bot repeatedly with non diagetic stabbing noises cutting to another character showing his reaction. Then it cuts to the same character firing a gun with non diagetic gunfire sounds to add emphasis to the action. As the gangster begins to shut the boot a voiceover of his voice is played over the scene (non diagetic). As the camera zooms in for a close up of the gangster a very jolly score is played over the top. As the titles fly in just like the start, the soundtrack keeps on playing and the title of the film is introduced.

Atmosphere/Narrative/location
The audience are given an immediate time setting as the car shown in the first scene is a classic American car immediately setting up the time this was roughly set. As the scene progresses it becomes more and more evident that this is set in the not too distant past in America due to mise en scene. The costumes are very formal and not too long ago were made but due to the characters features such as haircuts it becomes clear this was set before 2000. The location makes it difficult to tell when this is set and where it is set apart from the fact that the side of the road they are driving on is on the right so it is clearly not set in places with left hand driving , such as Britain and Australia. Also due to the car being driven and the accents they are talking in strongly suggests it is set in America. Their accents also suggest a very stereotypical gangster. The atmosphere seems quite violent and it seems that that will continue throughout the film.

Target audience
The target audience for this film would be around 18 to around 30 as this film is clearly meant for mature audiences who like action and gore. Also fans of gangster movies who like mainly thrillers and action. Another audience could be fans of Robert de niro as he is a huge actor who has a lot of fans that would want to watch this movie because he stars in it.

Planning: Film opening research: Sherlock Holmes Game of shadows

Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows.

Director: Guy Ritchie
Cast: Robert downing jr and Jude law.

PG 13
Production: Warner bros
Gross: $186,830,669
Release date: 16 december 2011

Narrative
The scene starts with a man sat down writing out his thoughts as the voiceover projects the words he is putting on the typewriter into non diagetic sound for the audience to hear. The narrative shows the story of this man called Sherlock Holmes as the guy on the typewriter explains. The location is set in an old victorian street and the story follows this package after a huge bombing was shown. The package is then discreetly passed to another person obviously in exchange which was planned. The camera pans up to reveal a clearly important character holding the package. As she walks along she goes past an old man but the camera focuses on this old man on the bench and shows the audience he has importance in this scene. It then cuts to him grabbing different things from bags and walking towards the woman. The man links arms with the woman and both clearly know each other. Then the man pulls the woman to the side and explains there are three men following her as the camera focuses on the men following her.

Title
The title starts with very old fashioned paper as the background to give the audience a feeling that this film is set in the past and everything is old fashioned as the audience can tell this paper is pure white like it is today so immediately its established its set in the past. Another thing which strengthens this point is the fact that the idents for the production companies are drawn with ink so it strengthens this feel of old fashioned ink and paper that we had in the past. All of the production companies are shown in the order of importance in the titles as warner is considered the most important and then descends in its importance with the other film production companies.

Sound
The opening starts off with a non diagetic voiceover as the character who is typing is thinking the words he is typing to show the audience what he is typing on the typewriter to give a different way of telling the audience what it says instead of him saying it out loud or showing the text on the paper. A very classical score (non diagetic) is played as he is typing and talking and it makes the scene peaceful and calming until a huge explosion bursts out of this building and then the score is very tense and incidental music is played to give an action packed feel which causes the opening to pick up pace and everything becomes fast paced with the non diagetic incidental music. The voice of a newsreader sound bridges over to the next shot. Diagetic ambience is played to give more of a realistic street feel to the scene and everything becomes a lot more tense with more and more sound being played. As the camera rises to show this woman holding this package the incidental music rises to show the audience she is very important and possibly doing something bad. As she walks past an old man layed down the music drops and goes quiet showing a very mellow tone for this character showing that he is a good character and he is the person who will stop this potential threat. As the two characters exchange dialog the music stays at a quiet volume but still present to keep that tension. As he pulls her to the side the music drums loudly to give emphasis on the threat that is behind them.

Camera  
As the camera pans across these old books it focuses on this man typing and then cuts straight to a close up of the man showing his importance and shows he is the man doing the voiceover. The camera zooms out slowly keeping the shot static. It then cuts to the top of this building and pans down slowly showing exactly what the man is talking about. It cuts to a closer framing of the shot concentrating on the explosion coming from the doors. Cuts to a close up of a newspaper detailing the event and zooms out and when a mysterious figure passes the camera the camera hooks onto his movement and focuses on him walking through the street but always concentrating on the package. As its passed to another character the camera changes direction and moves backwards still concentrating on the package. The camera pans up to show a main character as it focuses in on her face for a while in a close up. As she passes an old man the camera fixes onto him for a while showing a long shot of this man. The camera cuts quickly between extreme close ups of different foods showing their importance as this man grabs handfuls of them. The camera cuts and pans following the woman and then cuts to an establishing shot of this market place to show exactly where the characters are. In an extreme long shot the woman comes into shot and walks towards the camera then cuts to a closer framing of the woman giving us a close up of the woman and the man walks into shot. The camera zooms out slightly but focuses on the two characters walking as they exchange dialog.

Atmosphere
The scenes in the first two minutes start from very slow and peaceful and them explodes into a face paced tense atmosphere setting the audience up for a roller coaster of feelings throughout the film going from slow to fast in seconds. The opening sets the audience up with an old fashioned Victorian setting due to location of the old dirty market place and the mise en scene of the costumes and props used in the opening as the old fashioned Victorian tweed and top hats show the audience immediately its Victorian times. The characters speak in an old accent too speaking very formally with no slang words like we use today yet the language is still differentiated between the lower classes like the newsreader andf the higher classes like the main woman character in this opening as the lower speaks very slang orientated but the higher speak very formally and posh.

Target audience
The target audience for this film would be for ages from 12 to 30. This is because younger kids would less likely find this film interesting as its meant for more mature yet still young audiences. The film would be ideal for Sherlock Holmes fans of course and the companies who made this film know that fans of Sherlock would enjoy this film and would want to watch it. Also this is a sequel so fans from the first film would want to see this film due to the first. Also another group of people who would want to watch this film would be fans of the actor Robert downing Junior as he has a very large fanbase so his fans would like to see him in this huge role.

Planning: Pros and cons of working in a group

Pros:

You have a lot of ideas coming from different people.

You get instant feedback from everyone.

You have a wide range of views on the work you've done so far.

You have a lot more hands to help out when you encounter problems.

The work can be split into small roles for each person.

If you were alone you wouldn't have any other opinion but your own.

You can have a lot more support from a group than on your own.

Things get done quicker if done professionally.

Cons:

On your own you have perhaps a clearer image on what you want for the short film.

A group can get crowded in small places.

If working with friends it can be a distraction.

Talking can interrupt the duration of the project.

People can disagree and not like other peoples views.

Some people may feel left out if they have little to do.

Sometimes its best if someone has one job and does the entirety of that job so that it doesn't confuse the next person that does work on it.

Some people may not take it seriously.

People may not understand instructions others give them.

Planning: Evaluation of the preliminary film. "An awkward affair"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMOoor0jAVg     <===  link to the video

In our first short film we took a lot of time planning what we were gonna do for the idea of the film and how we were going to present it, as we wanted the best possible result for presentation to show an array of shots, edits and sound editing, but we didn't want to detract from the short story which is set in the piece.

On our storyboard we set out the shots we needed and these all went from paper to camera very quickly as we set out exactly what we wanted in the frame of the shot in every single shot presented. Of course we knew some additional edits to make to the shots but these were planned in the filming process so it made our lives easier in the editing process.

The location for filming was set in the actual classroom we were set the task but coincidentally it was the only room with a small enclosed interrogation like space for filming our interrogation scene. We found that the difficulties we had were the basic problems such as the little amount of space we had to set up the tripod and get the shot right so that the actors were in shot. Another small problem was the reflection in the window in the last scene where we could see whoever was filming. So to overcome this we only moved the camera to a certain point on the window so that the cameraman cannot be scene in shot.

Apart from those small problems all of the filming went well and moved on swiftly so we were able to finish before the deadline time of filming. When it came to the editing process we moved through it swiftly placing the clips into place. Problems started to rise when we wanted to go for a much more dynamic and stylised way of presenting the titles for Alfie's character bursting in the room. So on After effects i used a freeze frame of Alfie and masked around his body and added a grey grunge type background to the shot and increased the scale of Alfie for dramatic effect and to really give a sense of Alfie being powerful.

We used a range of sound effects to give dramatic effect and also to add a very comedic side to this film. We used low angle shots on Alfie to make him look more powerful than Malachi and we used high angle shots to show Malachi is lower than Alfie. We used shot reverse shot as we switch back and forth from Malachi to Alfie to create this dynamic conversation between them. We used a lot of close ups so that the audience concentrate on the character speaking and it emphasises the importance of what they are saying.

To improve i think we could increase the length of our shots and not make them jump so fast and give them time to pan out without making it so long the audience loses focus. Also integrating the sound into the clip without sudden stopping or starting.

We tried to focus on quite a comedic effect as the film is meant to be making quite a serious situation comedic and we really tried to over exaggerate things so it made them funny. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed making this piece and we took a lot of feedback from other students for our project and we incorporated as much as we could to improve our short film.