Point 25 - Risk Assessment

 

Here is the risk assessment for when we film the opening titles of our film.

Point 27 - Props & Costumes

These are all the props and costumes we will be using for the opening titles:

PEN & PAPER

 RUGBY BALL

 COSTUME FOR THE SECRETARY

 UMBERELLAS

 COSTUME FOR THE YOUNG SCHOOL CHILDREN
AND THE YOUNG GIRL AND YOUNG GORDON

COSTUME FOR GORDON TWIGINAM

BRIEFCASE FOR GORDON TWIGINAM

Point 26 - Casting shots

Gordon Twiginam (Samuel Reid)

We've chosen this person as he takes A-Level Theatre Studies and so can act well and will be able to play the dorky character of Gordon Twiginam.

The Primary School Kids (Year 9 boys & girls)

We've chosen a group of year 9 boys and girls as these are the closest age to young primary school children.

Younger Gordon (Will Brockway)

This boy takes GCSE Drama and has a very bubbly personality and so loves to act and will be able to play this part well.

The Young Girl  (Iona Simpson)

This girl has the characteristics of being very friendly so any boy would have a 'crush' on her and she is very innocent also.

The Secretary (Louisa Robertson)

This girl is very organised and polite and so would be ideal to play the role of a secretary.

Point 24 - Locations

Aberlour Playing Fields

The reason for choosing this location is because it's a big playing field with lots of room for the children to play around in and really act as if they are in their school playground playing.

The road from Chapel to G-House

This road is perfect for the character of Gordon to walk down because it's a long road and so we can use this to our advantage to have a long clip of him walking down trying to impress everyone while they look down at him and laugh.  It is also the actual road leading to G-House and it can mimick the idea of a busy road in New York city.

Outside G-House (Zebra Crossing)

With the zebra crossing right outside G-House building we thought this was an ideal place for Gordon to fall flat on his face as a zebra crossing can represent a busy street and people will be walking by when he falls as this is the location everybody uses when walking across a busy road.

Inside G-House (Reception area, CB Staircase and Mrs Hawksley's Office)

G-House has the perfect staircase that we need in order to represent an office and the office in G-House looks rather like an office that a secretary would use in our film before you walk into the 'main' office (Mr Barton's).

Point 23 - Shot List and Shooting Script

This is our shot list and shooting script for our opening titles of the film.

Shots	Shooting description	Sound	Titles
Establishing shot	Abelour playground with year 9 students	Narration
Rewinds
Establishing shot	Abelour playground with year 9 students	Narration
Zoom in	Of Gordon on the bench  (Aberlour)	Narration
Close up (in slow motion)	Of the girl flicking her hair  (Aberlour)	Narration	Titles coming out of her hair when she flicks it
Close up	Back to Gordon (Aberlour)	Narration
Mid shot	Gordon is hit by rugby ball (Aberlour)	Narration	Title on the rugby ball
Tracking shot	Of Gordon walking and close up shots of people walking past him and their reactions (G-house) - Close up of Gordon’s face - Close up of people walking by him	Motown/ Funky Music	Title on Gordon’s shoulder which he brushes off when walking
Jumps cuts	Of Gordon walking to his office (G-House)	Motown/ Funky Music
Mid shot (in slow motion)	Gordon Falling (zebra crossing at G-House)	Music Cuts	Titles on the zebra crossing & on the bits of paper flying out of his briefcase
Extreme close up	Of Gordon’s face	No Music
Mid shot	Of Gordon brushing himself off and walking to G-house	Motown/ Funky Music
Tracking shot	Of Gordon walking to his office (G-House)	Motown/ Funky Music
Pan long shot	Of Gordon walking up the stairs to his office (Colour Bearer staircase)	Office Music	Titles on the stairs
Dutch titlt	Gordon going up the stairs (Colour Bearer staircase)	Office Music	Titles on the stairs
Establishing shot	Of the office (G-House Mrs Hawksley’s Office)	Office Music
Close up	Secretary at her desk	Office Music
Shot reverse shot	Of the Secretary and Gordon	Music cuts after Gordon finds out about the reunion
Extreme close up shot	Passing letter	Dialogue	Title of the film on the letter (pauses and dissolves off the letter)`
Close up	Of Gordon	Dialogue
Close up	Of the Secretary	Dialogue
Close up	Of Gordon	Dialogue
Black hole		Dialogue

Point 22 - Animatic Storyboard

Point 21 - The Sound

The sound for our opening title was going to be a mixture of soundtrack and voice-over narration. It starts with narration in the playground scenes and then cuts to a motownish/funky track when you see the male actor much older and when he's walking down the road. It then cuts out straight away when he falls over onto the zebra crossing and then when walking into his office calm music is playing to set the location of an office job and then it fades once he recieves the invitation from his secretary and dialogue takes place between the secretary and Gordon Twiginam.

Point 20 - Storyboard

Point 19 - Narrative Theorists

When researching the narrative theorists I quickly realised that a lot of the theories fitted to our groups narrative for our film task. For example, Propp's theory of having 8 stereotypical characters matches our characters as we have a villan (the bullies), a princess (the girl crush) and a prince (the main nerdy character who gets the princess in the end) With Todorov our equilibrium is the main male character getting on fine in life, the disruption is him getting invited to the Reunion and embarassing himself and the re-equilibirum is getting the girl and the school bullies becoming nice. Strauss's binary opposition theory takes place also with evil vs good and female vs male.

 

So through this task I've discovered these theories still relate to the media nowadays even though they were created in the late 20th century they still take place and help create big hollywood blockbusters.

 

Point 18 - Story Arc

A brief sypnosis of the whole film:

• The film starts with a young man narrating over the top of the opening titles. He is giving the audience background information into his life mainly about how he was bullied in primary school and wasn't very popular. We are given the oppression that he like a girl in this act.

• It then goes into the present day where he is much older and shows him to be successful. Although physically he has changed into a man his appearance is still dorky and his social skills still lacking within the office environment. Whilst at work he receives an invitation to his High School Reunion and his past comes back to haunt him.

• He visits his parents on the weekend to receive advise, they give him encouragement to return to high school. The whole high school reunion adventure takes part through out the weekend.

• He arrives at the hotel and the first group of people he meets is the gang of bullies, who pestered him at school. They haven't matured at all resulting in mocking of the main character as he has been tripped up by one of them.

• The film then goes on to show the whole weekend. The main character determined to impress ends up in a lot of embarrassing situations. The main embarrassment is when he tries to approach his old high school crush. However through all these embarrassing moments and a large disruption within the story line, the main character ends up with his high school crush. Resulting in the group of bullies leaving him alone

Films like the ones below will give you an idea of what we are aiming for:

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE
YOU AGAIN
GROWN UPS
ROMY AND MICHELE’S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

Point 17 - Key Elements

Here are the key elements that need to be shown in our film opening in order to conform to the expectations of the genre we have chosen, the audience we have chosen and what is expected of a film opening:

• The name of the film has to appear (when the guy is walking)
• The production company's name is mentioned
• The writer, co-producer etc titles appear (when the little kids are playing in the playground)
• A voice-over is used when showing the titles
• The lead actor's name appears when he appears on screen
• It hints the genre of comedy by the actor making mistakes i.e falling over at the beginning with his briefcase
• The narrator is introducing himself and giving background information. Through this he his giving hints about the storyline about what the film is about
• Actor = A guy of a young age, preferably 20-25 years old, so a similar age to our target audience
• When the lead actor receives the invitation to the reunion and it comes to the end of the opening it's clear there is a drama storyline unfolding and the audience are eager to find out what happens next. This is key when creating an opening as it needs to grab the audience straight away.
• Through using young actors and showing a modern era by a man having an office job etc it should interest our target audience of a 'townie' who are a tribe that are very recent and up-to-date with things.

Point 16 - Research on Institutions

Research on Institutions on Prezi

Point 15 - 'Pearl and Dean' website

When looking on the Pearl and Dean website and in the business section I learned about how the industry categories their audiences.

They commented on the drastic change in cinema over the past decade, showing people how it used to be all about the Hollywood blockbusters but nowadays people are more likely to watch a heartfelt documentary or an indie film not some big 3D family action film. This has had a big impact on the diverse range of audiences who go and watch films at the cinema.

Pearl and Dean split their target audience into three groups: Family (family focus attracts a housewife and child audience), 15+ (Cinemagoers who are young and upmarket) and Art House (The art house cinemagoer is older). This is then split again into: Age, Class and Gender. An example is shown below:

For our film opening I would categorise our perfect audience member into the 15+ group as they are upmarket and young so would be similar to the tribe group of a townie which I defined as my perfect audience member on the previous post.

Point 14 - Perfect Audience Member

When researching on the uktribes website I found my perfect definition of an audience member was a TOWNIE.

• This tribe is the core of the British Population
• They like a variety of entertainment
• They like R 'n' B, mainstream hip-hop and pop music, but this isn't a main focus
• They are very into talent contestants, celebs and soaps.
• Holidays and socialising are a big thing also

Tribe Icons:

Cheryl Cole, Danny Dyer, John Terry, Lacey Turner, Scott Mills and Rhianna

 



Brands and Media Consumption:

As you can see this tribe are very top heavy on Media, Radio and Cinema but not so much on reading newspapers and keeping up-to-date with events going on in the world.

For our type of film this tribe definitely fit the criteria of our perfect audience member. They are very trendy (hence the name!) and are the people to ask when wanting to know what is happening in the entertainment world at that moment in time. They are very into their media so would be good judges for our type of film when finding out what works and what doesn't. They seem very relaxed and easy-going people and would pair well with our genre as it is a funny, light hearted drama comedy.

And this is how they dress:

Point 13 - Audience Research

Our task was to find out some audience research on what films people think have good openings, what attracts people to films and what puts them off. Here is what we find out:

Audience Research on Prezi

Point 12 - Mood Board

This moodboard shows the type of mood we are aiming towards for the film opening. The words on the board are stereotypical characteristics of the characters and the pictures are the type of characters that will feature in the film such as a secretary, a middle-class man, and a young boy who is nerdy and is an outcast (hence the school photot with a circle around a particular child) and the location of which it is set.

Point 11 - Annotating 9 Key Shots

For this task I've chosen to use the opening of ' Breakfast at Tiffany's'.

Key Shot 1 - This shows the opening title of  'a paramount picture' letting the audience know the company that produced the film.

Key Shot 2 - The screenshot is an establishing shot of a street in New York City, setting the location of which the film is set.

Key Shot 3 - This shot is of Audrey Hepburn getting out of a taxi, showing her middle class level in contrast to the high clas store next to her.

Key Shot 4 - The next is a low angle shot of a lady looking up at a Tiffany and Co store. With her look of a pearl necklace and hair in a bun along with the high angle shot looking up at it, it shows she is someone who is a wannabe high class women.

Key Shot 5 - Thie screenshot shows Audrey's full length dress and her whole body portraying to the audience her elegance and class.

Key Shot 6 - Another screenshot is of Audrey Hepburn staring into the Tiffany and Co window display while eating her breakfast. This shot is on screen for about 30 seconds while the titles appear to the right. By the length of time it is shown it is giving off the idea that she is day-dreaming and longing to have something in the shop.

Key Shot 7 - This shot is taken from inside the shop looking out at Audrey Hepburn outside creating the effect that she is seperate from them and in a different world of which she wishes she was part of and with her head tilted we assume she is thinking.

Key Shot 8 - This shows Audrey Hepburn walking away from the shop while the titles appear on screen and she is putting on her scarf.

Key Shot 9- This screenshot shows Audrey running into a building with a shot of a driver waiting outside giving the idea that she is late.

Point 10 - Full Textual Analysis of Film Opening Sequence

Little Miss Sunshine

The opening sequence of Little Miss Sunshine starts with a fully coloured yellow screen representing the colour of sunshine with the music starting straight away. Next, an extreme close up shot of a young girl with big rounded glasses is staring straight into the camera lense with the reflection of a TV screen being reflected into her glasses of a women. This is straight away telling the audience that this is a main character, it then cuts back to a cartoon animation of a yellow bus driving along a road with the name of the actress playing the part. We then see a low angle shot of the girl wearing a red jumper with sporting bands round her wrist with her hands to her face acting surprised with then a quick cut to the TV where the women is doing the exact same gesture when winning a beauty pageant. This is showing that the young girl seems to think of nothing else but winning a pageant and you realise it must be her passion. With another quick shot of the yellow bus moving along you then get introduced to an older man wearing a blue shirt and tie with a close up shot of him talking to an audience of which you don't see but he uses a firm hand gesture when speaking which suggests he's possibly talking in a lecture about a serious topic, suggesting he's a hard worker and quite a serious person. A backwash colour of yellow is shown again with the title of the actors name appearing and then the shot of the yellow bus moving along the road. A bird's eye view shot introduces us to a young male who is doing weights with a simple white t-shirt on and black fingerless gloves, his facial expression is very serious and concentrative giving the feeling that he has determination, which makes sense once you learn about his character in the film. The actors name then appears on the screen with the yellow backwash of colour again and the bus moving. A close up shot of somone sniffing cannabis up their nose is shown next with the camera tiliting upwards after to reveal a much older male with a leather waistcoat and a colourful hawaiian shirt on, suggesting to the audience he doesn't have a care in the world and enjoys life by his care-free dress sense. You then see a shot of him facing away from the camera but you see his face through the reflection of him staring into a dressing table mirror, the same sequence then appears with the actors title and the yellow bus. An older female is introduced next with a still camera shot of her driving in the car while on the phone to someone and smoking out the window, this is creating the idea that she is stressed out and leads a very busy life style as she is using smoking to calm herself down, the animation bus appears again but this time starts to disappear off the right hand side of the screen while the actresses name appears. This is suggesting the opening sequence is coming to an end before one last side shot is shown of a older man in a wheelchair staring directly out of the window in a hospital and a close up shot of his facial expression is shown afterwards as he looks very serious and deep in thought, suggesting he has been through some sort of trauma. His name appears while you see the last inch of the bus move off screen and then the main film title is shown behind the yellow backwash of colour with each word getting slightly bigger leaving the word 'Sunshine' in big capital letters along with 'Miss', before the director's name appears. Then the film begins.

I find this opening sequence works very well through a number of different elements. It is very simple and repetitive and doesn't include any special effects or features. It simply states each main character to the audience and gives them a little background on each one. It also gives you an insight into how these characters all seem very different to each other and with this it urges you to watch more in order to find out what happens next and what their story is. The track played behind the opening title is called "The Winner Is" by Mychael Danna and DeVotchKa and is a nice calming piece of music to compliment the simplicity of what's happening on screen.

Point 9 - Breakdown of Film Title (21 Jump Street)

I decided to use the drama comedy film '21 Jump Street' for my graphic breakdown of an opening title. This is a recent film that tells the story of two cops who became friends when at police camp, having been sworn enemies in high school. They go undercover in a local high school and try to blend in while bringing down a youth drug group. This is the opening title:



And this is my graphic breakdown of the opening title:

Point 8 - Research of Genre

Drama comedy films usually convey a well thought out story that has meaning to it that the audience can think about afterwards but for them to enjoy it more a touch of comedy is added to make it more light-hearted. With the drama side of the genre the storyline is usually a serious, plot-driven narrative that shows realistic characters, settings, life situations and involves intense character interaction. It mostly never focuses on special-effects comedy or action but focus on telling a realistic and emotional storyline. With the way the narrative is structured most start by showing you the ending of the film and then works it's way back, allowing the audience to be very confused at the start of the film and then all is revealed if you keep watching it, another is having a voice over at the beginning and one character introducing themselves while shots are shown on screen. The comedy side usually provides the humour by the characters doing silly embarssing things that the audience can either find hilarious because it's so unreal or something that they can relate to as they've done it themselves. Examples of these films are:

A women who gets divorced and goes on a round-the-world trip to "find herself".

A story of man and following his life.

Telling the tale of a group of teenagers in DT.

Shows a family determind to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant.

 

Most of these films have a light-hearted story to it which a range of audience members can enjoy from young to old. Other conventions of this genre is having upbeat and modern music and providing a rollercoaster of emotions, making you laugh in hysterics at one moment and then in floods of tears the next.

 

So for our film opening we need to include:

 

• A voice-over
• Modern music
• Main character introducing himself to the audience
• A silly embarassing moment (which the audience can relate to)