Main AS Media Piece!!

Hello, :)
So we're back for another media project; Lauren, Sam, Perry and myself have returned, however not as "Insanely Good Productions" but as the brand spanking new, "Waffle Productions". We even have a cute waffle man logo. He's even got muscles and sunglasses!! So anyway here we go, the post all about our Main AS Media Piece...

Starting It!

For our main AS Media task we were asked to create an opening sequence to a film (genre of our choice) which should be about two minutes long, and contain a variety of camera techniques, movements and shots. This includes the 180 degree rule which was also needed in the previous task.

Opening Sequence Research!
Before we could go onto doing anything we needed to do some research. First deciding what genre we would use. We decided that Crime Thriller would help us create an effective opening sequence, as we knew of a variety of great films which came under that genre and contained brilliant opening sequences which we could base ours on.

Thinking of the Crime Thriller genre i immediately thought of films such as:
Silence of the Lambs; an American crime thriller which came out in 1991 staring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. Based the novel written by Thomas Harris the film contains a great aspect of horror and crime and is about Clarice Starling, a FBI trainee who is given a first case of catching cereal killer Buffalo Bill who has recently abducted the senator's daughter. In order to get inside the mind of a psychopathic killer Clarice visits the state prison to interview Hannibal Lecter, a retired psychiatrist turned cannibalistic serial killer, who does help catch Buffalo Bill in his own sinister manner. With a variety of twists and surprises the film contains a great opening sequence which displays Jodie Foster's character completing an assault course which involves her running through a forest type location. Also accompanied by a strong musical score which builds up the tension, as well as the digetic sound of the forest and Clarice's heavy breathing, the opening sequence also contains a variety of wide shots to display the environment, as well as other camera shots and movements to gain effect. I found not only the opening sequence but the whole film very enjoyable and really inspiring.

Dirty Harry; another American Crime Thriller which came out in 1971, staring Clint Eastwood. The film is about the rebellious American police officer called "Dirty" Harry Callahan who's on the hunt for killer Charles "Scorpio" Davies who has recently killed a woman swimming in her high-rise rooftop swimming pool, using a sniper gun whilst positioned on top of a large building in San Francisco. Soon discovering a letter from Scorpio stating that he will kill again Harry is soon racing against the clock to stop the killer. Containing a fantastic opening sequence which involves a variety of close ups, panning and many more camera shots and movements, as well as an effective musical score, the film defiantly inspired us when it came to thinking about our opening sequence.

Our Plot Idea!
Once we had thought of a genre we decided on a plot. As we became a little stumped we decided to play a quick fire idea game to try and help gain some ideas. Quickly after Perry and Sam had shouted "GEORGIA THINK, IDEA, NOW!!" at me, i quickly came up with the idea of having a car in the middle of a bumpy road in a field, then i thought of somebody escaping from the boot of the car and running away. This small idea was all we needed to create an interesting plot which we think will look great once we've filmed and edited it. However before we even thought about filming we decided to create a mind map of things we need to consider for our opening sequence. This included camera movements, camera angles, editing, characters, setting, sound, and

lighting.

Story Board!

Once we had thought of a plot we were able to create a story board in order to understand what would happen in our opening sequence shot by shot.

Location!
It didn't take us long to decide on a location to film. Finding a rural landscape which we needed was quite simple considering that we live around lots of field areas. We decided on a location which was close to school to make sure everybody was able to get there easily. We chose to film in a open space in Glinton, as we were using a car in our opening sequence we needed this large outdoor area in order to gain the effects we were looking for. We also carried out a risk assessment of the area to see what dangers could occur whilst filming.

Risk Assessment!

As we were filming on a location which was outside, we needed to carry out a risk assessment of the area so we understood the dangers. This was especially important as there were larger risks to due filming outside in the country. Thankfully we were very careful when filming and there were no major injuries at all.

Sound!

We decided as we were creating a short piece, that we wouldn't include allot of dialogue, mainly using digetic sounds such as the engine of the car, the sound of a shot-gun, or the natural sound of the countryside.

We also decided to include non-digetic sound as we wanted to include a musical score. Perry had found the perfect song to suit our Crime Thriller genre and what would be occurring within our piece. Once he had played The Sadness Will Never End - Bring Me The Horizon we all agreed that it would be a perfect soundtrack for our opening sequence.

Cast!

To suit our Crime Thriller genre we decided to only use two main characters, a Protagonist and Antagonist, both male. Our idea was that the Protagonist would be athletic as he would inquired to run, dressed in a suit which was been marked or ripped, with a bruised or marked face. And the Antagonist would be quite "rough" looking, preferably an older looking man who could also be wearing a suit. For our protagonist we decided to use our friend Anthony who we knew was quite athletic as he plays allot of sport and could act as well. We chose Perry's dad, Clive to play our Antagonist as he is quite tall, with a large build and looked exactly how we wanted our antagonist to look.

We also added another character to our piece to play the Antagonist's boss who would only be shown on screen for a shot period of time, on the phone to his "hit man". After trying a few boys who we thought may suit the roll, we decided to use our friend Jack to play the man on the phone as we thought that his voice would suit the roll of the mysterious boss.

Costume!
Thinking about the genre of Crime Thriller, we decided to dress our cast in costumes which would suit their characters and present the sort of person they are playing, as well as their situation or role. Dressing our cast in casual attire, we used the style and colour to reflect their character. Dressing Anthony, our Protagonist in mainly dark, smart clothing to display how he could either be an undercover police man or even a detective. Whilst dressing our main Antagonist, Clive in a white shirt but a black jacket and trousers to present his character as a dark and dangerous. For our third and final character, played by Jack, who also plays an Antagonist we decided to dress him allot more casual. Wearing a Fred Perry polo shirt and a blue Harrington jacket he presented a "British gangster boss" look about him.
In order to present our chosen costume, Lauren drew a few sketches of them; here they are below...

Mise-en-scene!

As we are planning to film outside lighting will be quite difficult to control. However we plan to use the natural light which will hopefully present the environment to be cold and eerie.
The main props which we plan to use include: a police badge, a car, and a gun.


Possible Camera Angles and Movements!
Whilst waiting for a chance to film it gave us time to think about different camera angles and movements which we could use within our film.

Camera Angles:

- Establishing shot: This will be used within our film when we display the environment it is set in. We plan to display an establishing shot of the area our policeman escapes into.

- Close Up: As close ups display characters emotion or a significant object we plan to use them within our piece in order to display the panic which strikes the policeman running away from the armed man who had previously kidnapped him.

- Mid Shot: As this is a pretty common camera angle, we have decided to use this in order to display the character's clothing, status and body language.

- High angle shot: A high angle can display a character to be emotional or to show the situation from a different point of view. This could be used to show the intensity of the situation which we hope to create.

- Low angle shot: This angle displays the exact opposite of the high angle shot, presenting a character to be quite powerful and strong. This could be used when displaying the kidnapper as he will be seen as very powerful and dangerous within the film.

- Steady cam: This shot occurs when the camera is held by hand, without the use of a tripod. We think that we could use steady cam whilst following the escaped hostage running through the woods in order to create a fast paced, intense scene.

Camera Movements:

- Zooming in and out: Used in our last piece, this simple camera movement which either focuses onto a person or object or does the exact opposite, could be used within our piece when displaying the characters eyes which could show emotion. As we plan our piece to be quite intense we would require allot of emotion from our cast in order to gain the right effect.

- Panning: Being quite an effective camera movement, we wanted to use panning in order to display our escaped hostage running or the car journey of the car he had escaped from.

Filming!

It took us a while to get an opportunity to film as we had to wait for our cast to be free. However the day came when we got a chance to head down to our location at 9 bridges and film our opening sequence. As Perry lives in Glinton, close to where our location was situated we all went back to his house with our camera and tripod. Perry's mum was nice enough to drive us down to the location so we could film some establishing shots (which later needed to be re-shot). Then once they were taken, Perry's mum drove Sam and myself back into Glinton where we waited for Perry's dad and Anthony who were driving up in our criminal's very nice Jaguar, so we could film some free hand camera shots of Clive driving the car.

After we had arrived back at our location, we were able to beginning filming the main parts of our piece. First filming Anthony pretending to escape from the boot of the car, and then different angles of the car; including trying to put Anthony inside the boot and giving him the camera to see what effect it gave, we were then able to play around with different camera movements and more angles. Filming Anthony doing allot of running in different parts of our location and testing how it would look from different areas, we soon ended up with just enough shots which would help us create an effective opening sequence. I found filming quite enjoyable and thought that we had selected the right cast and was well on our way to create a great media piece.

Editing!

Once we had collected enough shots which involved all of the camera movements and shots we needed we were then able to start editing them and put the piece together. Perry took on the role of editor as he found it easiest and was able to understand Vegas Movie Maker much better than the rest of us. Once putting all of our shots in to an order which we were happy with perry was able to add effects such as the colour of the piece, which we decided should be a grey scale. This gave our piece that eerie, gritty feel which suited our crime thriller genre. He also added credits and a title to our piece, a musical score and a digetic sounds of a gun shot when the criminal took a shot at the runaway police officer, and a plane sound which was heard when the policeman picks up his badge after dropping it in the forest. Getting the timing of the music and the digetic sounds to fit with the shots became quite difficult and took a while, but perry seemed to know how to fix it so our piece looked and sounded great. We also added the scene where the antagonist's boss would say a short line, instructing the "hit man" to go after the escaped policeman. This didn't take long as it was a very short scene, and only involved Jack's face from the nose down, talking into a mobile phone. We thought that the added scene gave the piece more depth but also added another close-up shot to it which helped as it mainly consisted of mid and wide shots. Overall even though the editing process took a little while, it obviously made the piece look great.