Friday 30 January 2009

Concepts



spy kids is another action film aimed at a young audience. the characters in this are younger than ours however it still has the same audience.

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this is the opening to the cartoon program known as "recess" has the school environment that we as a group are looking for. the school bell is very similar to that in our animatic an we use it to open our sequence aswell.



this is a image of Gus, a character from the comedy program. we are aiming for our main character to have this "boffin" feel about him when we 1st are introduced to him

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Wednesday 28 January 2009

Film Opening Animatic



this is our animatic. We found it really hard to draw the kind of shots that we wanted because we need lots of fast paced snappy footage. We want it to be really slow to begin with and then the moment matt (Nathan) turns to his alter ego (lone dog), We have fast paced shots and lots of transitions. We have tried to show this when the music comes back on. Overall we don't think our animatic is a good representation of what we want the film to look like but in the sense of the shots, this is exactly what we want. We thought that the film would seem too serious if it had dramatic music because it sets the mood. We tried lots of different ways of presenting the music but in the end we came up with a funky style, like "starskey and Hutch" to keep it cool.

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Tuesday 27 January 2009



Perfect example of what we're trying to incorporate into our opening

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Friday 23 January 2009

Moodboard



Our finalised moodboard..

We decided to communicate a light-hearted action mood by using comical pictures such as Napolean dynamite and fast paced action shots such as the superhero on the bike. The reason we have shown images of bikes is to reflect content of our opening as we are going to have a bike sequence.

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Storyline

Tuesday 20 January 2009

So far our ideas our along the theme of 'Stormbreaker'. Therefore, we'll have one of us, possibly Matt, playing the teenage 'heart-throb' spy. His names going to be Nathan White, (lone dog). Lone Dog because he's quite rogue, he doesn't have any friends in his Nathan White persona, but when he's at the spy headquarters every knows and adores him.
We came up with the switch of persona from Superman, e.g. Clark Kent.
Ash will play the villain because of his devilish looks.
He'll kill someone at the start, unseen, to set introduce the character to the audience.
We chose this rather than the crime option because you need a lot of people for that and as we only have three.

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Friday 16 January 2009

Our Film Analysis'

Analysis of “Donnie Darko” opening.

For the purpose of analysing “Donnie Darko”, it is possible to break down the concept of the opening sequence into micro and macro elements.
There are a small amount of opening credits right at the start, they are white on a black background, placed in the middle of the screen and are in a midi-evil style font, the sound is of thunder, suggesting a storm to the audience. When actually, it is a peaceful morning as the camera pans down the road where a teenage boys is seen lying in the middle of the road, wearing pyjamas and his bike to the side of the road. As he gets up his features are shown, he has scruffy hair looks like he’s in his late teens. The audience makes the assumption that he is not quite an adult because he is riding a bike rather than a car. All of this is shown in one long shot giving the opening a relaxed feel and emphasises the time of day. The mise en scene helps to set out the location of the opening, the classic large sub-urban American housing with trees along the side of the road and the morning joggers in bright tracksuits help to give the idea of a wealthy area, Donnie himself also has an expensive looking racing bike suggesting that his family are financially comfortable.
Within a short space of time the rest of his family are also introduced. His dad is given the stereotype middle-aged father, chinos with a polo shirt, he is using a electrical leaf-blower (more evidence of sub-urban wealth). Also introduced are his two sisters and his mum, throughout introducing them there is no dialogue and a non-diagetic song being played, it is an 80’s pop song. The choice of editing and camera-work is slow and long-shots are used this enables full view of each of the characters surroundings and the use of simplistic camerawork and basic editing gives a ordinary feel to the opening suggesting there is nothing abnormal about the film of the family introduced. However, and graphic effect used to fade out the title at the beginning contradicts this, “Donnie Darko” is displayed in the skyline and is faded out using an ‘end of the world type’ flash of light in the distance. This relates to the end of the film where the end of the universe takes place as a result of Donnie.
The genre is not made clear in the opening of ”Donnie Darko”, however, it is clear that the focus of the film will be on Donnie. His name is introduced to the audience with “Where is Donnie?” written on the fridge accompanied by his mum giving him a confused facial expression, suggesting that she is unaware of where he was that night. Overall, the audience will appreciate the different aspects of the opening; with their attention focused on what will happen to Donnie and how the whole film in general will pan out.

Matt Jones
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Analysis of “Stormbreaker” opening

In this analysis I am going to write about the micro and macro elements of the opening sequence.
There aren’t any credits directly at the start and this is a way of introducing the main characters and their roles. When the credits do come in, they are on a video background of a London scene which immediately sets the scene of the film. The opening has a pre opening scene which I have notices is very generic in younger adventure films. Also the main character and his friends are the age of the target audience. “Alex” gets called up in class and is told to talk about his family, when he talks about them he says it in a very average way. At the same time it shows what was really going on within his family, this shows a contrast with the two lives and what the film is going to be about. What “Alex” is saying during his speech completely contradicts what his uncle is actually doing; this makes him seem like a character that is completely oblivious to what is going on around him. The camera work is very simplistic when it’s on “Alex” but when it is on his uncle, there is lots of shaking, lots of snappy shots and very fast movement. The way that the clip is edited and what he says makes it seem like he looks up to his uncle implying that he will follow his footsteps in his job. Later this is solidified with his uncle dying. When “Alex” is talking there isn’t anything interesting in the scene and to make sure that you’re concentrated on him, the camera blurs everything else. What the Clip really wants you to concentrate on is his uncle and the action in it. This is showed in music as well because there is no music when he is talking and fast paced music when there’s action. This is all generic in adventure films, there is normally a story establishing action scene to make sure that the audience can watch straight off with no confusion. Right at the beginning the camera pans across the class room showing all the students and then shows “Alex”, without clearly knowing, you could point out who the main character is. This is so the person looks special in some way to the audience. The film as a whole has a very “James Bond” feel to it, everything down to the way the credits is introduced. This is good because it makes the audience feel like they’re in for an action packed modern adventure film.

Marcus Howard

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Pre-opening sequence
These genre of film usually use a preopening sequence to establish a character or to "pick up where they left off" if the production is a sequel or previously in a different format. i.e. a book or play.

Ashley Borland

stormbreaker opening



this is an example of an opening and pre-opening sequence

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Conventions

Conventions:
- Camera has lots of technical shots that are very shakey helping it stay fast
- Music is very fast paced and only in action scenes unless diegetic
- Editing is very fast
- Most things are very serious but in a very technical way so that it keeps the scenes interesting
- characters are always interesting in their own way but some show quietness in some aspects

Marcus Howard