Final Preliminary Task

Final Opening Sequence

Final Opening Sequence - Question 6

Q6 -  What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We were able to determine the difference between the hardware and software of our resources, with the hardware being associated with the complexity and hardness that was our actual equipment such as the Canon XHA1 camera, which is obviously the core of all the technologies/equipment used in capturing the desired live-action, the key elements for whatever issues we had to resolve with the camera were the positioning of the camera, the spirit levels etc and we, as a team, would put forward suggestions that contributed to rectifying the issues, what was essential was that it must always be on the ‘auto’ setting whilst filming as well as to never rewind the clips and look forwards in that we move onto the next shot or we do the mistakable shot once again, the desktop computers was where my experience and technical knowledge was at work, the tripods allowed us to adjust the height of the camera for shots at various angles and tracks (both tripods and tracks for support of camera), the latter enabling us to manipulate the types of camera shots and the software being associated with the computer-based programmes such as the video editing programme used, which was the Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, I’ve also had prior experience with video editing software of making and rendering videos for them to be uploading onto YouTube so I had a firm, fundamental comprehension about the editing techniques like fade, cropping and mixing music with the moving images, how they could be implemented and when was it best to integrate a particular video/audio effect and instantly when the editing role was vacant, I put myself forward as I felt my experience and knowledge could spun the group further and give us a slight advantage over the others but I acknowledged the fact that with not just my weaknesses but my strengths also that there was more I could learn.

Learning several filming and editing techniques and taking onboard advice from our teachers on how and when those techniques should be implemented was incredibly vital for both the Preliminary and Main Tasks, the following is the description of the filming and editing techniques and examples of where and why it was implemented into our opening sequence:

Filming Techniques

-          Rule of thirds – In regards to the frame being divided into nine imaginary sections likened to a tic-tac-toe board, which determines where the moving or still subject is positioned and serve as reference points for the idea framing of the subject, which the camera operator has full control of. Headroom refers to the amount of space between the top of the frame and the top of the subject (e.g. person’s head), during our Preliminary Task, what we as a group were able to spot was that too much headroom resulted in the subject looking lower and smaller in height and size respectively than it’s actual scale and insufficient headroom lead to extra emphasis on the upper body of the subject. Lookroom, commonly known as Leadroom, meanwhile refers to the amount of space visible in front of the subject. Retrospectively, having reviewed the rule of thirds, we realised that possibly leaving sufficient space in the direction the moving subject is looking in prevents the idea and interpretation of the subject going beyond the frame. A primary example of the rule of thirds being demonstrated in our opening sequence is when there are the medium close-up shots of characters Mitch and Donny discussing the plan, If I’m honest it can be said that we comprehended the rule of thirds naturally given that we know that what is in the centre of the frame is of high importance although studying and understanding the rule of thirds literally ensures that we are precise with where the subject is positioned.

-          180-degree rule – The 180-degree rule is the rule of line-crossing that involves maintaining the positioning of the camera within a 180 degree area that is dictated by an invisible line that is in the middle of the 360 of the camera. This rule was one of the most essential aspects that our teachers extensively covered prior to the filming of our Preliminary Task and made sure that we all had full comprehension of the 180-degree rule and that line should NEVER ever be crossed as crossing the invisible line means that the audience’s perspective is altered to one that is dumb-founded as the subject would look like it has suddenly jumped from one position to another so in that sense it would feel likened to a jump shot with the camera crossing the line. Once more, in the Main Task when Mitch and Donny expressing their dialogue in the office is one strong example of how to conduct the 180-degree rule correctly, it can be disputed that crossing the 180-degree rule is a formality in programmes, the majority would agree and that would seem the case however crossing the line is only an exception if the camera shots or in other words, the programmes are set in multiple locations. We put a lot of emphasis achieving the 180-degree rule in the Preliminary Task compared to the Main Task despite getting equal success in both tasks. Additionally, what is interesting is that the 180-degree rule is frequently broken in live sports coverage although it’s done to gain the best possible views of the action/event and is not an issue if the audience is used to it, perhaps the rule being broken is acknowledged when a graphic that states ‘reverse angle’ of the replay of a particular incident.

-          Match-on-action – One shot of a person doing one thing would likely to provide boredom to the audience, so match-on-action involves different camera shots of one action that is precisely and smoothly conducted without any jump shots, I feel like it’s linked to continuity slightly in the sense that there’s the element of consistency engaging with it. This was another aspect discussed extensively with our teachers prior to the Preliminary Task that needed to also be implemented onto the Main Task as a simple feature because match-on-action alongside the 180-degree rule are two primary aspects that need to be achieved when making a film. Match-on-action is immaculately displayed in the Main Task when Mitch is entering the office, with two different shots of Mitch opening the door, the second shot displayed as Mitch puts his hand on the door handle. What we needed to be cautious regarding match-on-action is the precision when it came to editing the film and finding a fine line and committing to it via not implementing too much of a variation in camera shots of the sole action because if anything personally, it seems more boring having millions of shots of one action, than having just the one camera shot of one action.

-          Continuity – Continuity simply involves the positioning of the subjects, items and perhaps mise-en-scene elements such as costumes and props being consistent in every camera shot they feature in. Originally, we were meant to have a lot of props consisting of bags, phones, watches and blueprints, the three previous props referred in the dialogue between Mitch and Donny although they were scrapped due to the mass changes that are already explained, so honestly it’s very difficult to spot a evident demonstration of continuity other than the gloves that are placed on the workstation whilst Donny is frustratingly throwing his phone onto the workstation and later on shown in the opening sequence to remain on the workstation when both Mitch and Donny are in the office. Duration between the subject being shown again after the first occasion is something to contrast with the Preliminary Task, with the shorter duration between the 1^st and 2^nd appearance of the props such as the bag as my character went to sit down opposite Alex’s character and the 2^nd appearance of the bag whilst the characters are sharing dialogue, this is predominantly influenced by the limits of the Preliminary Task obviously given that multiple locations weren’t shown between the appearances unlike the Main Task. Continuity was one of our main strengths in our Preliminary Task but that’s not it, we didn’t stop there nor stood still, we looked at the mistakes the other groups made with in regards to continuity and match-on-action and took onboard feedback that was provided to the other groups as there were plenty of mistakes made that were relevant to continuity so it obviously became the core of a serious discussion and we ensured that it was a strength that we could build on for the Main Task.

-          Action/Reaction shot – Action/Reaction shots are pretty much self-explanatory, being that the shot of the action is succeeded by the shot of the subject’s (likely a living being) reaction. If it seems incomprehensive then this example will hopefully provide more clarity; a medium close-up shot of a man revealing to his daughter that she is going to have a baby sister, then a medium shot of the daughter is shown, with her facial expression reflecting astonishment, the latter acting as the reaction to the news. In the opening sequence, an action/reaction shot is displayed when a medium-close up of Mitch informing Donny of the slight issues in the plan is shown, then it cuts back to the two-shot to reveal the change of Donny’s demeanour and body language. Like the rule of thirds and framing, this is another concept that felt natural and clear to us, as if we had the prior knowledge of watching programmes and grown accustomed to being aware that – whatever is in the centre of the frame or camera is significant and that the reaction of the person to what they discovered being shown is a formality and would feel queer if the shot weren’t to show the person’s reaction. Making a particular shot too lengthy and resulting in multiple actions being shown can perplex the audience by a fair amount,  as they wouldn’t have a reasonable indication as to what exactly was the response or reaction, an example of this occurred with our Preliminary Task when a two-shot covered approximately 50% of the dialogue between my character and Alex’s character, coupled with the fact that the two-shot didn’t display my face properly so any potential reaction when Alex’s character responded to my character was deterred, this was all noticed as part of our feedback for the Preliminary Task, it was already spotted as a clear issue whilst editing and at that point it couldn’t be helped given that there weren’t any other shots that could substitute the two-shot so we had no other choice but to make do with the two-shot. This is where total/safety shots would’ve came in handy as it would’ve served as a backup in a situation where we had insufficient shots or the main shots were poorly taken by the camera operator. What was done for the Main Task to ensure that we didn’t run out of variation or options was that after the main camera shots for the opening sequence were captured, we made the most of our remaining time on our filming day by experimenting and trialling out new ideas via taking medium shots of work displays in the school and taking different camera shots to represent different scenarios to add that bit of flexibility, although admittedly the use total shot would’ve been more simpler but again arguably the opening sequence is captured in multiple locations so the difficulty of taking a total shot of the whole opening sequence would’ve been virtually impossible.

Editing Techniques – Post-Production

- Crossfades – Referred to as Additive Dissolve and Cross Dissolve in the Adobe Premiere Pro  CS4 video editing software, crossfades are a type of fade that involve shots gradually transitioning to the next shots. In our Main Task, the main purpose for the crossfades being implementing where they were, such as the first and final shots, was to present the opening sequence with a sense of time passing by and the locations changing as well as determining the pace of the opening sequence with it’s fluent, stimulating and consistent feel.

Crossfade transition from one shot [Left] to the other [Right]

- Titles – Predominantly consisted of the cast and crew that played a part in making and producing the film, for the titles we placed extra emphasis in ensuring that they stood out from the other titles that were on the other films, we wanted to give our film it’s own persona, make it different from the usual in other words via making the titles as basic as possible ironically by making the font of the titles bold and the colour of them just completely white, although there was the manipulation of the opacity for the majority of the titles, the titles were a symbol of the film in that it didn’t require anything extraordinary or complex whether it’s how the titles or the other video effects appeared, they just focus on simplicity.

- Cropping + Mixing sound with images - The decision to add cropping, which is reducing the height and width of the screen, was centred around my experience and basic knowledge of using video editing software, cropping being my favourite, if not one of my favourite video effects when making videos as it added that dynamic feel to the videos and I felt it did the same with our film, arguably it also added a suspenseful feel to our film as well as contributed to the element of simplicity demonstrated. Furthermore, finding the ideal soundtrack for the film proved ultimately to be one of a challenge, like mentioned earlier on me, Alex and Hannah had different views of the feeling the storyline of the film produced, whilst Hannah went with upbeat and engaging, I opted for suspenseful and mysterious [Soundtrack] with Alex stuck in the middle, after a reasonably long debate, we opted to go with Hannah’s view in the upbeat, engaging and ‘grooving’ soundtrack according to it. What was crucial for us was that the sound was embedded within the film effectively, how we achieved was that the soundtrack was the dominant audio up until Mitch enters the office and rendezvous with Donny, when the soundtrack decreases in volume (thanks to opacity!) so that the dialogue, now the dominant audio, between Mitch and Donny can be heard. Once finish, the soundtrack becomes the dominant audio once more. For the final product, the auditory row in which held ‘background noise’, which was still dominated by the soundtrack, was meant to be muted, with the dialogue put in a separate to the ‘background noise’ so that it isn’t hindered by the mute however changes were made to the audio whilst I wasn’t present and so it resulted in the ‘background noise’ having a small presence or in other words, the background noise was no longer muted, which on my behalf was a slight disappointment as it seemed to decrease the maturity of the film.

- Assembly Edit – Assembly Edit is the first stage of video editing, coming before deleting unnecessary footage and putting all the required footage together, it involves putting all the footage into a particular order, unlike the Preliminary Task, we needed to be more sharper and rapid for the Main Task in regards to editing the film and that came with extra responsibility in the form of a continuity sheet which proves beneficial if there’s the commitment and dedication to it in terms of putting in the details of the successful and unsuccessful shots such as the costumes and props involved, the weather conditions, the amount of takes for a particular shot etc. Fortunately, I was responsible for continuity during filming and so the sheet was filled out to the best of my competence however I had to catch up on some small details during our breaks and discussions about what camera shots were going to be filmed next. The continuity sheet serves a main purpose of speeding up editing in post-production.

Where, when and how the editing techniques were implemented primarily hinged on the following:

-  How comfortable the shots involved were?

-  Does the use of a particular technique make sense with the scenario or camera shots?

-  What purpose do the techniques serve?
-  Does it aid with the progression of the storyline?

The primary lessons that I learnt while using the technology and equipment are to NEVER carry the tripod with the camera still attached to it, make sure that the technology and equipment is not isolated from the group and that there is always someone guarding them in case one of the group members has to leave and arguably the most vital lesson is to ensure that the Lacie drive used to save our film and various footage is taken out after the computer is shutdown for scrupulous reasons.

Final Opening Sequence - Question 7

Q7 – Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Our Preliminary Task and Main Task were separate concepts, with the former obviously being more basic than the latter, which was an advance and stepping stone from the Preliminary Task, which consisted of a person filmed and edited opening a door, walking across a room and sitting down in a chair opposite to another character with a few lines of dialogue exchanged between the characters with mandatory elements such as match-on-action, shot/reverse and over the shoulder shot and the 180-degree rule being demonstrated. The Main Task however involved the titles and opening sequence of a fictional film that had to last a maximum duration of two minutes with the audio and video content being original albeit the music and special effects that are from copyright-free sources.

In the Pre-production stage of our Preliminary Task, which consisted of our research and planning aspects such as our script, storyboard and location, I was also with Hannah and Alexandra, so ultimately the element of continuity was there proved to be a strong advantage when we stuck together for the Main Task in terms of communication and understanding what our strengths and weaknesses were, with the most vital factor of it being timing but on the other hand, we were relatively unknown to one another despite having been in the media lessons together for a reasonable amount of time in the form of a month and therefore time was taken from us slightly having to comprehend one another and cover each of our weaknesses with the other’s strength and assigning ourselves roles that reflected our strengths, examples being Hannah being able to operate the camera more effectively than myself and myself then having the strength of acting, which was Hannah’s apparent weakness. To reiterate, learning each other first time round proved beneficial for the Main Task as we were able to conserve time and use that saved time to work on other ideas that would improve the Main Task and make it stand-out from the others. Furthermore, our script and storyboard in the Preliminary Task was a lot more basic and unimportant when compared to the script used in the Main Task, as a result there were little issues with the script in the Preliminary Task with their only being a lack of rehearsal from Alex delaying the completion of the task further, when the pressure of completing the task before the deadline time stemmed when we expressed difficulty in committing to our original storyboard, which involved deciding my character would be revealed and if not, how our selection of camera shots were going to prevent my character from being revealed but ensure that they were not out of the ordinary and didn’t display any inconsistency until eventually coming to a mutual agreement that the storyline was almost completely irrelevant to the success of our Preliminary Task and whether the revelation of the character took place wasn’t necessary. Regarding the script, this was a lesson that I felt honestly we didn’t learn theoretically, given that the script for the Main Task was completely different and slightly more complex editing-wise than the script for the Preliminary Task and we, as a group, didn’t have the incentive to learn the script as there were other issues that were more vital to the Main Task to resolve and we thought that the script can quickly be learned and didn’t bear any significance (it actually didn’t) to the Main Task. Me and Mitchell in the Main Task, having forgotten some of our lines during the vast number of 18 takes for the 23^rd shot of the opening sequence due to the poor acting displayed by ourselves, contributed to that number of takes we had to do. Quite frankly, there wasn’t a full commitment to the storyboard in the Main Task, particularly when I looked completely dumb-founded when Hannah suggested we make the most of the time allocated to us for the filming day to experiment with some new ideas, those ideas culminating in the envisage of a new storyboard at the last-minute, hence why I was dumb-founded, with the exception of a few shots, we as a group, complied with the ideas in the hope that it all worked out for the best, which ultimately did, this lack of structure and commitment to our storyboard originated from the massive change of the storyline and location mentioned earlier due to the little plausibility and high complexity the original storyline and location had so we felt like with the fact the storyboards weren’t rigid, we had nothing to lose than to try our new ideas both prior and during filming. There was, I believe, a combination of many factors that lead to the storyboard issues and wrong perception of the opening sequence. 

As for the production of the film, this was personally centred round the cast and crew, continuity/match-on-action and variation in shots. We pretty much had the option of choosing our own cast and crew taken away from us by our teacher for the Preliminary Task so for the latter me and Alexandra were the actors as well as crew alongside Hannah, who had a combine role on being the camera operator and director,  I think this was ultimately decided for the best given that it reduced the amount of responsibility we had as a group and who knows whether we would have struggled to find this is one of the primary themes highlighted when comparing the scale of the Preliminary Task with the scale of the Main Task, less responsibility/reduced workload. We were finally given the option to select cast only however it was limited to only members of our class being selected plus we only required one actor based on the storyline of our opening sequence featuring two mischievous people, and this is mainly where we rapidly came to the decision that Mitchell was going to be one of the actors alongside myself, he proved to be quite a popular figure for acting for others however this didn’t hinder us from getting his services as the other groups, who chose him as one of the actors, were filming their opening sequence on different days and we achieved the most vital thing in that scenario via focusing on ourselves and our product opening sequence). In hindsight, not over-thinking who might be the ideal person for our particular opening sequence and whether he would be available was great for us and the actors weren’t vital for the Main Task as long as the product was completed and was executed efficiently. Location-wise for the Main Task, whilst Hannah was making our new and imaginary storyboards come to life, it involved a slight change of location, with some parts of the opening sequence being set outside the Media centre rather than just inside it, like mentioned earlier on we went along with it and it worked thoroughly well, the Preliminary Task told a completely different story to our Main Task, with the nature of the Preliminary Task being more finite compared to the Main Task, only one primary location was necessary for the former and that being a classroom on the top floor of the Media centre, which was picked by us rapidly, with the eagerness of not wanting to procrastinate and leave and forget things till the last-minute so instantly when we were told that someone from each group had to go and find a location, we made sure that the responsibility was fulfilled scrupulously even if it ended up involving myself, going solely to search for a location and not consulting Hannah and Alex about it, which was something that needed to be done for the Main Task,  in order to push the team further and beyond their personal boundaries for the sake of the task. The variation in shots hinged on the nature of the Preliminary Task and Main Task and subsequently the storyboard, the script and location, meaning that if we consider once more, the nature of both tasks that can’t be helped, we had more of a variety of camera shots (e.g. the low medium-close ups and extreme close-ups) in the Main Task than the Preliminary Task, despite ourselves attempting to push the boundaries and implement as much variation into our shots in the Preliminary Task as possible like different camera shots of a person doing one thing. For the Main Task, our loose storyboard again provided us with the opportunity to experiment with new ideas that included different camera shots such as the total shot of Mitchell’s character entering the Media centre and the over the shoulder shot of his character on the phone, which evidently weren’t used in the final product, perhaps the vast variation of shots originally being implemented into the storyboard and committing to the storyboard and having security over it is one major thing we could all take onboard because it worked brilliantly on the filming day but retrospectively if we were to originally think of that from day one, then you wonder what more we would’ve been able to do in order to further improve for the opening sequence.

Post-production, the area where identifying areas of improvement and taking onboard every single detail from what was coming from our peers and teachers was as vital as ever, for the Preliminary Task we had approximately two hours (split over two lessons) to edit the footage whilst for the Main Task, we had approximately a week (over 5-6 lessons). For the completion of the Preliminary Task we edited the footage during the lessons although the Main Task required more dedication and compromising, having to sacrifice some of our free periods during the week to come and ensure that the finished product met the deadline, which was at the end of the week. Each of us opted to come individually to edit the footage, I wasn’t particularly a good fan of this approach and hoped that it wouldn’t be the case given that me, Hannah and Alex, we all have different intellects and that comes with different ideas so that would hinder us from discussing our ideas fully and potentially slow down the editing of the footage, the latter fortunately for us didn’t happen and whatever difference we had in ideas we consulted one another during the lessons in the week although concerns within myself grew that the product wouldn’t meet the deadline so I had to compromise the late-morning and a fair part of the afternoon on the Wednesday, which included another lesson I was meant to attend, to make sure that we weren’t falling behind, so in that sense the time-management wasn’t great nor was it bad at the same time, just that bit more of a structure and organisation would have been better. Little feedback was given for our Preliminary Task other than human errors in the form of leaving some props in a total-shot as well as some of the camera shots being too lengthy, which stemmed from poor editing, so the basic of all mistakes was to be taken onboard and ensured that the mistakes were learned from via making them our main priorities when it came to filming the Main Task, I think also, it would’ve been difficult for peers to spot unnecessary props in the shots due to the complexity of the Main Task in terms of location and other items in shots. Unlike some groups, who to their brief demise, went off with their peculiar ideas, we took onboard what was required of us via complying with the needs of the task and the sincere instructions given by the teacher. In regards to saving work, that was mainly a theme for us when it came to editing the footage, for the Main Task we obviously saved more versions of the footage, with some versions edited more than others, compared to the Preliminary Task, which had only two versions I believe. Saving different versions of the work meant in case of technical issue with the software and computer used (Adobe Premiere Pro CS4) that resulted in recent work being erased; it enabled us to have a good starting point rather than the original, which is pretty much starting from scratch.

Final Opening Sequence - Question 5

Q5 – How did you attract/address your audience?

Almost instinctively when our group decided that action would be the genre for our opening sequence, I envisaged one of the codes and conventions being a piece suspenseful, mysterious and a bit dark music playing in the background and  running parallel with the story of the opening sequence and representing how susceptible others, including the target audience, are in terms of knowledge compared to some of the main characters. We looked and gather vital elements from successful action films like Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008) from the James  Bond series and Rush Hour (2007), particularly the opening sequences, a common element spotted was a group of antagonists or antagonists individually carry out mischief that originated from a plan and then the protagonists are made aware of the damages the antagonists inflicted as well as their main intentions and so the protagonists more or less plays catch up with the antagonists; hunting them down in the process, other elements could consist of the protagonists seeking for allies or gaining allies along the way due to the intentions they share involving hindering the antagonist regardless and the protagonist being saved from being the victim of ultimate peril. Although, this was our main problem, we thought too much about the elements and codes and conventions in the action film that the logic of the storyline originally was little, with it originally set ‘in the heart of California’ and having two robbers stage one of their typical bank robberies, having mentioned that, we virtually forgot that it’s only an opening sequence and that it doesn’t have to include the majority of the codes and conventions required to attract the audience, who from their perspective, can be well kept in the dark in anticipation of what’s going to happen next in the film.

One feature of the mise-en-scene that I believe honestly stood out really well when compared to the other features, now that we’re analysing our opening sequence is the effectiveness of the camera shots. Diverting from our original shot list (quite frankly scrapping it for something more ambitious and audacious), Hannah from our group brilliantly thought of making the medium close-up and two shots of Mitch and Donny in the media office lower whilst they’re discussing the plan, to reflect the sense of mystery of their plan as well as symbolise the extraordinaire that is Mitch and Donny’s background. Although not originally intended, we actually thought that the two-shots and the manipulation of the frame positioning whilst Mitch and Donny were talking in the office reflected how equally authoritative they were, both being in the foreground rather than one in the foreground and the other in the background, holding themselves in equal regards and importance. The titles and how they were presented, which included bond font and was quite variable and high in striking potency, fulfilled it’s main intentions: which was simply to be different from the other titles other films had, to ensure that the opening sequence itself had it’s own  personality. The setting of the opening sequence in the form of it being in a secondary school and the storyline within the opening sequence personally created a queer type of atmosphere which would make the audience wonder, what is so valuable that would prompt them to steal from the school? As a school is quite a strange and rare location itself to have items stolen from. What I envisioned with the type of music embedded in my mind didn’t come to fruition unfortunately and went completely out of the window, with there being a dispute over whether the soundtracks, which was one of my responsibilities, matched the storyline of the opening sequence, ultimately we went for a copyright-free soundtrack that was downloaded from Incompetech.com and slightly more ‘grooving’ and ‘upbeat’ known to be Rising and it flowed fairly well, not to honestly say the others didn’t. Moreover, the special effects with the cropping, which added that dynamic feel to the opening sequence, and the cross/additive dissolves helping to reduce the extent of mistakes made in shooting that couldn’t be helped come editing, where they were used in the opening sequence was essential in that the fluency of the shots was great. When I think of lighting for exploited to create a positive or negative atmosphere, it frankly wasn’t considered and when it was mentioned by the team, it was mainly an issue, so I would say it was neutral in the sense that it wasn’t considered and subsequently wasn’t ‘tampered’ with. The props were deeply thought of, questioning the impact and significance each prop would have, the gloves placed on the workstation next to Donny when he throws his phone onto the workstation after texting Mitch to display his preparation to conduct the theft and the mobile phones themselves are vital for the communication that goes on throughout the opening sequence.

The knowledge that the target audience would have for action films prior to viewing the opening sequence of The Plan is the codes and conventions discussed earlier on and by implementing the aforementioned and discussed codes and conventions both efficiently and sufficiently not but too much, to convince them that The Plan is the ideal action film to watch and enjoy as well as take something meaningful onboard, namely the lives of Mitch and Donny, which is explored in the film fairly extensively.

Final Opening Sequence - Question 4

Q4 – Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for our opening sequence, like referred to in Q2, was aimed at those seeking for exuberance and satisfaction in their lives, mainly males but in contrast to renowned stereotypes, our media product strives for openness and therefore is very much open to females as well as those out of the target audience, which if we were to be a real media institution or corporation and intrigue people outside the target audience, that would serve as a bonus in profit for us. The profile for the target audience in regards to the likely age (already mentioned), interests and gender, consists of people who are compelled by rapid and sports cars, into their physical fitness and exercise, particularly extreme sports such as go-karting, quad-biking and water-skiing and people who are gamers in any way, shape or form. The likely persona of the target audience was mainly centred on people, who have high levels of competitiveness and relating to the likelihood of them being into fitness, the target audience have physically demanding occupations in the form of coaching, P.E teaching and construction to name a few and the characteristics are relevant to the theme of competitiveness: determination, perseverance, audacity and being very extrovert.

Whilst making the decision on which film genre we would opt for we then went gathering the codes and conventions for our film genre, which was ultimately action, some fascinating statistics stood out regarding the percentage of sub age groups within the 18-44 age group, that are likely or do watch films relevant to our film genre, with 21% of the target audience being school-aged as well as aged 18-24, 25% aged 25-34 whilst the rest covered the remaining 10% and other genre preferences that they shared was adventure, comedy, thriller and drama, most likely due to the fact that those genres are frequent sub-genre for particular action films, primary examples being The Bourne Series (2001-present), which is Action-Thriller and the Rush Hour series (1999-present), which is Action-Comedy. Sub-genres and the variation they had with action films is the main reason why our group opted to go with the action genre, because it enabled us to explore various avenues and pathways, which involved having sub-genres attached to the main genre in case our ideas began to edge away from our main intentions or genre overall, so there was the obvious possibility of doing an Action-Adventure, Action-Drama opening sequence etc.

How we would attract our target audience to watch our film and their initial anticipations and expectations of our film primarily hinged on the implementations of the codes and conventions, which are common elements in a particular genre that the audience are not consciously aware of, so with the research into the codes and conventions we spotted that action films almost always had heroes and villains to contrast or protagonists and antagonists, consisted of cat and mouse chases that either involved use of vehicles or were on foot, Casino Royale (2006) to state an example, films that were of high levels intensity and energy as well as the protagonist or antagonist having contrasting objectives and goals with the typical ending always being of positivity and completion for the protagonist and failure for the antagonist, all of this is what the target audience would feel is required for an action film to be successful and logical. Based on the outline of our story, which was an MI5 agent going undercover at the school the opening sequence is set in, after the rare theft Mitch and Donny carried out, on that aspect it can be  viewed that Kindergarten Cop (1990) inspired the storyline slightly, a Comedy-Thriller featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger that similarly follows our storyline with a police detective going undercover in a school to catch a drug dealer, maybe perhaps the target audience will watch another film with a likening trend to a previous film that they watched and enjoyed.

Final Opening Sequence - Question 3

Q3 – What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

For a solid baseline, media distribution is frequently referred to as ‘the invisible art’ given that it’s a stage where all conducted and finished film products come alive and become attached to a particular audience. Distribution involves releasing and maintaining films in markets and are at it’s most influential when it is implemented vertically, film distribution is divided into three primary stages: licensing, which involves the distributors gaining a legal entitlement to manipulate or alter films, marketing, which is predominantly centred around how and when the films are going to be sold, examples being the release schedules, with films in the UK traditionally screening new films on Wednesdays and Fridays and finally logistics, which represents the phase in which fundamental distribution is providing and circulating copies of films.

On our research on the ideal independent film distributors based in the UK and the considerations gone into the determining which one is most suitable for our film, we acknowledged the fact that given our small budget and all in all, our limitations in being generally small, we were highly unlikely to attract the worldwide and renowned film distributors such as Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros and Columbia and at the same time we had to ensure that the film distributor provided support for our film genre [Action], with various, common distributors and institutions such as Axion Films, Arrow Films, Universal Pictures UK and Momentum Pictures being considered. Ultimately, it was Entertainment Film Distributors that was the media institution we had full confidence in for support for both genre and film, in other words, were very perceptive distributors in looking in the potential of our product. Other institutions for the chosen institution were Studio Canal Ltd and Filmbank Distributors Ltd.

An alternative in the form of going into the self-distribution market on social networking sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, particularly in an era where there are many ways of getting media products out in the open with technology and production of films having developed immensely over the recent decades, the main advantages of self-distribution is that it is a rapid and cost-effective way of getting media products released as well as it being like a centre of potential, primary example of potential is a person known as Freedie Wong who owns a YouTube channel named ‘FreedieW’ (named after him), well-known to be dedicated to making Live-Action short films, a link to his channel  is here:

[http://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew/videos?view=0]

[http://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew2/videos?view=0]  

However, there are flaws at the same time if we were to go into the self-distribution, with the latter requiring plentiful of dedication and commitment meaning that it is very time-consuming to the extent that it would be considered a full-time job and there would be limitations in regards to the sales and searching for buyers, who have formally established relationships with distributors. To reiterate, self-distributing on social-networking sites would have served as an alternative if we happened to have struggled to find a film distributor that would provide full support for our genre and film.

Final Opening Sequence - Question 2

Q2 – How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?

Primary Targets: Male young adults and middle-aged individuals on the radar



The opening sequence of The Plan appeals to a social group that is predominantly as well as stereotypically male in regards to modern society, ranging from young adults to middle-aged people in the form of age groups aged 18-44, who are determined to fill elusive voids in their lives and share an interest of comprehending and expanding their knowledge on a life that is non-existent to say the least in the eyes of the average human being, let’s say those who live their lives ‘normally’ with an enviable network around them.

Two of the primary characters in The Plan’s opening sequence, Mitch, played by Mitchell Smallwood and Donny, played by myself, almost completely contrast the elements of a ‘normal life’: the mischievous, wayward but unfortunate secondary school students in terms of generally comparing them to the typical teenager, looking into their backgrounds and life structures. Both Mitch and Donny’s backgrounds are two that are insightful into the harsh, distressing realities of the modern world and explore what is outside of the bubble, consisting of rebellion, poor and underdeveloped upbringings and as two of the main consequences of a poor upbringing are strained relationships with parents and doing things that are simply up to no good. 

Privileges gained on a morally correct standard that are light years away from Mitch and Donny

Moreover, this helps stem their rebellious, frequently perturbed (mainly from Donny as indicated in the opening sequence when Mitch is informing him of a slight issue) and demanding personality, particularly the latter which originates from the morality and other vital standards that are missing in themselves due to the turbulent relationships and upbringings, their body languages are quite concentrated and in actual fact, body language is more associated with Mitch in the opening sequence whilst he is making his way to Donny’s whereabouts; walking in a introvert, determined fashion with his head facing downwards, aided by his hood of his jacket and just wanting to keep himself, which is convenient and innate because there is a cunning plan that only very few people have knowledge on. All of this overall, is the representation of the extraordinary standing out and characters Mitch and Donny are used to display our comprehension and attention towards not just teenagers, but those of younger and older generations that living outside of the bubble and relate to them.

Technical Representation

Example of a Low Medium-Close Up

How both Mitch and Donny in the opening sequence was represented was via the use of technicality to the best of our abilities: one of these main demonstrations being the use of low medium close-up and two camera shots to associate a conundrum with Mitch and Donny, who are evidently in those camera shots when displayed, as well as the plan that everyone is gullible to with them being exceptions: what exactly is the plan? Which parts involve them? One general question, why are they doing what they are doing? Then the technicality used to represent the characters would perhaps enable the audience to question or guess the characters’ potential incentives and benefits received for their mischief, the special effects in the form of the moving images/video being cropped and the bold, audacious titles enhanced the conundrum further. 

Furthermore, we implemented long shots of the school entrance at the beginning of the opening sequence and whilst the dialogue between Mitch and Donny is taking place as well as contrapuntal and bridging [Sound-bridge] soundtrack to provide a bit of a contrast to the knowledge and concrete that Mitch and Donny have in regards to the plan, that is the unknown and serenity.

Social Realism

Personally, the most vital feature involved in reaching out to the target audience is to ensure that although the characters are fictional, make them stand out from typical fictional characters and strive for plausibility: giving them a status in the form of both Mitch and Donny being school students, most likely aged between 15-16, the mise-en-scene, what is seen in the frame with their costumes being school uniforms, which Mitchell brought in as well as some of the uniform  picked up from the lost property section, again ensures that realism is achieved and not out of the ordinary appearance-wise. 

In addition to all of the above is arguably the important feature of them all is the aforementioned, extraordinary persona, in regards to the extraordinary it can be seen as slightly skewed by the composition of their uniform, given that it blends in with other potentially troubling and stubborn students, who clearly have a lifestyle that is not on the scale or likened to Mitch and Donny’s in the school. 

Due to the emphasis on uniqueness and ensuring that Mitch and Donny help understand and relate to some within the social group or target audience, who may be likened to the characters in some way, shape or form and operational issues with the storyboard and forming the plausible storyline in correlation to the resources and locations available, we have not honestly had the opportunity to be explorative and take inspiration from other characters however the minor characters known to be Dabs and Henry from the drama film Adulthood (2008) share powerful similarities with Mitch and Donny, one being that both work for a potent figure in the crime life and act as ‘supplements’ to the potent figure or quite simply their status is lesser to the person they are working for, they are both a syndication of two people and are more or less likened to mercenaries that are seeking extrinsic rewards such as money, possibly drugs.

Cast and Crew

The selection of cast and crew for The Plan was predominantly taken away from us: being limited to only choosing cast and crew from our class rather than elsewhere and in hindsight, in regards to the potential inability to be perceptive and picking those who are equally as focused and sincere about the opening sequence as the student being assessed which is frankly dependent on maturity levels, was unquestionably a conservative decision as well as ultimately being the best. It was almost automatically decided that my group, which consisted of myself, who was also in the cast alongside Mitchell with the understanding that I would take the lead with editing the opening sequence afterwards, Alexandra and Hannah, was going to be the crew, in the process using our strengths and weaknesses spotted in the preliminary task as a baseline and continuation onto the main task. 

There were not major issues with the search for cast, given that I volunteered instantly to be one of the cast although there was a small question over the availability of Mitchell due to his work with other groups and the uncertainty over the amount of workload he had for other subjects that would hinder him from dedicating time to helping with the opening sequence. 

With more time available, could we have made different decisions? Always difficult to say as it has not happened and that in the past so you will never what we could have done differently to help ourselves, maybe or maybe not with more devoted to cast and crew.

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Final Opening Sequence - Question 1

Q1 – In what ways does your media product USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE forms and conventions of real media product?

The opening sequence for The Plan mainly uses, develops AND challenges the forms, codes and conventions of the action genre and subsequently typical action films, which is what our opening sequence is centred on, in several ways. One of the primary themes of our opening sequence was to ensure that there was a fine line between giving a lot of the storyline away and providing a small baseline of what exactly characters Mitch and Donny are going to carry out, so that the audience acknowledges the fact that the characters are going to conduct something fairly mischievous however they are maintained in the dark and prompts them to ask questions like: what exactly are they doing? How is the location [Secondary School] significant to them? Generally-speaking, why are they doing what they are doing? The latter question is answered by the film itself via exploring the background and personality of Mitch and Donny more in-depth, which then explains what led them to be in the scenarios they are in. Anyway, the following aspects that were vital when included in the opening sequence as we did some research on the codes and conventions are:

-          High intensity in music: Dark and suspenseful/Grooving and upbeat

-          Modern, urban location/setting

-          Antagonists plotting something that the protagonists and allies have no knowledge on.

-          High levels of energy and intensity (including sound/music)

-          Contrasting missions/objectives for the protagonists and antagonists

-          High use of technology

 Over the type of non-diagetic (preferably for our film) music used, myself had a bit of a dispute with Hannah and Alexandra, as they felt that a more upbeat and encouraging soundtrack was ideal for our opening sequence given that they viewed those types of music as suiting the film genre more, however the dark and suspenseful music, which stemmed further from the fact that the storyline of the opening sequence was based on mostly keeping the audience in the dark as to what was Mitch and Donny’s plan as well as the slow, suspenseful music being apparent in action films symbolising the calm before the storm. In mutual agreement, we all decided to choose the grooving and upbeat soundtrack, which was known as Rising, which was played throughout the opening sequence and modified during the dialogue, which was one code and convention developed in the form of the narrative and will be explained later but the choice of music, it can be said, was developed due to it being adjusted based on the feeling of the opening sequence being an action film rather than the storyline of the opening sequence and the mood of it expressed via mise-en-scene elements such as location and costumes as well as how the characters carry themselves. This perhaps contrasts with the opening sequence of Quantum of Solace (2008), which opening sequence music is based on the storyline with its fast-paced, thrilling and instinctive scenario. On the contrary, one code and convention that are used and we found likened to other films part of the same genre such as Bad Boys II (2003) and Men In Black (1997) as well as one of our research films, Rush Hour 3 (2007), are the number and type of characters featured in the films, that being two males that are co-operating with one another in some form: Mitch and Donny in The Plan, Marcus and Mike in the Bad Boys series, Agent K and Agent J in the Men In Black series and Carter and Lee in the Rush Hour series. However, the notable difference between the two males in The Plan and the other aforementioned films is that both Mitch and Donny are disturbed antagonists whilst the two males in the Men In Black, Bad Boys and Rush Hour series are extrovert, vibrant protagonists.

The dialogue by Mitch and Donny that takes the form of the narrative in the opening sequence was one that was frankly considered easily, due to our ability of linking the common props such as blueprints (one in the opening sequence) and weapons to a scenario of committing mischief and adultery, how the dialogue was developed also involved the characters, with Donny expressing concern over their plan and Mitch assuring Donny that everything is ok and good to go, this little concern and assurance enabled the dialogue to be stretched and therefore the opening sequence as an effect, this can be likened to an antagonist and protagonist exchanging dialogue, which are likely contrasting lines or discussing events that have occurred before the face-off, prior to them engaging in physical close combat, take Peter Parker vs. Harry Osborne in Spider-Man 3 (2007) as a primary example:

 

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI6eB4cI_LU] (Video displayed on blog)

 

The mise-en-scene elements are also importantly implemented and a way in which the codes and conventions are generally used in the form of the secondary school reflecting the modern and urban setting required to contribution to the determining of the genre of the film and themes along with matching the plausibility of other action films that also have contemporary settings. At first we considered setting the opening sequence elsewhere, with several other locations such as estates and parks nearby but unfortunately due to last-minute changes to the final treatment, storyboard and slight changes to the storyline subsequently, we had to switch to the school as our primary location, which served as our alternative. Furthermore, communication needs for both Mitch and Donny are met via one of the props, which is the mobile phones enabling the pace of the opening sequence to indirectly increase at the beginning as well as highlighting the reasonably extensive use of technology by the characters to aid them in conducting their mischief. Simultaneously, the characters, this can be said for the majority, if not all action films, that they are highly associated with these implementations of the codes and conventions: using mobile phones [Props] to inform one another of their whereabouts and doings, Mitch and Donny actually being the ones that express the dialogue [Narrative] as well as the storyline of the opening sequence, which involves them, being set at the modern location in the secondary school, their personalities consisting of being perturbed (when things don’t go their way), authoritative and wayward are some of the many traits shared by most antagonists, Donny expressing annoyance and confusion  when he’s quizzing Mitch after he’s informed by Mitch that there’s a few hiccups with the plan, how Mitch and Donny are positioned in the frame in the two-shots is really crucial as they are know to be equally authoritative and not one of them is positioned in the foreground or background, it symbolises that not one of them is more dominant than the other and that they also share equal status and standards. Other than the questioning of the plan by Donny, both the latter and Mitch are fairly secure as they feel at the time that there is virtually no one to prevent them from succeeding but themselves.