Brief Analysis of Similar Products

Brief Analysis of Similar Products

1.'Se7en'

This opening is a montage of short clips of various pictures, and words on a page, possibly a report. We see someone's hand cross out a man's face with a pen - eyes first, as if they had been killed. We also see further pictures of possibly the same person, but their head has been impaled - showing their cause of death, however mystery is created by hiding the person making the report making the audience wonder if the person is a detective or the murderer. The members of the cast and production company are added to the sequence as white text, which pops up frequently during the course of the opening.

2.Borgman

In this opening, we see a person who appears to be a caretaker or farmer, shown by his ownership of a dog, carrying of a handgun, the mud on his boots and also the small building he's living in. He, and two priests ( one with a shotgun and the other with a shovel ) meet up, do not speak at all and proceed to dig up a specific spot in some woods - the weapons tell us that they're hunting someone - we then see this man with a very long beard and has segregated himself from society and is living underground, who is clearly trying to evade these people who want to kill him. There is a very short clip at the beginning showing the production company, title and also the director.




3.Silence of the Lambs 
This opening begins with the production and distribution companies being introduced, this is followed by a shot of trees on a hill, over which, we see the cast introduced to us, the shot then changes to show as a woman using a rope to climb the hill, she then starts running when she reaches the top. This continues until she reaches a climbing frame and vaults it. The scene then ends as she continues running.




4. No Country for Old Men

This opening sequence begins with the production and distribution companies introduced, followed by a sunrise over some hills. We then hear the voice an old man talking about the progression of crime and his job as a sheriff. After the sun is up, we see a man being arrested and driven away by an officer after a gas canister is put into the passenger seat of the car - implying that  it belongs to the arrested man and that it should be kept out of his reach. This sequence ends with the car driving off into the distance.




5. Memento

This opening begins with a fade from black into the beginning scene with the title of the film, but not the production or distribution companies, unlike the other 4. The opening scene is also in reverse, making the audience think about the film and ask questions - which instantly keeps them interested. It's made up of a 2 people, one man holding a gun, Polaroid camera and picture which begins to fade. There is a man laying on the ground and blood splattered on the wall and his glasses. At the end of the scene we briefly see the man alive and screaming, probably for his life.

Detailed Analysis of a Similar Product

'Borgman'
This opening sequence begins with simple cut-scenes to show the production companies. This is followed by the opening shot of a dog barking in a cage and who we presume to be it's owner loading a handgun. This could be done to connote that he's a hunter or that he's going to kill somebody later on in the film, after this we see another man sharpen a long metal rod similar to spear, they say nothing to each-other,they only nod and then one proceeds to follow him.Then we see a priest go from a prayer, to loading a shotgun with an associate- we also see the prior mentioned character through a window in the same shot, he makes an expression to the priest, allowing the audience to infer that they're working together. The three of them then proceed into a forest and start digging in pursuit of a man living under the ground. The sequence ends with the ground collapsing.


The whole sequence is shot (mostly) with no speech and only with ambient background noise - with the exception of the clip of the priest praying - This builds a sort of mystery which can cause people to be intrigued by the film and continue to watch it ; which is the general purpose of an opening sequence. The sequence is shot in high-key lighting in order to create realism and to try and help the audience put themselves in one of the characters' shoes. This effect is used to help create tension in the story, also, through the narrative we can see that there's a person being chased or hunted by three people and that also as he's living under the ground, he must be avoiding these people or society as a whole as he has chosen to live underground as opposed to in a normal house and just being a reclusive person.  

Quesioinnaire (Final)

Questionnaire Plan

1) What is your Age?
- 12-16
- 17-21
- 22-26
- 30-34
- 35-39
-  40+

2) What is your Gender?
- Male
- Female
- Other

3) Which of these weapons do you find most intimidating?
- Swords
- Knives
- Guns
- Bombs (C4)
- Grenades
- Bow/Arrow
- Axe
- Crossbow

4) What kind of action scenes do you prefer to watch?
- Lots of Explosions
- Fist Fights
- Sword Fights
- Martial Arts Fights
- Car Chases
- Gun Fights
-

5)What type of music do you feel builds suspense the best and why?(If you don't know the name of the genre, describe it as best as you can)

6) What are your top 5 favorite films and what characteristics made you enjoy them?

7) Thriller / Horror movies are scarier in the night rather than the day, do you agree or disagree?

8) Do you believe that conversations between a protagonist and antagonist can be effective to build suspense?

9)What do you expect to see (generally) in the first 2 minutes of a horror film?

10) Do you like to see a lot of character development in opening scenes  / sequences?

Target Audience

Target Audience

The target audience for my production will be people from ages 16 and up. For my first idea it'll be mostly males as i believe that males are more interested in action scenes and tension building up to a climax - especially in this context (Warfare/ Action Thriller) whereas females tend to be more into romantic films and comedies ; films that are less serious and are more realistic.

For my second idea however, I feel that both males  and females will be a part of my audience as horror films don't pertain to a specific gender, it's more of an age group that like them more. Again, this film will be aimed at 16 year-olds and over.

Out of Sight Analysis

Analysis of Out of Sight Opening Sequence

In the opening scene, we see George Clooney's character standing in the bank, turning a lighter on and off the camera then cuts to several shots of a briefcase, areas and people in the bank and back to his character, eluding to his planning of the robbery he's about to do. The shots show general items in the bank and people in suits who the audience may believe to be important. The character then uses details about the briefcase (the fact that it's turned away from the cashiers' desk) to his advantage to deceive her and threaten that one of her colleagues will be shot if she doesn't co-operate. This provides some character development by eluding that he is smart and cunning - possibly that he's also worked at a bank prior to this robbery as he knows a lot about the environment and the people in it; better than somebody who works there.The shots used are mostly mid-shots and close-ups using high-key lighting; this connotes a realistic setting, also that we're in the present and this is a real life situation. 

Initial Ideas

Initial Ideas

Idea 1 - Crime(Action)/Thriller

A city in a 1st world country is taken over by a private military company who are threatening the lives of innocent people. As a result of this, a group of ex-army civilians take it upon themselves to try and liberate the city. The film will be dark and gritty, this is to separate it from the warfare genre and actually make it a thriller.

The main characters will be a group of 7 people who try to infiltrate the PMC's bases of operations and kill the leaders of the organisation to try and remove their hold over the city. The film will show resemblance to The Magnificent Seven, in a different setting and a different story, however this is where the number of protagonists came from and was the basis of the story.

Idea 2 - Horror/Thriller

A child wakes up in their home late at night and notices that his mother and father are missing, they also notice that there's a trail of blood around the house leading to it's basement. Upon opening the door, they notice a dark shadowy figure and their parents are tied up in the corners of the room.  

Editing Techniques

Editing Techniques 

- Continuity Editing - The sequencing of shots to imply or suggest an order of events to help tell a story by including important events that can help the audience to come to a conclusion about what events occurred without necessarily having to have seen all of them take place. 

- Accelerating Time - Production time can be condensed to show a sequence of events in a much shorter time than they would take in real life. This can be used to leave some things to the audiences imagination by cutting out irrelevant clips and shots and also shortening shots to let the audience know that they happened without having to watch the entire process.

- Expanding Time - Time can be stretched and dragged out for longer than the actual time represented in the scene. This can be used to create suspense leading up to an event. For example, time can be slowed during the build-up to an explosion to create suspense.

-  Cause, Effect and Motivation - This relates to continuity editing as this technique is used to suggest and explain why things happen. This means that the causes of events need to be shown for them to make sense to the audience. For example, we usually wouldn't see somebody pick up a phone and start a conversation without seeing or hearing it ringing in that scene. Motivation is used to show or imply to the audience why a character did something or why an event occurred, this is useful in the Crime genre as the criminals' side of the story can be shown to the audience to build character development. (This includes base motives such as money, revenge, jealousy and suspicion etc.)

- Insert Shot -  A close up shot of anything (an object or person) in the basic scene, usually in an establishing or wide shot. This is used to provide further detail about any aspect of a shot, this could be what a character is holding or wearing, a particular building in a city, item on a table, car in a traffic jam etc.

- Cutaways - Cut away from the main scene to provide additional information to the audience. An example of this may be an establishing shot after an event takes place, to give the information of where the event took place. 

- Relational Editing - Refers to the cause and effect relationships when sequences of shots are tied together and the editing of shots for the purposes of comparison or for the contrast of content.

 - Thematic Editing - a rapid sequence or montage of images to communicate feelings and ideas that relate to a genre rather than telling a story. It is used in music videos, feature films, TV commercials, and promotional productions to create a mood or feeling rather than communicate specific information. 

- Cross-Cutting  / Parallel Editing -  Parallel editing (also known as cross cutting) is the technique of alternating two or more scenes that often happen simultaneously but in different locations. This can be used effectively to show the environment around action scenes and expand time as we as viewers will see more than one event but they all take place at the same time.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

AS Media Studies Preliminary Task

- At a micro, technical level, how well did you observe the conventions of continuity  and the language of editing? 

Our scene involved a Hitman or contract killer and a contractor sitting opposite each other t a table. Before this however, we were able to use match on action when the Hitman enters the scene by coming through a door. We cut from a shot of the Hitman pulling the door open from one side and then cut to another shot of him walking through the door with it closing behind him. We also show it during the scene where the contractor slides the Hitman's next job over to him on the table. This is done by keeping the character's actions in a sequence that made sense to the audience - so we had the Hitman open the contract during a shot instead of doing it between shots.

- What were you pleased with?What seems to work well and why?

- What is the best shot/ angle in your clip 

I was pleased with the variety of shots and angles we used to create this short film, We were able to clearly show match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule WITHOUT breaking them by crossing any of the characters' eye-line. I feel that the best shot in the film is the two shot used to show the conversation between the two characters ;it allowed us to capture the expressions of both of them during the exchange and (attempt to) cause tension and suspense between the two of them.

- What mistakes did you make? What would you have done differently? 

- Recorded for a longer time before and after a scene?

Some mistakes that we made included not muting background noise in some shots ; an example of this is in one of our scenes you can hear people shouting and laughing in the background, also, sometimes when playing my character, I spoke too quietly and the camera wasn't able to pick up my voice - causing us to have to re-film the shot. Another mistake that we made was not using the tripod in scenes where we could have, this made some shots look shaky and made them unable to convey the effect we wanted.

-How did you manage the group dynamics and equipment and resources?

-How did you delegate roles? How did the equipment help you?

To manage our resources we had James take care of the camera and Ajani take care of the tripod. I brought in an SD card but we ended up using one provided by the school as I was unable to format it. When delegating the roles we filmed a variety of test shots to experiment who was going to play each character ; in the end, James played the Hitman and I played the Contractor. Then we had Adam and Ajani decide who was going to film the most shots by seeing their ability to use match on action, shot-reverse-shot and follow the 180 degree rule without assistance, so we could rely on them during filming to get the shots we needed without additional direction.

-What problems did you encounter logistically?

- Difficulty with Actors? Camera Issues? Editing Problems?

When gathering the files to use for editing our short film, we noticed that there were way more video files  on the camera than we had recorded and we struggled to separate the files from our own when importing them to Adobe Premiere Pro and editing them. We also had a problem in the fairly early stages of editing when the laptop my group was using froze, leaving us unable to save all of our progress and causing us to have to restart the project. Luckily we still had enough time to finish the project though.