Film Opening Marking Criteria

Level 1 0–23 marks The work for the main task is possibly incomplete. There is minimal evidence in the work of the creative use of any relevant technical skills such as:

• Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task; 

• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions; 

• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

• shooting material appropriate to the task set; including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene; 

• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects. 

Level 2 24–35 marks There is evidence of a basic level of ability in the creative use of some of the following technical skills:

• Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task; 

• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions; 

• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

• shooting material appropriate to the task set;, including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene; 

• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects. 

Level 3 36–47 marks There is evidence of proficiency in the creative use of many of the following technical skills:

• Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task; 

• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions; 

• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

• shooting material appropriate to the task set; including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene; 

• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.

Level 4 48–60 marksThere is evidence of excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:

• material appropriate for the target audience and task;

• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;

• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

• shooting material appropriate to the task set;including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;

• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.

How the opening fits with research of codes/conventions, genre and audience

Our planned opening fits much of our research as the idea we had to begin with was created from these ideas. 

To begin with, the opening scene fits conventions as road accidents are one of the most common forms of deaths that people will experience and it is possible that many people have experienced the danger of death. This means that we will be able to hold the audiences suspension of disbelief as it is more believable that the story would start like this. Also, we wanted to convey that this could happen to anybody as this would appeal to our audience of the middle aged as they may have experienced death at some point in their lives and so would be more empathetic towards the main character and the movie in general.

Furthermore, it fits the genre of mystery as it thrusts the audience into a scenario where the main character does not know how they died and must attempt to discover both how they died and more about themselves later on in the movie. The audience is along with this journey, following the mystery genre, appealing to anybody with an interest in it. Also, this is not the only genre involved as it also has a philosophical theme and speculative genre as the idea of a man still able to consciously exist after death is retorted by modern science and commonly not accepted. This means that the opening scene also follows these genre types.

However, as I previously mentioned, following these different genre types means that the movie becomes more accessible to a wider audience. These primarily include middle aged and intellectual thinkers of all ages that are interested in the life after death and life's 'What-ifs' as this is what our movie observes and attempts to portray. On the other hand the audience also opens itself to a much larger audience as the idea of death interests most people as most have experienced it in some form or another and allows them to contemplate what might happen after the event. 

Shot List

Shot 1- Long shot of her coming out of the train station on the phone.

Shot 2- Closer tracking shot as she walks by.

Shot 3- Cut to shot in-front of her as she walks towards the camera

Shot 4- Close up of face (Show blood)

Shot 5- Shot of shoes walking

Shot 6- Body shot of business suit.

Shot 7- Shot of phone next to ear and her talking.

Shot 8- New (quieter) street where the crash occurred

Shot 9- Have her notice the crowd

Shot 10- Walk up to the crowd and peer over

Shot 11- POV of her seeing dead body on the floor through the crowd.

Shot 12- Have a reaction and her moving through the crowd toward the body, Shot from within the crowd.

Shot 13- Close up of her kneeling over the body and removing the hood of the trench coat.

Shot 14- Dead body POV shot of her reaction to seeing body.

Shot 15- Body shot of her standing back up stunned

Shot 16- Continuation of this with her trying to get attention of crowd member.

Shot 17- Closer shot of her face as she attempts to get attention

Shot 18- Shot of her feet stepping back in shock

Shot 19- Have her clasp her face in shock and fall to floor in sadness/fear. 

Shot 20- Use shot 19 and have closer of sad face as she hunched over.

(Initiate internal monologue here)

Shot 21- Various scenes during her internal monologue and have her move over toward her own body. 

Shot 22- End on POV shot of her thinking toward the dead body and crying.  

Delusion script

Script for Delusion

Although it says at the top of the document that the speech is for Middle Man it is actually for Delusion however we did change the characters and the name when we began filming and therefore this is the reason for the mistake.

Film pitch presentation - MiddleMan (Delusion)

Film pitch presentation from Spagez

This is the film pitch presentation which was made by our group for our film introduction named origionally named MiddleMan, however now has been changed to the film in which we made named Delusion.

Titles research

Directer- Chris Page

Screenplay- Ella Fleming

Film Editor- Harrison Crick

Actors- Extras/Main Character 

Executive Producer- Molly Robinson

Casting- Amanda Thompson

Costumer Design- Meryl McAdams

Sound Designer- Anne Murphy

Production Designer- Charles Willis

Director of Photography- George Joffe

Title Appearance

Font- Adobe Fangsong Std R - Simple text that is easily readable but also does not attract too much attention. Influenced by typewriter text as he is a business man.

Size- 20 pt. - so that is does not encompass to much of the screen and draw attention away.

Colour- Plain white - Simple, yet effective for topic as is usually related to death.

Order of appearance throughout opening scene

Film4

Blue Lion Productions (On black screen)

A Fleming INC Film

Main Character Actor

Extras Actors- 7 to be announced

Costume Designer- Meryl McAdams

Sound Designer- Anne Murphy

Casting- Amanda Thompson

Production Designer- Charles Willis 

Director of Photography- George Joffe

Executive Producer- Molly Robinson

Film Editor- Harrison Crick

Screenplay- Ella Fleming

Director- Chris Page

MiddleMan Title

Timings of Titles

Film4- 7 seconds

Blue Lion Productions- 4 seconds 

A Fleming INC Film- 3 seconds 

Main Character Actor- 3 seconds 

Extras Actors- 5 seconds

Costume Designer- Meryl McAdams - 2 seconds

Sound Designer- Anne Murphy - 2 seconds

Casting- Amanda Thompson - 2 seconds

Production Designer- Charles Willis - 2 seconds

Director of Photography- George Joffe - 2 seconds

Executive Producer- Molly Robinson - 2 seconds

Film Editor- Harrison Crick - 2 seconds

Screenplay- Ella Fleming - 3 seconds

Director- Chris Page - 3 seconds

MiddleMan Title - 4 seconds

39 seconds in total which allows for all titles to appear before the main character reaches the crowd.

Outfit Planning

Prop List

Prop List

Above is the list of props which are needed for the film opening, I have included websites of where to find them, however, for a lot of the items we already have the things and we will not have to spend money on them.

Grease opening title sequence

Above is the opening title sequence in which I looked at, to see how the titles are shown in an opening sequence and at what time they are put up.

Inspiration

When our group was deciding what to include in our opening scenes, these clips really helped us plan out how we were going to film and what shots we were going to include.

This opening scene scene is very good at showing how a camera focusses on a character is far in the background behind other characters. Secondly I like it how it chop and changes between each other which leads to a final climax which is similar to our film idea. The lead up of the music and the closer the characters get which leads to the final moment creates an anti climax because no one expected that to happen. We want to incorporate this idea/narrative into our film because this would fit into our pathetic fallacy of our main character who is living his daily life and gets caught up into the unexpected.

Secondly, we like the high angle shot at the end which gives the whole overview of the situation, we would like to include a scene like this because we feel it would be good at emphasising that he has no idea what is going on. In addition, this high angle shot could be a good scene to end our opening scene on because it could be a zooming out transition where we would end our opening scene.

Just Jack - "The day I died" from Sterntag Film on Vimeo.

The reason why I included this music video is because it runs along the same concept as our film idea. Our initial response to this music video is we like the idea of the middle aged man living his daily life. This runs in parallel to our idea because our film name is called 'middleman' so we thought if we used a middle aged actor such as a parent it would help portray the enigma more clearly.

Secondly, our group liked how this character is living his daily life as usual, oblivious to what was going to mess up his day. We gained some inspiration from this video because we plan to film our title sequences around air main character living his daily life and travelling to a location. The location will not be clear and the viewers will not be told where he is travelling too, this should produce some enigma because people would be wondering where the character is going.

In this opening scene, we liked the way how the character has headphones in, listening to music. This music is placed into the background of the overall opening scene. We thought we could incorporate this into our opening scene in the same concept. However, our character will not be popping off the dance movies just like Chris pratt demonstrated. Our character may have the odd bob of the head but that is it.

audience

Audience

Primary Audience

The primary audience of the movie is the middle aged and intellectual thinkers of all ages as the basis for the story is morbid and questions life after death and so requires thought around the subject. This is why this is the primary audience as these people are experienced with not only life but have most likely come across death throughout they lives and so will be able to connect with the main character. Furthermore, intellectual thinkers will be able to understand the aspects of the movie and the meanings and motives behind why the main character is still alive.

Secondary Audience

The secondary audience is focused on the main film going audience of people aged between 16 and 24 as this is the largest audience that is likely to attend the film merely to see the film and is an audience that does not require any specializations as it encompasses such a large amount of people. Furthermore, due to the younger ages present, it may interest them as the topic of death may be something that they are uncommon or inexperienced in and so it will act as an introduction to the topic with the themes of the movie.

Evaluation

When we pitched our film to the class, the students all had sheets which they had to give their constructive criticism and tell us what was good and what wasn't good about our film idea.

In hindsight, I feel that a lot of the responses were very positive, we didn't really have anyone slating our idea saying it is rubbish.

The first question to the mark sheet was:

What is the genre? Is this clear?

A lot of the results were very accurate but the responses were varied. The result which was most common was a thriller/mystery, I feel that this is due to the whole story being quite eerie and very odd. We also received 

results such as 'Drama' and 'Psychological'.

Who is the target audience and why would they pay to see it?

Most of the results that we received stated that middle aged and cultured intellectuals will prefer to see this film. To be honest, this makes sense because this film will involve a lot of thinking. Also, a lot of the other responses were just simply anyone who is interested in films that make you think.

Does the mood and style fit?

The majority of the responses all explained how the dead man is shown which creates the intriguing enigma. I agree with this statement because that was our intentional idea in the first place, to create a nice amount of flowing enigma throughout the start of the opening scene.

One response which really caught my eye stated "Mood with rain and pathetic fallacy is a good idea" because this shows that they reflect the attitude of the scene. For example, it is stereotypical movies to have rain in sad/depressing scenes.

Lastly, some people said that the main character is clueless and selfish between life and death. This is interesting because the initial enigma created just from this presentation suggests that this character is resisting himself into going to life after death.

Narrative interesting? Enigma?

The responses show that the narrative is interesting. For example people said that the opening scene will be left on a cliffhanger. However, some people said that the narrative is minimal due to the character, "we don't know what will happen to him." But overall most people said that there is good elements of enigma. For example, people want to know how the character changes and develops.

The last thing which was mentioned was that the voice over is interesting, this is helpful to us because we wasn't sure whether this idea was good or not.

What films is it similar too? 

A lot of people said this film was a very original idea, this will help us in sustaining our originality marks within the preliminary. The only thing that people said it was similar too was that it was quite similar to the 'Day i died' music video. Therefore, our advice was to make sure we do not make it look like a music video and keep with film.

Comments/Advice

Overall, a lot of people liked the credits idea and they said that is a good, original idea. On the other hand, a lot of people didn't know where we were going to film, so this meant we didn't explain where our locations will be. This is true because we didn't really mention where our locations will be purely because we haven't yet picked where we are going to film.

On a lighter note, mostly everyone said that this is going to be a very good film opening if we can pull it off. The reason why people said that is going to be hard to pull it off is purely because it is going to be very hard to compose. I feel that sound, body language and facial expressions are going to be crucial if we are going to compose to create a successful opening scene.  Here are example of reviews from our classmates, as you can see they spent a lot of detail into their feedback which we are very grateful of because we can use this feedback to create and improve our idea which should help us access the grades we all want.

Production Diary

Day 1: On the first day we were assigned our groups and had a short introduction session, telling each other a brief overview of ourselves and the ideas that we had for our movies. We all introduced an idea separately and then discussed what we thought was good and bad about all the ideas and started to consider which one we would pick. We came down too two separate ideas but where then stuck as of which one too chose as we all thought that the ideas were both good. At the end o the lesson, we left considering a movie and keeping one o the ideas as a back-up.

Day 2: Continuing on from the first day, we started taking bigger considerations for the first idea 'Life' and planning out what would happen in the movie while creating the film pitch presentation. However, we began running into problems with the idea and so took the initiative of presenting the pitches in front of a critical audience to have them decide whether or not the back-up idea 'MiddleMan' was as good or better than the 'Life' idea. We began creating alternate presentations for the ideas in preparation for presenting them.

Day 3: On Day 3, we presented the separate ideas and had the audience vote on the what they thought would be the better of the two to watch. The audience decided that 'MiddleMan' had the better enigma created and was also a more original idea. As a group, we then decided that we would use the back-up instead.

Day 4: We began by planning out the basics of the opening scene and plotting what would happen in it. We also began planning out actors that would play roles in the opening scene, considering what kind of audience we were targeting and how to make the scene look natural in the normal world.

Day 5: We finished the basis for the storyboard while continuing on from the previous session. We had to overcome the issue of ending it without making it seem like a trailer however we believe that we have overcome this efficiently and effectively. Furthermore, we forward planned for our roles, deciding who was going to do what role and beginning our designated tasks. We also began creating the moodboard.

Day 6: On this day, we began to create the script for the opening scene, using the storyboard that we created as an influence for the timings and the actions that he would do. We also finished our target audience so that we had a good idea of who to appeal to with our marketing and script and choose what would fit well and what we could add as extras to the opening scene to further enhance the experience for that audience. The moodboard was also enhanced and improved further by fleshing out various key aspects like character, scenes, settings, films. We also began exploring the representations present in the opening scene including the fact that the general working man was stereotyped as the main character.

Delusion makeup

Above is the makeup which I am planning to do on myself during the film. I have only done this on one side of my face so that he can walk showing the other side of his face without the injury showing. This is meant to be where the character has skidded along the floor in the car accident. I created this look by using both dark red and light red lipstick to make a blood like colour. After I applied the lipstick I put PVA glue over the top so that it would create a scabbed effect. I really like the way this looks and it does not give it away that there has been a very bad accident because it does not look too extreme.

Moodboard of initial ideas

Moodboard

Here is our Initial idea of what is going to look like. We have created our mood board with a very visual aspect so people can see how it is going to look like and turn out like. Although it says that this is for the film MiddleMan, obviously in the end we decided to change the idea of the name and the characters who were playing each part. However in the character change we still wanted the main character to be a business type person who works in the city, however we chose to do a female character instead of a male.

Second Film Pitch

This is another film pitch which I thought about, however I prefer the one which I previously posted. This is just another option.

Final Task - film pitch

Above I have put my idea of the film pitch. This may not be the final choice which we make for the film, however it is one idea.

Harry Potter Studios

On 07/11/2015 I went to visit Harry Potter Studios, I went here because I am a very big fan of all of the films. From going to the studios I learnt about all the hard work and the small intricate details which go into every Harry Potter films which I may have not appreciated before. For example in one of the photos it shows the letters and the newspapers which were in the film and these were actually all hand written. I learnt from the day that the props and the scenery's which are used are extremely important for making a good film to make it seem more realistic. I really enjoyed the day and I thought it was an amazing experience.

Richard Morrison

Don't over complicate an idea to start with, especially when trying to convince others to get involved in the film. When Ridley Scott created the first movie Alien he sold the film in three words and that was 'Jaws in Space' that tells you that simple is good, these three words were good because Jaws is a very well known film and as well as this space is a popular genre, selling the idea. Draw a story board before you go too far because you can change this, you should always build on the storyboard and not cut it off. Once you are half way through, your producers should then be able to see which needs to be focused on. Richard Morrison is a great believer that once you go past the story board then you should make a model, because it is a physical model. The more physical you are with texture, smell and other senses it fills you in with more information and therefore makes you have more knowledge on your ideas. It doesn't matter how good the model is, it is just you are engaged with the process. Richard doesn't think about the project that has come to him, and therefore does not get distracted, once you have calmed down and thought of some ideas then go back to the project and start planning. Richard says that he shoots the media, waits until the next day and then looks at it. He said that as you get more experienced people will trust your judgement more. Each title sequence is unique, what seems as an easy sequence can be very hard to do, therefore sometimes it is best that you do something more simple than you should focus on it more and make it look better, however you can almost create he impossible. You cannot cheat perspective and you actually have to do it for real. You have to communicate our vision to the other people in the team so that they can get your ideas.

Rumours presentation

Above is the presentation which I made for my preliminary task - Rumours. I made this presentation on emaze, this was my first time using the software emaze and I thought in my opinion that it was a very sleek method and successful way of being able to put my ideas across. I would use this method again to make further presentations.

Film opening analysis

In class we had to evaluate and analyse several film openings which were made by past students, I have put in the notes which I got from this, as well as adding other analyses which I did in my own time:

Roses are Red

WWW (what went well) - Interesting.

- Production logo very good, the idea was a poster on the wall which the camera panned past and focused on.

- Editing very good.

- Equal name size on titles.

- Creative.

Improve - Blurry.

- Not much meaning.

- No enigma code.

- No clear genre, teen and then thriller?

- Boring music, no lyrics.

- Too focused on titles to add a storyline. 

Luna

WWW - Titles excellent, typewriter effect.

- Editing good.

- Rewind very good.. Linking back to the editing.

- Clever.

- Creative.

- Good places in shooting.

Improve - Not very original, copy of the film 500 days of summer.

- Sound quality not great at beginning.

- Names repeated in the credits.

- The rewind changes the theme, and although the editing is good, does not really fit alongside the rest of the film.

Alone

WWW - Original.

- Clear genre; thriller, horror.

- Enigma codes very good.

- Titles clever.

- Simple, but a small amount of effective editing, such as ghosting.

Improve - Editing not brilliant.

- Slightly too simple.

Blitz

WWW - Titles clean.

- Good attention to detail.

- War voice.

- Mis en scene on the walls. 

- Place and time shown; war time.

- Amazing steady, still camera work.

- Age good of actors. 

- High amount of enigma.

- Music adds suspense.

Improve - Some good lighting.

- Looks like a trailer because the title is at the end of the clip.
- It also looks like a trailer because it skips forward 60 years, and you would expect this to happen in the full film.

The Disciples
WWW - Editing very good; charts, performance on stage, YouTube, newspaper.
- Funny.
- Original.

Improve - Too long.
- To some people the humour in the film may not be seen as funny.
- Some bits could be seen as a documentary.

Schools Nightmare
WWW - Clear.
- Good colouring.
- Younger and older age range.
- Titles appear as the acting is occurring.
- The acting itself is good.
- Editing is good, from the mix of the two different scenes.
- Lots of enigma.

Improve - No talking.

Mother and I
WWW - Different age ranges.
- Good logo, focuses on horror: good moving drop of poison.
- Acting their age. 
- Small amounts of enigma codes.

Improve - Can't hear much of the talking. 
- Too much editing.
- Confusing.
- Bad credits.
- Boring.
- Badly lit places.

Creeping Shadows
WWW - Good age of the actors; acting their age.
- Large amount of enigma codes.
- Clear genre, horror.
- Fast pace, keeps the viewer interested.

Improve - Not brilliant titles, font.
- Too much time wasted on image played at beginning, and end.
- Sound is bad.
- Not much talking.
- Not many majorly good effects.
- Title at end makes it seem as though it is a trailer.



The Visitor
WWW - Amazing camera work, good quality.
- Good filming place.
- Creepy.
- Voice over is successful.
- Engima - who is the girl, why is she there?
- Scary.
- Keeps the viewer watching.
- Not too much given away.

Improve - Title not at the beginning.
- Quite cliche.


The Organ Player
WWW - Titles look very professional, like thy were from an actual film.
- Acting good.
- Editing very good.
- Added sound is very good and effective.
- Original idea.

Improve - Music is not great and jumps.
- Some of the shots aren't great, for example, when only a back is shown.

BFI trip

Today myself and other media students took a trip up to London where we went to go to the BFI to watch a conference all about the film industry. Throughout the day I learnt a lot about different films as well as the companies and people that produce them. The notes below are the notes in which I took down from the day:

Independent film examples:
 - Bone Tomahawk
- The Falling
- The Inbetweeners 2
Independant films make you ask questions and will challenge the viewer more than mainstream films will do. It makes the viewer think, whereas mainstream films usually entertain you.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- High budget film: $200 million dollars
- Easy film, safe genre: Sci-Fi and action
- Well known actors: Good marketing
- Made by 'The Big Six' meaning there will be a lot of advertisement: Disney
- Past films make it more popular
- Event movie: Christmas time
- Good editing: CGI/SFX
- Emotive narrative: Makes you feel, music very emotional
- Studio and on location

Frank: 
- An independant film
- Unusual genre: Mask on head, interpreted in many different ways, doesn't attract audience 
- Low budget film: £1 million pounds
- Black comedy: Difficult humour
- Less established actors
- No commercial success: challenges
- Critical success
- Limited distribution

Film production:
- The physical making/shooting/editing of a film
- Films can be independently produced and distributed, e.g.. Film 4 or BFI funded
- More independent how that there's more technology

Film companies are owned by bigger companies, this helps with:
- Supremely high production values
- Additional funds for distribution
- More opportunities for synergy
- Star marketing
- Films which are consumed and marketing

Most big films that you have heard of or watched through the decades are owned by one of the big six.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - What makes the film high production
- Special effects
- Mise en scene: setting - boat, helicopter
- Huge cast
- Good camera technology
- Soundtrack is very good

Some UK production companies associate with America which makes the movies bigger and therefore get more money.

Type of producers in the film industry:
- Exect producer
- Producer
- Associate producer

A lot of money in television comes from apps such as Amazon prime and Netflix.

What interests you, but would also interest the bigger audience is key when you are making a film.

In average it is meant to take around ten weeks to edit a feature film. In Suffragette it took around 25 weeks to edit, plus it also took a further 15 weeks to add the music and the sound.

In the film industry, to ensure you want to make it in the film industry you need a distributor. Distributors do the following things:
- Chooses which film to distribute
- Decides on number of copies/prints
- Negotiates release date
- Pay for advertisement

Main aspects of film marketing:
- In the media: television, cinema, trailers, press, outdoor, online
Trailers - The trailers are the most expensive part, because they think moving pictures makes more people want to view more moving pictures.

Spectre:
Audience appeals of the trailer:
- Editing, for example the bombs
- Star marketing and familiarity with the franchise
- Such a British film, British spy
- Enigma was created in the trailer, mystery of the ring, action - fast cars
- Romance, classic James Bond sex scene
- Comedy
- Promises a pleasure
- IMAX exhibition (but not 3D) - It wouldn't be worth it, this is because it would distract the watcher away from the story-line and the narrative. The film is already big enough and would not need anything else to make it better really.
- Good vs. Evil, classic theme

Spectre:
- Had to be bigger than skyfall
- Big cost - 190 million dollars
- High production value trailers
- New team embedded
- Carefully released hype - 'I'd rather slash my wrists than do another Bond film' Daniel Craig, although this seems bad, no publicity is bad publicity is bad publicity because it attracts more attention to the film.

Bridget Jones Baby may not need too much advertisement because of the popularity of Bridget Jones which came out 12 years ago. 

Exhibition/exchange:
- Online film consumption via Netlfix and Lovefilm
- Cinema increasing
- DVD/Blu ray sales down
- Online film consumption/streaming increasing
- IMAX/3D successful
Most popular is watching films at home