Planning - Film Opening
Me and my group were very keen on the genre of Action. We were interested in making an action-packed film opening which would grab our audience straight into the film. To make a good action film, we decided to research the conventions and what actually makes up the genre of 'Action.' I found that an action film is based around either one person or a group facing challenges. Normally involving fights, chase scenes, life threatening situation, gun, explosions and an evil villain. Action is a genre that allows the audience to see the story through fights explosions, car chases. I then researched the 'codes and conventions' of a good action films which we should implement in ours to create a good film opening.
My group and I started to plan for some ideas for our action movie opening. We came up with many ideas for what makes a good action movie. We brainstormed many ideas for our film openings, it helped us to put all ideas onto paper and into one. We had the task of deciding which one we should use as our final idea and had to decide which film opening would be easier to film within a class environment as we are not on a Hollywood budget so therefore had to think small but also make sure it was more appealing to watch for our target audience. We eliminated many ideas and came up which was professionally and easy to portray with all our skills put together. We combined a number of scenarios which helped us to come up with the main story. We brainstormed many key concepts that makes a good action film this would help us to focus on how to make our action film the best it can be. We ended up thinking that the most important elements where story line, camera, editing, lighting and good sound effects.
My group and I started to plan for some ideas for our action movie opening. We came up with many ideas for what makes a good action movie. We brainstormed many ideas for our film openings, it helped us to put all ideas onto paper and into one. We had the task of deciding which one we should use as our final idea and had to decide which film opening would be easier to film within a class environment as we are not on a Hollywood budget so therefore had to think small but also make sure it was more appealing to watch for our target audience. We eliminated many ideas and came up which was professionally and easy to portray with all our skills put together. We combined a number of scenarios which helped us to come up with the main story. We brainstormed many key concepts that makes a good action film this would help us to focus on how to make our action film the best it can be. We ended up thinking that the most important elements where story line, camera, editing, lighting and good sound effects.
Our Final Story
After doing much planning and research for our film opening, we came up with the story for out film. Its starts of with a fight scene of the villain taking out guards, making his way into an office building. Once he is there he plants a bomb which portrays him as being the antagonist. Then our villain goes outside the building and triggers the bomb with his electronic remote blowing up the entire building. Then towards the end, we decided to add a news report revealing some information about the reasoning behind the bombing.
Script
We firstly came up with a draft script for our film opening when we had established our final story. We didn't have much dialogue to add in scene 1, therefore we wrote down what was going to happen and what cut was going to lead each shot after the other. The reason we wrote a draft script was to put our ideas of what each shot was going to entail. After making the draft and everyone in the group being happy with the scenes we decided to make the final script which had the different camera angles and the editing styles we were going to use. This has helped us to visualise what our actual film opening is going to look like and makes it easier for us to understand as it was more clear gave us structure for what we needed to do.
Story Board
Draft Story Board Final Story Board
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When creating the draft and final story board it helped us to visualise our story. By creating the draft it meant had a rough idea of what our story was going to look like. Then when creating our final story board it was allot easier as we only made a few changes to it. We had to think of many things while creating the story board such as what characters are in the frame and how are they moving? ,where is the camera in the scene? and what shots are we going to use? Also most importantly the framing of each shots which would reflect our initial ideas. The story board would help us film in the best and easiest way possible as our idea is laid out on paper and organised.
When reconsidering the location of the fight scene in our film opening, we decided for it to take place in an elevator. This was because it would help us get the most marks for our film opening as it was a small space it would be hard to film a big exaggerated fight scene. With all the different angles and shots, trying not to be limited with the amount of shots and angles we use. When researching different fight scenes in elevators, we came across the movie 'merantau warrior'. The scene gave us inspiration of what we wanted to include in our fight scene.
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Costume and Props
For the costume of the action hero we decided to use traditional action clothing, such as a suit and tie. Which shows the typical action genre. Our characters are supposed to dress smartly to fit the mise en scene. It shows of the men to be strong and powerful rather than wearing jeans and t-shirt which doesn't work for our genre. Suit and tie shows that our characters are in the business sector which in our case they are, as our location for part of our film opening is an office.
For the bodyguard in our film opening we decided he would be dressed in a traditional suit and tie with black shades and a gun to make him appear different from the actual action her as the bodyguards costumes is more of a uniform whereas the action hero is almost their preferred choice. Even though he is wearing a suit and tie he has shades to make him look mysterious and gun for his own protection, also a speaker in his ear as he is told what to do by his boss.
The News reporters in our film opening should be dressed in smart attire. As looking as news reporters they are mainly dressed in also suits and women dressing in blouses. As it makes them seem professional. The two news reporters are used in the opening to show how big the news has become. As it has spread to the media and people around the world will see the terrible news. The news reporters are dressed in smart clothes to fit the mise en scene of the news report.
Guns - We thought that having guns would be great prop for our action genre since it straight away represents our genre. We believed it would also add excitement to scene giving certain individual more power than others, giving the audience mixed reactions at certain times, leading to the audience wanting to watch the film.
Remote for explosion - We thought of having a remote like this for the building explosion over having a bomb. I mainly believed in this because the remote is very small, explosion will be very big and therefore they contrast each other which signifies the power of the villain. I believed that having a remote to set off the explosion would imply how our villain is in control of what he does rather that a timer on a bomb which allows the hero time to save the day.
I thought of having the bomb in the black briefcase. This made it less suspicious as well as a mystrey to the audience when our villain leaves the breifcase on the desk. I believed this would help us achieve our aim of audience questioning themselves, guessing what would happen next and wondering what is in the bag, helping us achieve our sole purpose of audience wanting to watch more of the film. The fact that the briefcase is black also foreshadows that something bad may be about to happen. The colour black represents dullness and negativity and therefore it may hint to the audience that something bad is going to happen
Character profile
Name: Alex Zang (Antagonist)
Date of Birth: 01/01/1991
Age: 23
Height: 5' 7''
Current Residence: City of London
Employment Status: Unemployed
Skills: Pro MMA fighter, Degree in Pyrotechnics
Bio:
After the death of his father due to rivals in the big business world, Alex is on a mission to seek revenge for the death of his father who he loved very much. He has mastered Pyrotechnics and MMA allowing him to fulfill the main purpose of his life which is to get his revenge. He has been succesfull killing 4 people responsible for his fathers death leaving the last business man waiting to be assasinated. Will he be successful...
Date of Birth: 01/01/1991
Age: 23
Height: 5' 7''
Current Residence: City of London
Employment Status: Unemployed
Skills: Pro MMA fighter, Degree in Pyrotechnics
Bio:
After the death of his father due to rivals in the big business world, Alex is on a mission to seek revenge for the death of his father who he loved very much. He has mastered Pyrotechnics and MMA allowing him to fulfill the main purpose of his life which is to get his revenge. He has been succesfull killing 4 people responsible for his fathers death leaving the last business man waiting to be assasinated. Will he be successful...
Sidekick Name: Pawan Saunya (Protagonist)
Date of Birth: Unknown
Age: Unknown
Height: Unknown
Current Residence: City of London
Employment: Works as a Security Guard
Bio: The security guard spots Alex with a gun entering the building. Trying to stop Alex in the lift causing a fight scene leaving him very serverely injured. This shows the true strength of Alex and how firm he is about his mission.
Date of Birth: Unknown
Age: Unknown
Height: Unknown
Current Residence: City of London
Employment: Works as a Security Guard
Bio: The security guard spots Alex with a gun entering the building. Trying to stop Alex in the lift causing a fight scene leaving him very serverely injured. This shows the true strength of Alex and how firm he is about his mission.
News Reporters Names: Linda Brown & Jeremy Fox
Age: 27 & 30
The News Reporters are there to reveal the purpose of the Alex's Mission towards the audience. They help get across the fact that Alex is killing big business giants getting the audience to question why Alex is doing his actions causing them to watch the whole film.
Age: 27 & 30
The News Reporters are there to reveal the purpose of the Alex's Mission towards the audience. They help get across the fact that Alex is killing big business giants getting the audience to question why Alex is doing his actions causing them to watch the whole film.
Locations
Location 1
London - When filimng an establishing shot in london it had to be clear and very effective as it was going to be the very first shot of our film opening meaning it was a very important shot as the audience will see this shot first letting
them decide what the rest of film will be like. We used centeral london to film the establishing shot as the bussiness corporate side of lodon made the shot look more professional and making our film look more expensive even thought we are not on a million dollar budget.
London - When filimng an establishing shot in london it had to be clear and very effective as it was going to be the very first shot of our film opening meaning it was a very important shot as the audience will see this shot first letting
them decide what the rest of film will be like. We used centeral london to film the establishing shot as the bussiness corporate side of lodon made the shot look more professional and making our film look more expensive even thought we are not on a million dollar budget.
Location 2
Hotel - When filming the action scene we decided to use the interior of the hotel as it looked very expensive and professional. As previously we had used a MMA club where the fight scene took place however the interoir looked ameturish and didnt fit the mise en scene of our film. Therefore using the hotel fitted our story more, as having london in the establishing shot meant we had to keep up to those high standards of making the locations look expensive and bussiness like.
Hotel - When filming the action scene we decided to use the interior of the hotel as it looked very expensive and professional. As previously we had used a MMA club where the fight scene took place however the interoir looked ameturish and didnt fit the mise en scene of our film. Therefore using the hotel fitted our story more, as having london in the establishing shot meant we had to keep up to those high standards of making the locations look expensive and bussiness like.
Location 3
Elevator - The elevator was used when filming the fight scene. It was a small compact palce and was quite difficult to film a fight scene. However it made the fight seem more effective, as there wasnt much space to move their fighting still had a big impact. The elevator had silver metal walls with no mirrors, due to there only being 3 walls the elevator fight scene creates alot of tension.
Elevator - The elevator was used when filming the fight scene. It was a small compact palce and was quite difficult to film a fight scene. However it made the fight seem more effective, as there wasnt much space to move their fighting still had a big impact. The elevator had silver metal walls with no mirrors, due to there only being 3 walls the elevator fight scene creates alot of tension.