7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full products?

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

We learnt a lot from our preliminary task, which was very useful when it came to our final piece.

• Time keeping was one of the most important things that we learnt from our continuity task as we planned to have another scene in our opening. After writing up the story board and plans for our main task, we reflected on our preliminary task and realised that  we couldn't fit it into the 2 minute limit of our opening and agreed to not bother filming this. This proved to be the right choice as without that final scene, the piece came to just over two minutes. 

• Another aspect of the task we learnt a lot from was editing, as no one in our group had ever worked with the software before, such as iMovie and garageband, and so we had to work from a process of trial and error. This worked well, it was just very slow at the beginning of editing for our continuity task. But we were very grateful to gain the experience so that editing for our final piece was quicker, even though there was more footage to edit. 

• Sound is the aspect we learnt most from, as we had to keep the dialogue in a chronological order but shot from different angles. We found this difficult as, to keep the shots that we wanted, we discovered that the slamming of the door came in the wrong time, meaning that it repeated itself. To fix this, we muted the sound on the first clip and kept in the slam of the door in the second clip. This worked well as we make some music to go over the top of the first shots to build up the tension, with the door slamming being the climax. From this we learnt how to overcome sound difficulties and applied this to our final product as we had trouble with the sound of the wind droning out the dialogue. As the dialogue wasn't important to the plot, we did the same thing as our preliminary task and muted the dialogue and used a voice over instead, which proved very effective and we were very happy with the outcome.
• Camera work was new to all of us when we started our continuity task, so we learnt about the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot and had to put them into practice. This took a while as we were keen to keep everything as accurate as possible. However, after some practice, we got the hang of it. 

Camera movements and Shots

These first three shots show shot reverse shot from a distance. This is used to keep continuous action but to show it from different angles. We learnt that we had some freedom with this shot, which is why we did it from different sides of the door, to show both the characters. We also wanted to show the slamming of the door as dramatically as possible. From this, we learnt that we could use shot reverse shot a lot in our final piece as we had lots of freedom and choice with how to use it. In the end, we used shot reverse shot mainly for the car scene, to show Mitch getting in and out of the car. This worked well as it helped the action flow better, but meant we could include different and interesting shots to include Pierce in as well.

Throughout the whole piece we had to abide by the 180 degree rule. This was difficult as we wanted to film the door so we had to set up facing the door at  certain angle so that we could also include a window so that we could film the hat falling out of the window. We learnt a lot from this as we realised that we could have the line anywhere that we wanted, so when we were filming on location, it was easy to use the half of the car park behind us as our line. It was the same in the shed as we were only using one half of it and were keeping all of our equipment and props such as make up on the other half, so obviously we couldn't film that.

This is when we included match on action. This is when we show a close up of the action being filmed from a medium shot. Here, we go front his shot to a close up of Mitch's face. Yet all the while the dialogue continues as normal. This was a struggle as the piece was improvised so cutting the dialogue in the right place was hard and took lots of practice which we were grateful to have when editing out final piece. However, we didn't use any direct match on action in our film opening, we focussed more on having a mix of close ups, medium shots and different angled shots. We did use match on action during the car scene, when we filmed the car pulling up next to Pierce, a close up of Pierce's reaction, and then back to the pulled up car again. This was brilliant and I thought it worked really well to help the audience start to understand and see into the characters personalities and thoughts in a subtle but effective way.

These shots (right and above) remind me of one another, as does the very last shot with the car driving off. From our continuity, we learnt how to effectively follow a moving object with the camera for effect. When we came to editing, we could either slow this down or speed it up depending on what we decided looked best. For our continuity we changed the hat falling into slow motion to emphasise the falling and create a dreamier state. We considering doing this to our final piece as well but decided that, to keep the realism, we would leave it how it was.

These shots remind me of one another as the shot from the continuity task shows the hat falling from a distance, and the car shot is the same, except it's close up of the car wheel which later goes into seeing the car drive off at a certain distance as well. We learnt that this looked good through the continuity task which is why we used it in our real piece.

Editing 

Here, you can see the titles we included in our continuity task. Personally, I don't think this looks very professional and we were sure we wouldn't use something like this in our real piece as it was boring, simple and not very adventurous. As well, we wanted our titles for the real thing to reflect our genre of film.




However, learning about how to insert titles in our continuity task was real useful and we found it interesting playing around with them. It was also useful as, even though I don't like these titles, we knew that this isn't what we wanted for our final piece. When it came to looking at other film openings, we realised that we needed to include the actors and camera women's names, so to make our final piece look more professional, this is what we did. We learnt how to put the titles over the top of filmed footage by playing around with the software in our continuity task, so it was great to get straight to editing and we knew exactly what we had to do.

 From editing, we also learnt how to create special effects, such as reversing the footage like we edit here, to make the effect look like it was going back in time. We learnt this from the shot of the hat falling out of the window which can be seen above. 

  

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

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

The equipment that we used was very basic. For every scene we filmed, we  only ever used three cameras. This was so that  we carried as little equipment as possible to our filming locations. We found that we had few difficulties with the cameras as we learnt a lot from our continuity task - this time, we made sure that we checked the cameras battery levels at least an hour before filming in outside locations so that we could charge them if they needed to, which luckily they didn't. 

The only other difficulty that we had with the cameras was the quality, as we used Amy's HD camera as well as the sixth form cameras. When we came to editing we realised the difference in quality which disrupted the continuity. However, we couldn't refilm as this would have also disrupted the continuity of the dialogue, as lots of it was improvised. So in the end, there was nothing we could do about it. 

The only other difficulty that we had with the cameras was that when we were due to film, we found that other groups that were using the same cameras as us forgot to return them, so we had to improvise and film with only one camera for our opening scene. This, luckily, wasn't a problem as soon as we got filming as there was no dialogue that we needed to film at the same time from different angles for continuity and we followed the 180 degree rule and match on action in our second scene when filming at the car park, so this time we focussed more on including as many different angles as possible to get the best possible shots.

Some interesting shots that we did using this one camera was the fade at beginning onto Mitch's face in the shed. This was used simply by turning the only light source that we had towards this face manually, I stood behind the camera and did this. This meant we had less editing to do once we got back to south form and proved very effective as we could get the exact speed and amount of time we wanted for the fade instantly. We could also see the effect straight away and could make the decision whether we wanted to keep it or not, which we did. As well, doing the fade like this meant that we didn't start from complete darkness and helped keep the continuity from the shot before. 

For the best results whilst filming, we put the cameras on tripods whist filming the car scenes as we wanted a mix of shots from a hand held camera and a steady camera. 

The tripods proved to be difficult at times as they weren't as steady as we would like as some of the cameras didn't fit on properly. We worked around this by putting paper between the tripod and the camera so it was level.
 The tripods worked well as we could adjust the legs easily to the height we wanted, so we could easily have different angles  of the car and the characters in the car.




Once we started editing, we downloaded all of our footage onto iMovie, and used Garageband to make our own music as we couldn't use any published music due to copyright. Other programs we used were  youtube and blogger to document the editing that we did.


Garage band

We enjoyed learning how to create our own music using Garageband, and explored lots of different styles of music that we could use. We decided that we wanted an upbeat and modern style of music that reflects the main characters personality. It also needed to have annotations of adrenaline to get the audience excited about the rest of the film and to fulfil the aim of them wanting to carry on watching. 

We learnt that we had to start by finding a good beat to carry the piece of music, and then used a trial and error technique with finding the right guitar pieces and slowly built it up from there.

The only difficulty we had with Garageband was transferring the music from one computer to another as we delegated the music to one half of the group whilst the other half edited. When we came to put t all together we found we had no way of doing this. Luckily, our piece was quite simple so we recreated it on the computer with all of the filming footage on. This meant that the people who weren't primarily involved in making the music had a chance to tweak bits they wanted to, so that everyone was happy with the overall result.

iMovie

iMovie was the most difficult software to master, and I was grateful that we already had experience of it from our continuity task. We learnt how to cut our footage quickly and precisely and this came in useful as it sped up our editing time for our final piece significantly. The only thing that we didn't learn what to do in the continuity task was how to add music and a voiceover. By fiddling around with settings, we quickly caught on how to do this. Except, at first, when we didn't know how to add a voiceover we recorded it on our phones instead and synced it to the computer. This was unsuccessful as we didn't get the timings right which is when we asked how add a voiceover directly over the piece. Once we mastered this we had to overcome the fact that the computer room we were using to edit was always very loud and busy and we needed complete silence. So instead we organised times outside of lessons to record the voiceover and this was very successful and we got it done very quickly. 

Blogger

Blogger was easy to use as I already have a fashion blog on blogger so I simply created another account on it. It was good to use as we all had our accounts open whilst editing so we could document everything that we did. I tried to do this consistently, at least once very fortnight to keep on top of work load and so that everything was fresh in my mind when recording it. Blogger was easy to keep track of this. The only problem we had was that we couldn't upload videos directly, meaning that we had to put videos on youtube at home and record it from home.

Youtube

Youtube was essential for our evaluation as we found clips of other similar openings to ours and compared the effects used. We also used this for inspiration whilst we were editing our own opening. However, youtube does't work on the computers in sixth form so we had to do this outside of lesson time. We used youtube to add clips to our blogs to make them more interactive, and to demonstrate the other openings I compared our opening to. As well, we took screenshots of specific shots we compared them too, as well as suing this for inspiration before planning for our final piece, and throughout the editing process as well.

Overall, we learnt a lot about the technology on Mac computers and how we could edit as quickly as possible. We also learnt how to create our own effects whilst filming which was really interesting and fun. 

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

 How did you attract/address your audience?

Our film opening is similar to others through the genre of our film opening. We haven't created a typical action film and our opening represents more features of a thriller as we wanted to create a mysterious and dreamy atmosphere so that the action is more dramatic by contrast. This is all to attract our audience so they are curious as to what is about to happen. Therefore our opening isn't like the openings to any other action films, so instead we have studied both thriller and action film openings. 

Our average, stereotypical audience member would be a male in their late teens/early twenties who is streetwise, urban, modern and has some sort of interest in cars. 

The questionnaire that we asked a group of our target audience at the beginning of planning was useful in deciding how to attract our audience as we discovered that urban and thriller films were most popular, and could infer that this is the type of person who would want to watch our film, urban and streetwise and a bit risky - or enjoys watching risks being taken.

Taking this into consideration, our use of cinematography directly addresses our audience as we included an element of risk, something that would appeal to our target audience. This is also a key convention of an action film. The shot we used of the car going over the camera is also a modern idea and very original. I think that if we included this shot in our marketing plans, such as flyers, posters and billboards, this would instantly attract our target audience because it creates a sense of excitement and recklessness, and this would be mirrored in the plot of the film. A good example of this is the poster used for The Sweeney. This attracts the same target audience as us as the violence, action and mise-en-scene use of cars is clear. So if the person is into that genre they are more likely to go and see the film. This is what I hope would happen with our film.

We tried attracted our audience through the use of sound as we wanted to create a dreamy atmosphere, like the one used in the opening title of James Bond's Skyfall. As we don't have the special effects for this, we used sound instead, and recorded the characters breathing heavily over the top of the clips at the beginning. This emphasises how alone they are, and how scarily quiet it is. We did this so that the audience thinks that the characters are completely alone and makes the situation clear that no one is coming to help. This attracts the audience as it draws them into the storyline and hooks them into wanting to find out more, thus continuing to watch the film. Another film opening which does this is Goodfellas, as we don't know who the man is in the boot and how he get there and why he is there. All of these kind of questions are what we want our audience to ask when watching our opening because if the audience are asking questions, it means they are interested and curious. 

I know that this is what attracts my target audience because of the questionnaire we did whist planning our storyboard. This showed that the genre of thriller was the most popular. So, logically, the more conventions of a thriller film we include, the more popular our film will be.

Like the use of sound, our editing is unconventional as it creates a dreamy and hallucinogenic state. This is a unique selling point as pretty much all other action films are fast paced right from the beginning. This is why we compared our opening to other slow paced edited openings such as The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo and Skyfall as both these title sequences are mysterious and create a dream like state to contrast with the fast paced action. This style of editing attracts our audience because it mirrors a drug like state and, without making too many stereotypes, teenagers and our target market are typically more likely to understand and like these effects an enjoy watching this because it may remind them of their own experiences.

James Bond opening credits for Skyfall

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Here are some images of what we decided would be our target audience. Typically, it would be a film more attractive to males, however we would think that some girls would also enjoy our film, whether they are a car enthusiast or not as it has a good twist in the plot to make it interesting for as many people as possible, to widen our possible audience.

We think that the target audience would be car lovers as are feature heavily in our film and so that would be an obvious selling point for our film.

Typically, the audience would be teenage males who are interested in cars. I would also think that they would have hobbies like skateboarding or building things and going out with their friends. They'd probably listen to modern and up to date music, and I wouldn't be surprised if they listened to a lotos club music as well, because I think our film would attract an age group of 18+ because of the violence implied at the beginning. I imagine my taget audience would shop in typical high street shops such as Topman and Burton as these are very popular shops. I also assume that their favourite tv show would be Top Gear if they are car enthusiasts, or maybe something like The Walking Dead if they were more into violence. However I think they would be more interested in reality and realistic shows, as this is what we have tried to achieve with our film - to make it as realistic as possible. We have done this through our urban location or normality of the plot and characters.

Elements which would directly appeal to our audience are

• The voiceover, as it is emotive. It is like having a storyteller of the target audiences own age, which they can really relate to and understand. This can be seen in Goodfellas, as well as Trainspotting. 
• Editing is traditionally fast paced and edgy. However, in our opening, our editing is quiet slow, dreamy and hallucinogenic, which can have connotations of drug taking and the effects drugs have, which stereotypically teenagers, certainly in modern society, understand and like. This also shows that the film makers understand what teenagers want and what they like or relate to, making the appeal to carry on watching even stronger.
• Violence is shown straight from the beginning with the blood running down Pierce's face, which would make teenagers and our target audience want to watch the film as this is what they are interested in and want to see, as well the violence and situation having an interesting back story that they want to find out.

I think that our target audience would watch our film because it's a popular genre, which can be seen through our questionnaire. It is also based on aspects of life that our age group are mostly interested in, such as cars and to a certain extent, violence - Fast and furious. It is relatable and realistic and I think that would also make our target audience watch our film. There is also a mix of characters as Mitch is very loud and bouncy as a character whereas Pierce is quieter and more reserved, so there is something that everyone can relate to.  There is lots of extremity, a key element of action films which attracts our target audience and keeps their attention throughout the film. This can be seen in Beverly Hills Cop where they use a mixture of humour and action, but the tension of death and the unknown surrounding the plot creates tension.

To widen our audience participation we decided to film them watching our opening and then gathering them for questions. We chose to do this because it would show off our creativity skills.

video to be added

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

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

As a group, we decided that our opening is the start of an action/thriller gritty British Film. This means that we would only use British distribution companies and directors, such as Andrea Arnold who has directed other British films such as Fishtank, Wuthering Heights and Redroad. Andrea Arnold has never directed an action film before, so some people think it would be unlikely that she would choose to direct our film. However, every film she has directed so far has been of a different genre, and so if she liked the plot enough I think she would enjoy trying to develop our storyline into a realistic, gritty, British action film.

The production company used is the UK Film Council. But more importantly company such as Artificial Eye and Limelight Communications would distribute our film to theatres as well as to DVD, if it was successful enough. This is the distribution company used for Fishtank, a low budget arthouse film, which is the same style as ours, hence why we think we would use the same distributers.
Fishtank had a budget of £2million, which would around the same budget we would have if we were to produce the whole film. We don't need a huge budget as we won't be paying high prices for our actors or studio because we would film in urban locations to keep the film looking realistic and relatable, just like the did in Fihtank as they filmed in council flats in London, the expected place to find the characters in the film. We agreed that we would use unknown actors, partly to save money but also because we all believe in showing new talent as much as possible and think this would be a great way to do so.

Originally, Fishtank was produced by the UK Film Council, but we wouldn't be able to do that for our film as this company was shut down and taken over by The BFI.

 The BFI Distribution Fund invests in increasing access to, and awareness of, high quality British independent and specialised films in order to boost audience choice and to enrich film culture UK-wide. They aim to do this in two key ways:

• By supporting the distribution launch of films that have the potential to reach beyond their core market.
• By championing fresh approaches in distribution and marketing that will help films find new audiences, both in cinemas and across additional platforms.

The Distribution Fund has an annual budget of £4 million. Therefore this company would be great to invest in our film as we would only need about half of this money, so we wouldn't be asking for too much from the company. They are also very committed to distributing urban British films as successfully as possible.

Funding strands

There are four distribution funding strands, each specifically designed to address different types of films, release strategies and the associated challenges and opportunities in the marketplace.

Big Audience awards – significant awards to support ambitious releases of new British films with the potential to reach a wide UK audience.

Breakout awards – supporting increased audience reach for exemplary independent British and specialised cinema.

New Models awards – to support experimental and ambitious release models, and creative marketing strategies that seek to exploit new opportunities outside traditional theatrical and marketing routes.

Sleeper awards – targeted at ‘in-release’ films that have achieved exceptional weekend box office results, exceeding market expectations.

Another key distribution company we could approach with our film is Film4, which is becoming more and more renowned for their low budget but successful british films. Film4 works with established and emerging talent, supporting them to tell unique stories and connect with audiences in new ways. In 2011 Film4 launched its groundbreaking new role in exploring innovation in filmmaking with the appointment of Anna Higgs as a Commissioning Executive with special responsibility for innovative talent development, production and audience engagement, with a focus on commissioning film projects that have the potential to explore the spaces and relationships between traditional media, digital platforms and the real world. This was great to know because this means that if we needed our film produced/distributed we have plenty of companies we could go to.

Another gritty British Film we compared ours to was The Sweeney, released in 2012. It had a budget of £3 million, not much more than Fishtank, and was directed by David Love. This film is similar as it was distributed by E1 Entertainment, who are a bigger company than the UK Film Council but are still nowhere near as big as mainstream companies such as Universal. Below is the poster they released, which we would take inspiration from as it features the cars to show what type of genre it is and to show the importance of cars to the storyline. This will attract our main target audience of teenage males as it is less likely for a very young girl to see this poster and want to go and see it. 

We would choose either of these companies to distribute our film (E1 Entertainment or Limelight Communication) and therefore would class our film as a mostly independent film. This means we would release the film in art houses and independent cinemas, such as The Watershed in Bristol which is famous for releasing low budget local films for a profit.
In terms of release dates, I think it would be sensible to do in time for the British Independent Film Awards, as this would be our highest chance of receiving recognition for our hard work. This also helps move production along if the company has a clear release date.









Before it is released, the company would release flyers around cities it would be viewed in, as well as having a few billboards. However, advertising is very expensive and we may not have the budget for over the top advertising such as a huge and expensive premier. The internet would be key to promoting our film as word of mouth would be a huge part of advertising, and now a days this is mostly done through social media. This is definitely important because of the age range of our target audience, who are known for their constant use of social networking sites.

This is a poster released for the film Fish Tank. It is a bit too simple for our genre of film but we would need low budget advertising like this. Our main inspiration would be from the posters of The Sweeney to show off the genre of the film and attract as much of our target audience as possible.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Stereotypically in action films, males are majority of the cast because it is more relatable for the audience who are mostly male. We followed this by having an all male cast to represent that men are seen as the dominant gender, even if I don't agree with that. Action films such as The Fast And The Furious use women to objectify them, and they don't play much of a role in the plot apart from the men having affairs with them. We couldn't find any woman who was prepared to play a role like this so in the early stages of writing our storyboard we took this idea out and left it as only being men represented in the opening. We also thought this would be better because it makes the characters seem stronger and more independent. 

This picture is from the Fast and Furious films and shows a distinct lack in strong female roles.

As well, Mitch and Pierce are meant to represent a younger age group of about 17-19, and so they probably wouldn't be hanging around lots of women as it's unlikely they're in a serious relationship, especially when there are cars involved and because of the type of characters they are. The characters are both working class students who have earned money through non-honest ways which, sadly, is becoming the norm for more and more teenagers in this modern day and age.

Different races are represented through our characters as Pierce is a black british student, and Mitch is white. This is to show different cultures and races in our opening, but this is mostly to show that race and colour doesn't matter, it's more about the personality and upbringing of the two students. By having two different races in our film, we wanted to send a subtle message to the audience that multi culture is becoming accepted and this is a good thing. We showed this as we made it clear that Mitch and Pierce are friends purely because of their similar age and gender and interests, not because of race. This was an important message for us to try and portray as we wanted to avoid racial stereotypes which are becoming more prominent in society. 

Stereotypes exist because this is what the media and society has told us to believe from an early age, so we end up judging people by the way they look/dress before we get to know them. We're trying to avoid these stereotypes because, as teenagers, we often get stereotyped into being loud and rowdy and uncivilised when this isn't true. So, for our film opening, we wanted to subtly challenge racial and gender and age stereotypes by making Mitch's character more out going and dangerous than Pierce's character, who is more laid-back - representing a mix of normal teenage characters. As well, we're trying to avoid the assumption that Mitch and Pierce got themselves into a bloodied and beaten up state just because they are some what reckless teenage boys, as the film opening hasn't shown them doing anything wrong yet.


Our technical choices also create a representation of the importance of the characters. The two shot that we used shows that the characters are equal, and this is repeated again at the end when they are in the car. However, Mitch tends to be centre framed in all the other shots we used, to represent that he is in fact the main character and who the audience should be focussing on. 

The voice over also shows this as it represents how the audience are aligned with Mitch, and shows that he has privileges as our main character yet the equal framing shows how both characters are important. There tend to be more one-shots and close ups of Mitch as well to show that he is more of a focus in the film, and to start to imply that he is the reason they are in this situation. This is backed up with what he says in the voiceover. This can also be implied through the high shot that we used at an angle, belittling Pierce but showing that he is still an important character  - it just emphasised Mitch more.

The first character that reminded me of one of our characters, Mitch, was Cook from the TV Series Skins. This series had the same aim as us to defeat stereotypes of social groups and represent the vulnerable side of teenagers and the struggles most of them have to go through, hence why they act in a certain why and why they are branded with a certain 'troublemaker' stereotype. From all the characters in the series, Cook reminded me of Mitch the most as they are both outgoing and are happy to be friends with anyone as long as they respect each other. They also look similar and despite only just being old enough, they both have tattoos on their left, and repeatedly appear beaten up and hurt. 

Despite physical appearances being similar, they also represent the vulnerable side of young adults and how easily and quickly they can get swept up in the real world. We never find out much about either of the characters home life, but the characters are similar in the fact that they have the same role as party animal and always being a little bit reckless and rallying people around them, so they are never alone. This is a typical trait for teenage boys as they want to grow up but are afraid of doing it by themselves, so the rely on their friends. This is another reason why our opening doesn't have any females in as we thought that the characters have other things to think about other than girls, such as growing up, cars and gambling (represented by the blood dripping on the cards). Mitch's character mirrors Cook's character as they both fit into the gritty British drama genre, meaning that their characters are quite hard hitting but realistic. This was a key aim whilst filming and planning our opening as we want the teenage audience to be able to relate, which means that everything we film has to be a real representation of what it's like for teenagers in modern society. Skins was also created for that reason and was incredibly successful because teenagers found it relatable and adults found it hard hitting and informative.

We chose to use this character to create some fun as Mitch is outgoing and a bit cheeky, which is always good fun to watch. However, because of his personality the audience can assume that he's going to get himself and Pierce into some kind of trouble, probably to do with the opening scene. This creates anticipation amongst the audience that will hopefully make them want to watch on. As the film progresses, we want to send a message that this is not the case, and hopefully this will help create the realisation amongst the audience that stereotyping isn't always true and certainly isn't right. 

1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1.

As this is the opening frame, we decided that we wanted it to be subtle, dark and eerie, so that it follows the typical conventions of a thriller/action film. The close up is a typical shot of an action film so that audience feels involved in the action and it also emphasises the intensity of the action. Emotional or sensitive dialogue is often shot in a tight close-up to emphasize the importance of what's being said, and this is what we did here. This shot also introduces the character and the story to the audience straight away, giving them a clear idea of the genre The way the characters are introduced is really important because it establishes their role in the film. As Pierce is the first person the audience sees, it is clear that he is important to the story. The fact that the opening shot has blood running down his face tells the audience a lot about his character, but not very much about his story. From this shot I think that they will assume that Piecer is in trouble because of what he is done, and from that you can infer a lot about a person. However, nowhere in the opening do we mention how and why they got there. This is so that the audience will be enticed into watching the whole film as hopefully they will find it intriguing enough to continue watching. We didn't want to give much away about the storyline for this reason. 

2.

This is one of my favourite shots from our opening because I think that we came up with two really interesting angles (see images 2 and 3). The two shot from a high angle but filmed from the right was difficult as we had to make sure we stuck by the 180 degree rule, however it proved really effective as we realised that we haven't seen this shot in any of the film openings that we studied earlier as well as portraying the situation the two guys are in very well. This is because Mitch is in the foreground, but we can still see Pierce curled over in the background, however he looks significantly smaller than Mitch to represent their status and roles in the film. It also means that when Mitch moves his head to look at Pierce when the voice over talks about the state Pierce is in and how worried Mitch is, it really emphasises this movement because the camera is so close. The audience can also see the sheer effort Mitch has to put in to every movement, and will sympathise with this, making them like and feel for the character. These attachments to characters are good because it means that later on the plot can toy with these emotions, and make the audience have a strong reaction to the plot, which will - hopefully - make them remember and enjoy the film even more so.

3. 

The second two shot of the men from behind the lamp is also significant because it shows how that one lamp is their only light source and makes them look smaller and more helpless. This is a more typical shot for an action/thriller film as a similar shot can been seen in Sixth Sense, and I learnt from studying other films that if their genre is a horror/thriller, in the opening they tend to focus on one significant object right at the beginning, which is what we have done here. The fact this that this is one of the opening shots and we only see Mitch and Pierce shows that they are the main characters and that the storyline is based around them. As well, Mitch is doing a voiceover at this point, to emphasise that he is the main character and that he has go them into this situation, but still doesn't give anything away about the reason they got there, which we thought the audience would find interesting, exciting and enticing.

We got the idea for this shot from the opening of Sixth Sense, as they focus on a lightbulb immediately at the beginning, which can been seen above. This shot slowly moves onto focussing on the leading lady behind it, just as we have done.

4. 

5. 
Images 4 and 5 are the most interesting shots that we filmed because of the angles we filmed them from. They were quite risky as the car had to drive over the camera, so we had to be careful regarding health and safety for the driver, camera men and the camera itself. This is an unusual angle because most directors would think that it was too dangerous because their equipment is too expensive, and most importantly, too big to fit under a car. Luckily for us we were using hand held cameras and came up with the idea whilst we filming on location. We thought this was a good idea as a typical convention of an action film is risk, and this is what the audience expects to see from this genre film.
The close ups emphasise the importance of the car, but because we did this in an unconventional way, it make the film more interesting to watch. When showing our film opening to our target audience, we also found that it provoked quite a strong reaction which was great because this was our overall aim for our opening. The close up also implies that the car has a part to play in the reason the men were tied up in the opening scene, however the audience don't know enough to assume this yet - our aim was to try and keep them on their toes.

6. 
The location of our opening was very important as we were very focussed on keeping the opening as realistic as possible so the film is as relatable as possible. However we also needed to find somewhere quiet and where we could drive around freely but safely. We came up with the idea of going to a local supermarket car park during school hours, so it would be at its quietest. Because it's a normal everyday setting, we thought it would be easy to relate to, especially for the age of Mitch and Pierce as there's not much you can do or places you can go at 17, especially if you're going to cause trouble, which is what the opening hints at. As the car park is a public place, the audience knows that the characters won't get up to anything too outrageous, however there is that element of doubt which keeps the audience interested as if something were to happen, it would be hard for them to get away and not get caught. A car park was also the perfect setting because it contrasted with the location of the first scene, which was unknown and unfamiliar to our audience. This location didn't make them question where they were but made them focus on what the characters were doing instead.

7. 
Costumes - we didn't plan our costumes as we wanted the characters to feel natural, so we let them turn up clothes they would normally wear. This means it doesn't look like we're forcing them to be teenagers, they are just being themselves. We recorded what they wore after our first afternoon of filming incase we needed to re film any of it, which we did in the end so it came in really useful.


8. 
Camerawork and framing were our key consideration whilst filming. We tried to fit Mitch and Pierce in the shots equally as they have equal importance to story. However the voiceover makes it clear that Mitch is in charge. This can also be seen in this shot as Mitch is the one driving so that shows he is also in charge.

9. 

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Titles are important to an opening as the font, style and special effects help introduce the genre, inform the audience, outline the filmmaker's intentions and set up the expectations of those watching. For our film opening, we put the titles right at end of the two minutes so the audience has had time to be introduced to characters, and then once the story line is less tense we ran the titles. We didn't use the titles to create tension because we thought that the opening scene had enough tension already, and we wanted to keep it as realistic as possible. This meant that having titles running across the screen would have ruined the atmosphere and taken out the realism side of the piece. 

A good example of why Titles in a film are so important is the film The Girl With The Dragon Tattoos which opens with a booming title sequence, in which hideous forms – some technological, others biological – ooze in and out of black oil and fire. This is effective because it tells the audience the genre of the film and what the style of the film is going to be, without giving anything away.
 Unlike our titles, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo builds up lots of tension through the special effects used. Another British film that is successful in doing this is James Bond's Skyfall. The titles are particularly important as they give away small details about the upcoming film - almost like a trailer - to give the audience hints and so they think about what is going to happen. They do this through the music, vibrant colours and dancing silhouettes to make the audience excited about what they are about to watch. If you can do that, then the opening sequence is successful. 

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Opening Sequence

  When I researched other conventions that fit the thriller/action genre is that the film should be major Hollywood studio produced and distributed. Obviously, we can't fulfil this requirement as we don't have the budget or connections to get our film produced and distributed by a Hollywood company, so to a certain extent our opening isn't following typical conventions. See question 3 for more. 

Some other typical conventions of an action film are that the certificate is that the certificate is a 12/15 certificate, maximising youth audiences, which is why our film is a certificate 15. 
Another consideration we had was when we looked back at the questionnaire we gave to our target audience earlier on in the process and remembered that we discovered even if our target audience aren't car enthusiasts they'd still want to watch an action film with cars in, hence the reason we have so much coverage of the car in our opening. 

Fast paced editing is important for an action genre as it represents the storyline being fast paced. It also keeps the action more interesting and tense. However, in our opening we didn't have much action, so instead of focussing on fast paced editing, we focused on the continuity of the piece. This is when the continuity task came in useful as we transferred the skills we used from editing our first exercise to our main opening. In the continuity task we used the 180 degree rule and match on action. Editing this was hard because we had to get the angles right, as well as making sure the piece was continuous by editing the clips so they don't overlap from different angles, and so that the dialogue was logical.

Dramatic non-diegetic sound is another convention typically used. Throughout our opening we used a voiceover to explain what was going on. We found that this was a really good way to express the characters feelings without the piece coming across as cheesy or unprofessional. This was our main use of non-diagetic sound, as we found that when we recorded some dialogue on location, other factors made it difficult for the dialogue to be of a good quality as there were other factors we didn't consider such as the wind drowning out almost every word that was said, and the sound of the car engine being too loud. Despite this, we found that the voiceover worked well, just as it did in Goodfellas, where we go the idea to do a voiceover in the first place. Goodfellas has been described as one of the best film openings, and despite it being too long for us to replicate, we took the techniques that we liked, such as the voiceover, and applied it to our own original opening. Voiceovers work well as they help the audience to relate to the character and makes it easier to understand, as when the character talks directly to the audience it tells them what is going on in the storyline. This keeps the audience up to date and in touch with the characters emotions throughout the film.

A key convention of an action film is having a dominant representation of gender i.e male/female action hero. This can been in Goodfellas, as they have an all male cast in the opening, understandably so as it represents the male dominance in gangs in New York at the time it was set. But this is also in the British hit Skyfall where the action hero is James Bond. Typically, an action film is aimed at males, so having a male dominant cast makes the film more relatable to our target audience. In our opening, the only characters the audience sees are Mitch and Pierce. We chose to have a male dominant cast because our story line is based around cars and violence, which once again is stereotypically more appealing to a male audience.

Skyfall's opening title sequence, showing James Bond being pulled
 under water to represent his fall from power.