Fatal Error title

The title sequence, which is right at the end of the opening, originally had a bullet flying through the middle but we felt, and because of feedback, that it didn't look very good with it. However we decided to keep the title flying towards the screen because it comes at the audience, partly keeping them interested in the film.

Titles - Director and opening credits

After Eugene has escaped, there is a long shot that shows him running through a field, we placed 'A Rebecca Scuffham film' over the top of this as we felt the scene was long enough to have text that the audience could read without distracting from the action to much.

After Eugene has gotten out of being tied up, he stands up and throws the ropes and the tape off before putting his hat and glasses back on. We froze it here as its the first scene where the audience see Eugene with his glasses on, we then altered the colour to make it black and white with the text 'Eugene' to introduce the characters name.

The next freeze frame is after the two bad guys have done the 'action dive' and it freezes as the professional sees where Eugene is, we also turned it black and white, but used the actors name instead of the characters name because we felt like in the long run of the film, the character's name is not mentioned, adding some enigma to who he is.

The final freeze we have is immediately after the imbecile bad guy falls over. We made this black and white as well as using the actors name instead of the characters name for the same reason as above.







Making the freeze frames black and white seemed a good idea, as it lets the audience know that the action has paused and give them time to read the text.

Opening Titles - Production Company

Will came up with the idea of 'Bowman Productions' with the silhouette of someone holding a bow. We designed it with the idea of it being a stationary thing that has a glare that then clears so the audience can see it, before moving onto the actual film.

Editing update 2

After a fair amount of weeks of editing, we have finally got to the final points of finishing our opening. The main issue has been the music and a few scenes that did not look right (e.g. Myself appearing from nowhere in the montage). We found a piece of music that has good timing with the video, however it has some high pitched sounds at times that make it seem strange and have altered it by putting a different song in those moments. After showing the opening to both teachers, we got some reception back about it and have altered it for better effect. We changed how many fade to blacks we had and altered some of the basic transitioning. We added the freeze frames with the Main characters name and the actors names besides the bad guys as they are not the main characters but are crucial to those scenes they are in. The ending was also altered and we did not include the zip line moment either due to some time constraints and the fact it did not work as well as we hoped it would..

Bloopers 2

Bloopers 1

BBFC Rating

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films within the United Kingdom.


They give films different ratings depending on different things in the film, e.g. Content, and the context of the film in general.

We have decided to give our film, Fatal Error, a 12A. This is because of its content and context, if it was not a comedy film then it is possible that our film would be put up to a 15.

This is because:

This does not effect our target audience, as we aimed for people of majority of ages and both genders, because of our two different genre's in one.

Posters

Kain designed some posters for our movie. We had a fair amount of pictures but only 1 that really worked well with the opening of the film. Out of the other two, one was kind of unfitting and the other was reminsicent of something like 'Mad Men' or 'The Godfather' instead of a action/comedy film.

This one is the best because it shows the primary antagonist and protagonist facing off against each other, which is what you see in the final scene. It also provides credits to all the people involved in creating it.
The one below on the left is the one that would seem most out of place, unless the middle character was facing the opposite way round, however at the time we had not planned for these photos to be posters. The one on the right is the one that makes it look more like a serious film than an action/comedy film so it also seemed out of place.

Editing update 1

After a week or so of editing, we have finally started to see our final product. We have mainly just been organizing what goes where and how it all looks. We discovered that the Zip line moment does not work as we had anticipated so we are going to have to leave that out. The next thing we need to do is sort the pacing of the scenes out, as some of them will need speeding up as well as some freeze frames putting in. Another thing we are kind of struggling with is Music. Will and I have been looking at royalty free music and have found none that will exactly fit, however some mixed do fit so we are all going to look at the music before the final decision is made.

Cast and Characters

Will - Eugene - Eugene is the main character who is being chased by the two bad guys in the opening. For costume he will be wearing a grey blazer, black trousers, aviator style glasses and a western style hat. The hat and glasses both raise enigma about the character while the suit shows that he is professional in what he does.

Kain - Clyde - The professional of the two bad guys, takes his job very seriously and gets annoyed with the second bad guy. For costume he will be wearing a smart-ish black jacket and black trousers along with black gloves. All of this shows he is a hardened criminal.

George - Dave - The 'idiot' of the two bad guys who is not any good at his 'job' and annoys the first bad guy a lot. For costume he will be wearing a smart coat and black jeans, trying to copy the professional bad guy.

Mise-en-Scene for our opening

Mise-en-scene on Prezi

Shooting Schedule

Shooting schedule template from Bex96

Shot List

Shot list from Bex96

Filming - Done

Over the weekend we completly finished filming what we needed. I feel we have got more than enough footage to put in a two minute segment. We all had fun while filming and got the job done, however I am not a fan of seeing myself on camera so I feel editing will be hard for me. We found the use of the camera and equipment to be fairly easy and improvised with a small trolly when we needed to do a tracking shot.

Filming - Day 2 (25th Nov)

We completed filming our entire two minute segment today. It took us the majority of the day again. We forgot one small part, which Kain will be able to film himself.

Filming - Day 1 (24th Nov)

We finished the filming in Osgodby and got all the footage we need from there. It took us the majority of the day and we intend to film tomorrow in West Torrington and complete the filming we need.

Planning: 8 Key questions

1. Is it practical? Yes. Simply because we all had the props needed, clothes needed and the areas where we needed to film. Because of this we immediately had ideas for where to film the opening and spoke about how we could get there and film it all.

2. Is it an idea that works to the strengths of the group? I felt like our group would work well with an action comedy film, as we can cast certain members of the group to be certain characters that can both play to the comedic effect and the action effect of the film. We can also have fun when shooting as well as taking it seriously.

3. Will it show off the skills you have learnt so far on the course? I hope it will. In filming we will have the person most comfortable as the cameraman, and we can decide how to act and how according to how our preliminary tasks went. Our preliminary task will also show us who was the best at editing so we can decide who is the main editor, even though we will all be editing.

4. Is it something you can reasonably shoot and edit in the time available? Yes, we intend to shoot as soon as possible and then we will be sitting down and editing it. This will most likely take the majority of our time as we have a lot of things to actually edit down, considering we get all our ideas filmed, and we will most likely have to narrow down the shots we actually have.

5. Can you get access/permission to shoot in the chosen location at the chosen times?Yes.

6. Can you organise lighting to use in that location? All of our outdoor shots will be natural lighting, but we have spoken about what lighting we will be using indoors and have come to a conclusion that we will be able to light the areas how we want them to be lit.

7. Have you included dialogue? If so, will it work to shoot conversation in that location? The dialogue we have included in the opening should fit in the scenes we are using it in. If it does not we will film an alternate scene which we can use in its place.

8. Do you have guaranteed high quality reliable actors to play the characters? We had reliable actors, whether they are high quality is for the audience to decide.

Analysis of a student film

Melcs
Mis-en-scene:
        Costume:
The characters are meant to be something like street smart criminals but from the costumes look more like they are just wearing any old clothes. (scarf, hat, etc.) The fact there clothes are so clean also distracts from the idea that its set in a grungy environment. In the picture on the right, it shows the grungy environment but the bright and clean clothes, this distracts the viewers attention from the actual film.

Lighting:
All the lighting in the video is natural lighting, which in some of the environments makes it look very bright so it is both low key and high key. This seems quite nice to me and would show the comedy and the dark of the gangster sort of feel.

Actors:
Some of the actors in this opening are good while others are not so good. The part where the two 'fools' walk into the person who they chase, the acting from the person by himself seems quite good, however they two fools trying to pull off the silly but funny approach doesn't seem to go so well with what is happening and is not funny. The running seems a bit lacking as well as some of the other actions, like when they run up the plank. This also distracts the viewer, showing poor acting.

Make-up:
There is no visible make up in this as stereo typically men do not wear make-up so if they are, it has not been touched on. It would have also looked out of place in a film of this genre and style.

Props: 
The main props used in this will be the phones, this shows that the film would be set in modern days. When they lose the person they are chasing, they start talking about finding him on google maps on his phone, showing that they may be tech savvy people, however this goes against the characters they were portraying, which is fools.

Setting: 
The setting seems to be in abandoned buildings and ruined buildings, this could be to show that there is a grungy feel to the film, along with the large amount of spray paint in the back ground. The setting itself could show that what is going on is away from the majority of people, like on the outskirts of a town, so that they may be outside the law.

Editing:
The edited opening for the film, with the production company on, is good but seems out of place once you have watched the full opening as no guns are shown and gunshots are heard. There is some text overlaying the slow beginning of the opening, this is done to a good effect as nothing is going on to distract the viewer. The cuts are done fairly well but a few of them are out of time and could have been a second or two shorter, as it looks like someone is just stood still and then moving. However the majority of the edits are well done and I can not fault them.

Camera shots
They use a wide range of camera shots in this opening, from two shots to pov shots. The majority of the shots is used to a good effect and shows good camera skills. The shots used set the scene and give a good idea of where the film is set.

Sound
The sound bridge from the cinematic opening to the live action phone calls is terrible, with it just cutting. The voices are dubbed over in order to be clear but they must have done it with a bad microphone as the sound quality isent very good, as well as the fact it goes from having ambient sound to just there voices, and distracts from what they are saying. The music in some parts also seems out of place for the action taking place (bad acting included)
Enigma
The opening raises a fair ammount of questions:
Who are these people and why are they after the person?
Where are they?
What are they doing there?

Target audience profile

Age: 16

Gender: Male 

Q: What do you enjoy most about action/comedies? 

A: I prefer the action side of it, guns and whatnot. The comedy is usually just a bonus. 

Q: What do you not enjoy about them?

A: A shoddy and cliche'd story or a really complex one that makes you think about it. I prefer something like Hot Fuzz where its pretty straight forward with a twist here and there. 

Q: If you saw the film opening we intend to make (see pitch) would you be interested in the rest of that film?

A: It depends on whether the acting is any good or whether the dialogue you intend to put in is to some extent funny. 

Q: Are there any particular actors/characters you like in these sort of films?

A: I quite like people like Simon Pegg and Will Smith. But then they usually have a partner, like Nick Frost to Simon Pegg, and I usually quite like the relationship between the partners.

Q: Are there any direct cliche's you would like to avoid?

A: Cliche'd dialogue, unless its on purpose and is kind of funny, and things like stereotypes in the good guys and bad guys, like the good guys being American or English and the bad guys being like Russian or something. 

Q: What is your favorite film? 

A: 21 jump street

Q: Is there anything you do not like about that film?

A: They left it where there could be a sequel but there might not be, and if there is not I don't like that but if there is I am happy with it.

Our main target audience, due to the information we gathered, seems to be correct from this interview, where under 35 males enjoy action/comedies. This combined with the other interview we did as a group that we are aiming at the correct demographic. 

Job roles

Camera: Our camera operator is mainly going to be Bex, as she will be unable to act in the production. This will mean she will be able to oversee the entire production and carry out more camera shots, movements and angles. We will need a camera, tripod and battery for our production, which we will get from school. The camera operator answers to the director, however Bex will be a co-director as well as the camera man so that she can also oversee the cinemotography as well as someone who is acting in it.

Sound: Myself, George, shall be overseeing the use of the sound equipment, however we will all alternate with who operates the boom mic depending on what scene we are currently filming. We will need a boom mic and a radio microphone. The boom mic will not be needed in all of the scenes but will still be needed.

Lighting: We will rely mostly on natural lighting, however for some scenes we are going to have some key lighting to show that the film is not dark all the time. There are times when the lighting will be low key to show the dark part of the opening.

Director: Bex will be the director as she believes that she has a clear view of what the group wants the production to be. The director must be able to look at the production with a critical eye. The director must also be able to direct the crew how they want and have an artistic view of the entire production.

Producer: Someone who has the ideas for the production and contributes to the final piece. Our entire group are classed as producers as we have all put in ideas into the production. However Kain's name will be the producer as he did the majority of the editing.

Storyboard

Script

Script from Bex96

Because the majority of our opening will be a montage, our script is not extremely detailed. But it does feature the key points of our opening and we felt it was good enough for the final piece. The next thing to be uploaded will be the story board which will explain more, with visual aid as well.

Risk Assessment

Market Sales and grossing films (1995-2012)

This graph shows the market share and the ticket sales of comedy films through the past 17 years, as we can see 2006 seems to be the best year for comedy films in the cinema, this may be as specific films where released in that year. e.g. Borat and Talledega Nights.

 This table shows the most grossing films through 1995-2012, along with adjusted ticket price inflation. The most grossing film is 'How the Grinch stole Christmas' it is rated at a PG and overall earnt $260,044,825 or £163,522,535.01. The film itself was based off a childrens book, which many parents of children may have read there children and may have been read to them as well. This will have lead to an increase in sales from parents taking their children to see it, as well as general interest from trailer etc.

This graph shows the market share and the ticket sales of action films through the past 17 years, as we can see 2003 seens to be the best year for action films in the cinema. This may be because specific films where release in that year. e.g. Lord of the rings: Return of the king, Pirates of the carribean.

In the action films, Avatar is shown to have been the most popular. This may be because of the revolutionary graphic's and 3D that was marketed with the film, the film itself stars some characters that are assigned with action films, e.g. Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington. Because of these reasons people will be more inclined to see it simply to experience the new technology on a larger screen.

Target audience research

The genre my group and I have chosen is mainly Comedy, with a sub genre as Action. We have chosen comedy as we all like comedic films and we have chosen to have action as a sub genre in order to give us more room to follow through with ideas. We have also chosen comedy as it has a high percentage of people who enjoy watching it,64%, while, action has 50%. This means we would get more views than if we used a different genre. It also shows that we are targeting a mainstream audience rather than a niche audience.

Although the statistics show that females under 35 prefer comedy, we intend to aim it anyone from there teens to 35 year old people  this is because it is a mainstream audience, and as males over 35 prefer action films the most, it gives us a wide demographic to target despite the fact that we are not directly targeting the over 35's. Our social class targets is generally all of them, as each social class is close to or around 60% for comedy and 50% for action. As we are doing this we will have to take in account each separate social class.

As seen on this page comedy is again the most viewed genre at the cinema, reinforcing the fact we are targeting a mainstream audience. Action is again lower but still generates a large amount of viewers. Its possible that if we only went with comedy, we would get more views as the action may discourage people who do not like that genre. However as we have action we may also attract fans of action films.

From this chart, 31% of the public, 16+, would rate Comedy as there favorite genre, and 20% would rate Action as there favorite. This shows there will most likely be high interest in the film, however some action films can seem lacking and some comedy films can be just plain unfunny, we will have to try our best to avoid these problems, which may be hard as different people prefer different things in these sort of films. Our interviews may shed some light on what we should do in this fact.

Pitch

We pitched our ideas the the class in order to gain positive feedback for our future plans.

Our first idea, from Kain, was the idea of a comedy/action film, influenced by some Guy Ritchie films. We all contributed different ideas, for example I came up with the standoff at the end of the first idea. However our second idea, from Will, was that of an action/thriller about a man who is having a nightmare of his time in the war. We did not develop this idea very far as we all preferred the action/comedy one.

The feedback we got indicated that the first idea is the more preferred one to the action/thriller as more people prefer comedy films over thrillers. We also want to target a mainstream audience of any general age, but we feel that most males will prefer our films from the market research showing that males prefer action and females prefer comedy. This has also made us think about the scripting and actors, however we feel we have come to a good decision on the actors. The scripting must be done well otherwise the audience may not see the funny side of our production.

People also seemed to remember the film 'Johnny English' when we explained our first idea, we intend to make the opening similar to that, with comedy aspects, however it will be more like action films as it will feature some gritty moments inspired by the generic action conventions.

Target audience interview

This is an interview we got with Mr Mitson to see what he likes in comedy and action films. the target audience for our is split into two demographics as our film opening is a hybrid genre, action comedy. This shows that our genre would be enjoyed by people under 35, and we will have to reinforce that with some other material. However the genre is also enjoyed by a wide audience of all ages and genders, but we must still take into account that if we aim it at under 35's, we will most likely be more successful.

He said that plots that are too intricate bore him as people who watch action or comedy or action-comedies are there to be entertained. If they wanted a story that made you think like donnie darko or inception then they'd be watching those films. Our film opening needs to grab the viewers attention fast and keep them hooked throughout.

Action/comedy conventions

Base idea's

Our first idea was from Will, it was about a man who was dreaming of his time in the war. We did not flesh this out at all as Bex put forward her idea of the chase. It will begin with Bex escaping from Myself, Will and Kain. We intend to have freeze frames with Bex narrating over the top, breaking the fourth wall, giving back story to how she got there.

For the ending I came up with the idea that Bex is 'cornered' by the three chasing her and right before it cuts to black she looks at the camera and then the title shows up, we are undecided on a name for the film. We began to think of locations and finally decided on Osgodby, as it is the sort of calm and rural location that challenges the conventions of action films. We thought about doing it in Caistor but we felt there wasn't enough locations for our idea.

For titles when Bex is narrating over the top, we intend to have names show up so that they can have a look at the names while no action is taking place. I have a few ideas for what music we could use for non-diegetic sound, as we intend to have a song over the top, however I feel we should record and edit before deciding on sound.

For costumes I think that the two 'fools' should be dressed casually while their leader is wearing something like a suit. This would be to show who is in charge and is more important. I feel we will need to spend plenty of time on the narration to show it is a comedy and not just an action film.

I believe it would be better if we could all star in it, however due to certain circumstances Bex may be unable to perform, because of this we have decided Will shall take her place. If we can make it work, by using different cuts, etc, to have us all star in it I think that it would be good, however having one of us directing and filming while the other three act would be just as good and effective. We intend to get a few shots of each scene and then all sit down at a computer and edit it, selecting the best shots.

Movie Opening conventions

Movie Opening conventions on Prezi

Serenity opening Analysis

My group & our genre.

The group I am in consists of myself, Bex Scuffham, Will De Ath and Kain Stones. I feel like we will all work well together and be able to play to our strengths, which are others weaknesses in the group. We have also decided on the genre. We are going to do an Action/Comedy movie opening. We have chosen this as we do not want to do what a lot of other people have done in the past, a horror, and with everyone in our group we have the capacity to make it funny while also action-y. Some of our inspiration will be films like Hot Fuzz but we do not want to copy it scene for scene so we will come up with our own ideas.

Brief

Main Task: The title and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.