MAIN Post 8: Pre-production documenatation

Risk assessment

Full Plot Synopsis: Agent Carlson is getting ready for an interrogation into a recent mission uncovering the true intent of a higher up member of MI6; agent Darwin. At the same time a squad of terrorists are getting ready to kidnap Carlson and his daughter.

They get them away successfully and take them to a secure location.

Months earlier, Carlson was on an assassination mission in Iran were he was ordered to kill a high valued target. Through a misunderstanding with his head agent, Darwin, he killed the wrong pony without knowing and got home to find out that he had been punished for failing the mission, although he thought he carried it out successfully. This led to him getting demoted to a desk job.

In the terrorist’s captivity, Carlson starts planning his escape whilst the terrorists confirm that they have captured him and his daughter, they then realise that they have been double crossed by not being paid for kidnapping Carlson so that he couldn’t get to the interrogation. This makes the terrorists feel a vendetta towards the agent that hired them, Darwin. Instead of keeping Carlson in their captivity they choose to get onto MI6 and get a ransom for agent Carlson. Carlson escapes and frees his daughter leaving on his way to MI6.

While the terrorists start coming to terms with MI6 one of them realise that they have escaped, leading the terrorists to panic and choosing to go after them. On his way Carlson finds a payphone and he contacts Darwin asking to meet in a private area, Darwin agrees and then Carlson and his daughter turn up at MI6, rushing up to the head office, knowing that Darwin isn’t in the building.

Carlson gets up to the head office and sees the Director looking confused about why he is in such a rush. Carlson tells him about the whole affair, telling him about Iran and what has just happened to him and about how Darwin is working against the MI6. After some thought the Director believes him and they send out a task force to track him down.

Darwin arrives at the private location, confused that Carlson isn’t already there, shortly after the terrorist group also arrives, confused as well because they were expecting to find Carlson after following him on the run. During a confrontation the terrorists find out that it is Darwin that’s in front of them and they kill him in revenge for double crossing them. As they escape the task force that was set out to track down Darwin sees them escaping and manages to arrest them.

Opening Sequence Outline: Agent Carlson is getting ready for work at his job in MI6, feeling sad that he cant be with his daughter, at the same time a group of freelance terrorists are getting ready to kidnap him because they have been hired to by an anoymous source. The 2 scenes cut between eachother at different paces, with the terrorists having a fast and intence feeling, against Carlson who is relaxed and lethargic.

Crew List:
Hugo King-Irwin: Camera Operator, Terrorist and Director
John Brookes: Camera Operator, Terrorist and Assistant Director
Max Halcomb: Camera Operator, Agent Carlson and Writer
Conor Westlake: Camera Operator, Producer and Co-Writer


Storyboard











 Pre-Production Report

Our main idea was to create a Action/ Thriller that will be aimed towards a target audience of young adult males. Our main problem with this was creating an engaging fast pace script, which would hopefully leave the audience wanting more. Therefore we played around with many ideas and lots of drafts. A second problem we encountered was that we had a younger cast then we initially decided, we solved this problem by casting people who looked a lot older then they atucally are. furthermore threw editing we played around with lighting to make there appearance look a lot more older.

Through our research into thrillers we found that a convention of thrillers is to use lots of different shots, as this will give it a good up beat pace which is guided along with fast upbeat music. Our shots are listing in our story board and shot list, as we caqn refer to them as we film.

MAIN Post 7 - Focus Group

http://youtu.be/teCDFdWjW3w
 For our focus group as a group we selected 4 teenagers who age varied between 17 and 18.  who we have selected as our target audience. The group of teenagers overall seemed fairly excited about the idea, and most importantly would pay to see this movie.  To conclude it seems that the idea of a thriller seems to be a very possitive one.

MAIN Post 6: History of your chosen genre.

Our chosen film genre is a fast pace thriller film. Thriller is a vast genre that is seen in everyday media, from TV and films all the way to books and all across the internet in forms of advertisements. The main conventions of thrillers are to stimulate the mind of the viewer’s and sending them in to vast mood swings with ultimately having the viewer on the each of their seat. Christopher Nolan’s film “The Dark Knight” has been labeled one of the best thriller openings in years. The opening scene lasts 4.55 which are fairly short which follows the convention of thriller’s. Secondly it has lots of plots twists with bank robbers killing each other, with climaxes with the main villain left as the last man standing

Looking through thrillers we decided to make our thriller based around Crime thriller rout. They are developed around a lead mysterious character in our case it will be the terrorist. Typically the main villain will be operating outside of the law. Quentin Tarantino’s film Reservoir Dogs is one of the most famous criminal films of all time. Tarantino made it clear that the film would be very simplistic feel towards it. However Tarantino worked his brilliance with clever song choice and camera angles to make it work magnificently, which inspired me to create a thriller.

Thrillers have adopted the persona of being horror films when in fact thrillers are not. The definition of a thriller is Thriller is broad genres in films the main elements include High level of anticipation uncertainty and surprise also often throw a lot of plot twists into the mix.in every thriller the protagonist is faced with death. In our case a thriller is villain-driven plot, whereby he or she presents obstacles that the hero must overcome.  The earliest ever recorded thriller was called safety last! And involved a dare devil preforming stunts of off a sky scraper. However Harold Lloyd’s movie never got noticed as the first ever thriller, instead we see Alfred Hitchcock starting off the modern day depiction thrillers being horrors.

Thrillers often spill out to television as well. American series 24 does this very well.  24 is a fast-paced television series with involving the war on terror on American soil. Each season or series takes place over a course of 24 hours. With each episode consisting of one hour, each series also starts starting off with the line “the events that happen in real time”.  The editing of the program brings in a split screen feature which feeds us multiple  story’s at once each building up the tension, and to climax each part of action is a ticking clock alongside a very powerful heart beat  to keep the view focused on the race against time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko89hiGLUS8

MAIN Post 5a: Macro/Micro analysis of an opening NOT FINsequence from your genre.

I  looked at  the 2010 hit inception as it is claimed to be the one of the most successful thriller film ever as proved my results earlier.

To start it bursts into non-dietetic music very powerful on every beat, which builds up the tension right away. Which suits the thriller conventions very well. The music stays dominant the whole way threw the opening.

Along side the music runs constant images puzzles and mazes to add to the mise-en-scene of the movie.

the colour plate is very negative which again adds to the effect of the film.

when the actor name come in and it is spread in big white font. Which focuses onto the character name  to highlight the biog names in the movie. Before at the end a massive burst of song similar to a horn with the title "INCEPTION"

MAIN Post 5 - Title Timeline

For my time line i watched an opening to a thriller film. ( Se7en) and whenever a title or audio sound came up i noted it down onto my time line. (below). I pick se7en as it is very influential to my opening sequence ideas secondly it is a thriller.

This exercise was very helpful as it showed me when to put my credits and sounds in, so my opening will follow conventions of the thriller genre.

MAIN Post 4a - Plot Development

Dispatch

Genre: Spy Thriller

Target Audience: Males aged 15 to 40 who enjoy spy thrillers such as the Bourne films and James Bond
Logline: MI6 agent and his daughter are betrayed and kidnapped; he sets out on a journey to seek redemption

Full Plot Synopsis: Agent Carlson is getting ready for an interrogation into a recent mission uncovering the true intent of a higher up member of MI6; agent Darwin. At the same time a squad of terrorists are getting ready to kidnap Carlson and his daughter.

They get them away successfully and take them to a secure location.

Months earlier, Carlson was on an assassination mission in Iran were he was ordered to kill a high valued target. Through a misunderstanding with his head agent, Darwin, he killed the wrong pony without knowing and got home to find out that he had been punished for failing the mission, although he thought he carried it out successfully. This led to him getting demoted to a desk job.

In the terrorist’s captivity, Carlson starts planning his escape whilst the terrorists confirm that they have captured him and his daughter, they then realise that they have been double crossed by not being paid for kidnapping Carlson so that he couldn’t get to the interrogation. This makes the terrorists feel a vendetta towards the agent that hired them, Darwin. Instead of keeping Carlson in their captivity they choose to get onto MI6 and get a ransom for agent Carlson. Carlson escapes and frees his daughter leaving on his way to MI6.

While the terrorists start coming to terms with MI6 one of them realise that they have escaped, leading the terrorists to panic and choosing to go after them. On his way Carlson finds a payphone and he contacts Darwin asking to meet in a private area, Darwin agrees and then Carlson and his daughter turn up at MI6, rushing up to the head office, knowing that Darwin isn’t in the building.

Carlson gets up to the head office and sees the Director looking confused about why he is in such a rush. Carlson tells him about the whole affair, telling him about Iran and what has just happened to him and about how Darwin is working against the MI6. After some thought the Director believes him and they send out a task force to track him down.

Darwin arrives at the private location, confused that Carlson isn’t already there, shortly after the terrorist group also arrives, confused as well because they were expecting to find Carlson after following him on the run. During a confrontation the terrorists find out that it is Darwin that’s in front of them and they kill him in revenge for double crossing them. As they escape the task force that was set out to track down Darwin sees them escaping and manages to arrest them.

Opening Sequence Outline: Agent Carlson is getting ready for work at his job in MI6, feeling sad that he cant be with his daughter, at the same time a group of freelance terrorists are getting ready to kidnap him because they have been hired to by an anoymous source. The 2 scenes cut between eachother at different paces, with the terrorists having a fast and intence feeling, against Carlson who is relaxed and lethargic.

MAIN Post 4b - Narrative / Character Research

Dispatch – Carlson character research.

Carlson is a Mi6 agent as I researching mi6 agents threw the internet I was confronted with page upon page of mi6 agents following the James bond look. A very clean cut man with a suit and tie. Also very well built. Seeing as there is so much information on mi6 agents looking like this it will be hard to create something different.  However seeing that Carlson is more of a darker character therefore depicts him having a bit of a shadier look.

Life as a MI6 agent is obviously a very hard and lonely job. In October 2007 Alexander Litvinenko ( a ex Russian spy) was poisoned and died 3 weeks later.  Litvinenko was rumoured to have been trying to persuade ex Russian spy’s to sell secrets to mi6. The whole event was publicised massively however nobody knows fully what went on even 5 years later. This story has made me think about how we want our story to develop rather then Carlson being taking by force they will have to do something cleverer then just using guns in the day light.

Of what I can find on the internet a typical mi6 agent will be making at least 16k a year at the low end of the scale. Therefore I want to depict Carlson to have an image of a typical everyday worker. But of course we know that he is a mi6 agent.

As we know Carlson has served over 4 years in the English army in Afghanistan.  In a risk assessment taken 3 months ago Mi6 and SiS are still in a tier one risk in a national security risk assessment.  With Al Qaeda still marinating the main threat, meaning it would be hard for them to operate in England; therefore our terrorist group will most likely not be Al Qaeda or the Taliban.  However Carlson would have gained experience from fighting in Afghanistan near Helmand province.
 

Carlson would have learnt this from an early stage.

•  Prevent- to stop people becoming terrorist or supporting violent extremism
•  Pursue- to stop terrorist attacks
• Protect- strengthen our protection against terrorist attack
• Prepare- where an attack cannot be stopped

Post 4 Group meeting

To start our meeting we formed around a table as a group and threw some ideas out there.There was a lot of ideas to make films such as comedys and horrors. as a group we decied that the conventions of those types of films where to hard to follow and create maxium effect. After a while it was clear that we all wanted to tackle the idea of a thriller, its conventions are hard to follow however we feel like we will be able to tackle them well as we each have a passion for the genre.

Our next step was to look into thrillers and its main themes and we came to the desion that we add in the addition of a MI6 agent. this decion was an easier one to decied as we each had the same idea therefore we did not exclude anyone from our group.

 Choosing our plot was another key stage to this meeting and it also proved one ofthe harder stages. we came up with many different senarios our MI6 agent could get involved with, however each tended to move away from the convention of a "thriller film". the idea of someone thinking up an idea alone did not work, so we back to the drawing board and each said ideas we wanted to involve in our opening sequence. and ideas where thrown out that really suited our genre and others suited it but seemed some what un-realsitic. Such as fast paced car scenes from the famous thriller films such as james bond.

As i created the idea of the MI6 agent and from there  our plot began to take shape. However at its core ,we wanted to stay to a simple structure so we would know what we need what would be needed for our film and the story line for our film

Blog post 3 Research Into Opening Sequence Designs

As a group we watched both of the Kyle copper interviews, linked below. This helped us develop some of our primary ideas into our opening sequence

·         Kyle Cooper Interview (Part 1)

·         Kyle Cooper Interview (Part 2)

The first thing I noticed about this interview was that the Primary  objective of an opening sequence to any type of film is to attract and grasp  the viewers into the film  and keep them in their seats. Secondly as the interview went on I noticed that it Was that Kyle cooper has been behind some of my favorite films so it instantly made me want to use his ideas into my opening.

 Furthermore He gave names to techniques that I had noticed before but did not know what they were called.  Kyle cooper made the opening to the 1995 hit “Seven” which was a suspenseful thriller, which is the type of the film we want to explore. We decided that we wanted our film to Start with an effective high paced scene, which will climax on a cliffhanger. In the interview cooper states “it is important to get the opening sequence right as it can set expectations for the rest of the film”. We aim to seize this in our end product.

Some of Kyle Cooper’s most famous work was the animation opening to Spider Man. However he says when trying to build pace for the film it is sometimes not best to use thousands of pounds on a complicated opening. Cooper showed this by his 2004 hit Dawn of the dead which used a series of simple Shots flashing on the screen. Very affective yet simple yet still gaining the same effect. After a group discussion we are aiming for an opening like dawn of the dead. Simple yet affective.  We want to create a piece of thugs and business men jump cutting from one to another, inspired by Kyle cooper