Animatics for our film opening

Mood Board

Mood board media

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Research into our Film Opening Brief

After long debate over the film briefs, we decided as a group to choose Film Brief 3. An independent movie featuring a young protagonist. Our film should appear to be financed through regional funding.

Structure of our opening.

Overall idea

In our group we decided to come up with the theme of an independent rom-com, with a twist… We plan on creating a short POV dream sequence to portray the protagonist’s fantasy. He then gets awaken by his mother, and this is when the true identity is revealed to the audience that he is a high school geek, fantasising over the ‘it’ girl, and cyber stalking her.

Dream Sequence (George’s house)

·         Setting – Party, house party

·         Camera shots – POV, distorted grainy view to emphasise dream. 

·         Transparent layered shots symbolising the flickering of his memory, as his mum tries to wake him up. Echoed voice “you can’t be late”.

·         Opening starts with a black background, protagonist footsteps towards the dark front door.

·         Door is opened and he is greeted. Loud party music, people approach him and welcome.

·         Turns up stairs where an extra is drunken and pulls him in.

·         At the top of the stairs, Dan will turn right and walk down the corridor to meet the ‘it’ girl. She then approaches him (slow mo.) and pulls him into the bedroom. Pushes onto the bed, leans in. End of scene.  Diegetic sound fades.

·         Distorted image comes into focus as the ‘it’ girl turns into the image of his mother awakening him.

Bedroom Sequence (shot in Dan’s Bedroom)

·         Distorted image comes into focus as the ‘it’ girl turns into the image of his mother awakening him.

·         Silence, only the sound of alarm clock, establishing shots of room (nerdy bedroom camera can linger longer than needs to). He gets up – shows quick nerdy routine.

·         Sits down at computer (turns to POV of him and computer) also close up of hands on keyboard.

·         Credit sequence: profile names credits,  (also world of warcraft account name being credit)

·         Short clip of Leah in New York presented as video upload on dating profile, also show his profile as hot hunk- he leaves comment on her video.

School (Maths corridor)

·         Walks into school, bell goes. Rushing around.

·         Walking through the corridors, everybody blanks him and gives him grief, he is bullied. (By same people who loved him in dream sequence).

·         Sees girl again with back to him, again she turns around as he approaches, this time she ignores him (shot of Girl in party flickers onto screen) title flickers up (computer font).

Ideas for Titles

·         Computerised font.

·         The idea of an online dating rom-com. We had the idea of using online profiles so show the roles. E.g. Director : Leah Beavis, Female, Interested in: Men.

Producer :  Dan Finn , Male, Interested in: Women.

RESEARCH into Independent Films.

What is an Independent film?

An independent film, or indie film, is a film that is produced mostly outside of a major film studio.In addition to being produced by independent production companies, independent films are often produced and/or distributed by subsidiaries of major studios. In order to be considered independent, less than half of a film's financing should come from a major studio. Independent films are sometimes distinguishable by their content and style and the way in which the filmmakers' personal artistic vision is realized. Usually, but not always, independent films are made with considerably lower budgets than major studio films. Generally, the marketing of independent films is characterized by limited release designed to build word-of-mouth or to reach small specialty audiences.

What are the characteristics of an independent film?

• It doesn't exist a general frame, because there is no rule to determine which movie is independent and which isn't independent.
• Author's movies, the director plays a preponderant role and it almost always uses its own scripts and takes charge of other aspects like sound and photography allowing him to express creatively and to capture its feelings and restlessness.
• Thematic, it faces a series of topics that conventional films don't take in consideration such as prostitution, drugs, homosexuality, the family decadence, etc.
• Financing, the independent film directors consider that, the more relationship with a study, the smaller independence, for this reason, its filming doesn't fall inside the rigid schemes of the big film studies.
• Aesthetics, it includes different formats and ideas, they use different techniques such as black and white, shiny colours, etc.
• Beyond these characteristics, an independent film director should possess an own artistic vision that takes him to be free in the creative process.

A few famous independent films :

The Blair witch project

 

Reservoir Dogs

The Usual Suspects

Fim Opening Briefs.

We have now been given our film briefs for our 2 minute opening scene for oour film. We now have to choose one to focus on and begin our research and brainstorm ideas.

Film Brief 1

A mainstream action film that will appeal to 15-25yr old males
Your film should appear to be based on a "fictional" comic book
(Opening to Dark Knight, Kick Ass, Sin City etc)

Film Brief 2

A supernatural thriller that will appeal to female audiences
Your film should appear to be an international co-production
(Opening to The Others, Gothika, Shelter etc)

Film Brief 3

An independent movie featuring a young protagonist
Your film should appear to be financed through regional funding
(Opening to Fish Tank, This Is England etc)

Film Brief 4

An art house feature to appeal to adult audiences
Your film should appear to be based on an actual event in the last 2 years.
(Opening to Elephant, Milk, Che etc)

Scene by Scene Analysis - Taken Opening

Images analysis

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It is a big bad world we live in and we sometimes tend to forget that as we enjoy the comfort and security we have taken for granted. Although we are often warned of dangers when we travel, travel has become something so common that we think nothing of flying a few hours to a new country or hailing cabs in countries where we can’t even speak the language.

If you have always thought those who are extra-careful when traveling are paranoid, Taken will jolt you back into awareness that the world is really a big bad place, if you aren’t careful.

Taken features a single father, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) whose job as a “preventer” or Government spy causes his family breakup. He later gave up his job to be a better father and move closer to his and teenage daughter, Kim who is living with his estranged wife, Lenore and her very wealthy husband. Like most children of divorced parents, Kim sees her father only when she needs something from him which was a signature to allow her to visit Paris with her friend, Amanda, after her 17th birthday.

In Paris, the two flighty girls befriend a man, Peter at the airport who offers to share a taxi with them and from there learns that they are staying alone in Amanda’s cousin’s apartment. What follows is a kidnapping by an Albanian kidnapping ring who kidnaps young foreign girls for prostitution and a father’s race through Paris to rescue his beloved daughter in 96 hours.

The life of a film - Slumdog millionaire

Film Synopsis

Slumdog Millionaire opens with the Jamal Malik on the popular gameshow “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” just one question away from the 20 million rupee question. Then in a series of flashbacks, we see how Jamal is beaten and tortured by the police to admit that he has been cheating on the show for how could a boy from the Bombay slums know all the answers to the questions?!

We understand how he knew the answers as the story unfolds and we are given a glimpse of the painful and harsh life the slum children endure in Bombay. Is it a true depiction? I believe it is as the slums of India are known to be terrible living conditions where the residents often dice with death and dangers.

. Starring Dev Patel, Saurabh Shukla, Anil Kapoor.

Production

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Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy wrote Slumdog Millionaire based on the Boeke Prize-winning and Commonwealth Writers' Prize-nominated novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup. To hone the script, Beaufoy made three research trips to India and interviewed street children, finding himself impressed with their attitudes. The screenwriter said of his goal for the script: "I wanted to get (across) the sense of this huge amount of fun, laughter, chat, and sense of community that is in these slums. What you pick up on is this mass of energy."
By the summer of 2006, British production companies Celador Films and Film4 Productions invited director Danny Boyle to read the script of Slumdog Millionaire. Boyle hesitated, since he was not interested in making a film about Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, which was produced by Celador. Then Boyle learned that the screenwriter was Beaufoy, who had written The Full Monty (1997), one of the director's favourite British films, and decided to revisit the script. Boyle was impressed by how Beaufoy wove the multiple storylines from Swarup's book into one narrative, and the director decided to commit to the project. The film was projected to cost US$15 million, so Celador sought a U.S. distributor to share costs. Fox Searchlight Pictures made an initial offer that was reportedly in the $2 million range, but Warner Independent Pictures made a $5 million offer to win rights to the picture.
Gail Stevens came on board to oversee casting globally. Stevens had worked with Boyle throughout his career and was well-known for discovering new talent. Meredith Tucker was appointed to cast out of the US. The film-makers then travelled to Mumbai in September 2007 with a partial crew and began hiring local cast and crew for production in Karjat. Originally appointed as one of the five casting directors in India, Loveleen Tandan has stated, "I suggested to Danny and Simon Beaufoy, the writer of Slumdog, that it was important to do some of it in Hindi to bring the film alive [...] They asked me to pen the Hindi dialogues which I, of course, instantly agreed to do. And as we drew closer to the shoot date, Danny asked me to step in as the co-director." Boyle then decided to translate nearly a third of the film's English dialogue into Hindi. The director fibbed to Warner Independent's president that he wanted 10% of the dialogue in Hindi, and she approved of the change. Filming locations included shooting in Mumbai's megaslum and in shantytown parts of Juhu, so film-makers controlled the crowds by befriending onlookers. Filming began on 5 November 2007.

Exhibition

In August 2007, Warner Independent Pictures acquired the North American rights and Pathé the international rights to distribute Slumdog Millionaire theatrically. However, in May 2008, Warner Independent Pictures was shut down, with all of its projects being transferred to Warner Bros., its parent studio. Warner Bros. doubted the commercial prospects of Slumdog Millionaire and suggested that it would go straight to DVD without a U.S. theatrical release. In August 2008, the studio began searching for buyers for various productions, to relieve its overload of end-of-the-year films. Halfway through the month, Warner Bros. entered into a pact with Fox Searchlight Pictures to share distribution of the film, with Fox Searchlight buying 50% of Warner Bros.'s interest in the movie and handling U.S. distribution.
Following the film's success at the 81st Academy Awards, the film topped the worldwide box office (barring North America), grossing $16 million from 34 markets in the week following the Academy Awards. Worldwide, the film has currently grossed over $377 million.

Horizontal and vertical integration