Storyboards

Storyboards

Storyboards are a useful way to have a rough plan towards our opening. We figured it would be good to refer to on the actual day and have potential adaptations for things that don't work so well. The storyboards included an approximate time scale for each shot, how the shot would be taken and what shot it was. Next to each of these analysis we had an images to make a clearer guide line.

Here are the storyboards:

Symbol Investigation

Symbols for our opening sequence

Research and planning
As a group we decided to have a symbol to represent an organization within the film. We didn't really want to use something that is already out there so we decided to create an original.
We used research to find some symbols and to look at different meanings behind them. The decision came about to combine several symbols together with specific meanings that would work well for our 'organisation'.
Here are some possible ideas:

Here is our final idea:

This symbol (which we created) is called Arc Diath and has the following meaning: Ambition, determination, potential, beginning, strength, tension and uncontrolled energy.

Costume Design

Costume Plan and Outcome

Our characters need costumes. We figured we'd plan out a rough idea as to what they would be wearing. Here is the process...

Character 1 ideas:
Spy
Style- Casual
Colour scheme- Dull, plain
Clothing- Jeans, shirt, plain T-shirt, coat or jacket
Shoe style- Trainers
Make up- Not applicable

Character 2 ideas:
Assassin
Style- Mysterious and practical
Colour scheme- Black
Clothing- Hoody, leggings, vest top, long sleeved, ski mask
Shoe style- Boots, heels
Make up- Light eye make up, black, limited

Here is something we worked on as a group to go towards our planning ideas:

Here are the final outcomes:
Spy:                                                                                                   Assassin:

Screenplay Script

Screenplay:

Audience

Target Audience Research

We believe that the target audience for our film would be young adults of any gender. We think this because action/thrillers are generally fast-paced films that are more suiting to a younger audience. Generally, action films are more suited towards younger people, especially teenagers, as they prefer excitement and fast-paced action. However, thriller films are more targeted towards older people as they require more thought and often intellectually challenge the audience, therefore drawing a more mature strand of people. By having a film that is a combination of these two genres we believe that our audience will be quite diverse - it will attract the thrill-seeking younger people whilst having enough intelligence to attract older people, without having too much of either side so as to put anyone off.

An example of this would be Skyfall, a James Bond spy movie with similar themes to how ours will be. A report from Box Office Mojo stated that on the opening night 'the audience was 60 percent male and 75 percent were 25 years of age or older'. This shows that males are slightly more likely to watch this film than females, as expected. The action/thriller film attracted mostly over 25s, suggesting that the audience is more likely to be adults; however, younger people still made up 1/4 of the audience, showing that it is still enjoyed by the younger generation. Similar to this is the data for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. Another report states that 'the audience was 61 percent male and 65 percent over the age of 25', which is similar to the Skyfall data and so further backs up our claims.

Although these films suggest that most of our audience would be 25 and over, as our rating is a 12 we can expect our audience to be a mix of people over 12. Most action/thriller films are rated either PG (Mission: Impossible, Bourne Identity) or 12 (Skyfall, Batman Begins). This shows that the minimum age for action/thriller films is quite low, suggesting that our film would be suitable for a pretty large range of people.

Action-Thriller

Action-Thriller Genre Convention

Today we chose our groups and thought of what our final genre for our opening sequence would be. Our final idea was to go with an action-thriller. In oder to create an effective opening that fits with this specific genre we had to find inspiration. We chose to look at three different opening sections to work from: Bourne Identity, Casino Royale and Mad Max; these had many similarities that we were able to notice that would become useful when it comes to creating our own.

Music and Sound

The music in the videos did tend to have a very fast, upbeat tempo that was very engaging. Other times it would be very dark and melodic giving off a haunting effect to the viewers. I liked the use of voiceovers too. To me, personally, voiceovers are so much more engaging and can give a very good backing story. It is also a really good way to introduce one or more characters.

Shot types and camera movements

Interestingly enough, many of the camera shots were used with a handheld camera. This really surprised me because I was expecting them to be very formal and neatly packed together. I think I was expecting this because I have seen many other movies such as horrors that have a handheld where they're recording themselves to make a scene. It was very effective to use the handheld because it would follow a character as if you were seeking around and creating intimacy and an automatic link/connection.

Editing

One thing I did notice was a lot of back-to-back scenes. It would have one scene cut to another and then link them together. There is an example within the videos below. Not only were there back-to-back scenes but there were some very quick-cut scenes. It would have us follow what a character was doing and not show us a face. Much of the lighting is made dark and the shots are usually very simplistic. Even with the simplest shots many of them can be very hectic, theres a lot going on and sometimes, not enough. Another brilliant thing is the use of flashbacks. I really liked how these were put in as it created such a great effect.

Locations

It had several settings. I think the good thing with an action-thriller is that it can be set most anywhere and still have such a good effect. However, the majority of them are set in small dark rooms, empty fields etc. I found that any of these types of movies began with a lot of extreme weather, e.g. deserts or sea storms.

Titles and colour schemes

I found that many of the fonts were just standard and straight forward. these wwre probably used to show formality and style. The colours consists of red, blacks, creams. They're not all very strcking coulours but when put together it creates a very nice contrast. You'll find that the majority of the opening sequence scenes had a font colour similar to the ones occurring through the opening credits. Sometimes the credits aren't even put on until after a scene has even played which I found really effective because it was a nice build up.

Bourne Identity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw9DhUhUCeU&feature=player_embedded
Casino Royale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5OTSW4DRcx0
Mad Max: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-IJ8_Jf891k