Saturday 29 November 2014

The Sacrificial Lamb: Title Sequence Timeline

(Our production group logo will be shown before the title slates at the opening of the clip)
  1. Dynamic Productions Presents
  2. A film by JEL Media 
  3. 'The Sacrificial Lamb' 
  4. Jasmine Wrapson
  5. Shivam Patel
  6. Production Designed by Warren Moon
  7. Props by Ryan Hemsky 
  8. Casting by Ellis Blunden
  9. Script by Rocky Starr
  10. Camera by Toronto Jackson
  11. Sound by Leah Gray
  12. Music by Sian Gilhooly 
  13. Costume by Amelia Robson
  14. Hair & Makeup by Lexi Cox
  15. Edit by Jack Street
  16. Co Produced By Steven Smith
  17. Line Producer Aaron Columbus 
  18. Produced by JEL Media
  19. Assistant Director Tracey Stansted 
  20. Directed by JEL Media

Thursday 27 November 2014

Our Thriller Opening Storyboard


Shot one is the very start of the sequence where there is a short shot of a woman's legs being dragged along a floor. We are opening our thriller opening sequence as we have chose to create it starting with the very end scene of the film so that the audience will have an insight into what the outcome will be but don't know who's legs they are, why they are being dragged across the floor, who is dragging them across the floor and what happened to the person for them to now be in this position. 


Shot two will be the same as shot one but will focus in on the ladies heels. 

 

Shot three will be a transition from the ladies legs being dragged across the floor to a shot of her walking over to her dressing table in the same heels seen in the first two shots.


The next shot after the transition will show a lady, wearing the same heels as were just shown in the first two opening scenes, walking towards her dressing table. The camera will be low so you can only see part of her legs and her heels showing that the focus on this stage is on the heels to show that it is the same lady who was at the start of the sequence. 


Fifth will be of the lady applying her red lipstick, it is planned to be a close up of her lips so that her face is still hidden and the audience will be left for longer wondering who the identity of this lady is. The lipstick will be red as it is classy and will appeal to our male target audience. 


The next part of the sequence will be the lady tightening her scarf around her hands and then swiftly wrapping it around her neck. The close up of her wrapping it round her fists shows the tension, anger and frustration she is feeling as well as symbolising the rope which is used later on in the sequence. 


The next shot will be the lady grabbing her bag.


The next shots will then be of the lady walking along streets to the warehouse location. 


The next shot will show the lady arriving at a warehouse. The past few shots will be done using ellipses as we are just highlighting important parts of her getting herself prepared and travelling to the main location. 


Next will be shots of the male victim, also known as the ex-boss tied up to a wooden chair inside the warehouse with his mouth gagged. This is challenging typical thriller stereotypes as normally the male would play more of an action role or playing the villain yet in our sequence we are reversing and challenging the stereotypes so the lady is not the damsel in distress but the action chick/alpha female.


The next few shots in the sequence will be of the two characters sharing some dialogue with the lady having the most screen time as she is the more dominant and important character in the sequence.


The next shots will show the lady pouring petrol from a petrol canister on and around the male victim.


Then the next shot will show the lady lighting up a cigarette as if to tease and threaten the male victim who will be scared at this point that she will throw the cigarette onto the petrol.


The lady will then be seen in the next shot taking a slow puff fro the cigarette showing that she is tormenting the man even more and this will leave the audience in suspense as to whether or not she will in fact light up the petrol and kill the man tied up.


However the next shot will transition with a very quick and sharp cut as suddenly the man tied up will say a trigger word which will change the whole situation. 



The next shot will then show that the trigger word caused two big men wearing all black to appear in the warehouse with guns pointing towards the lady. 


The last shot of our sequence will be a close up of the lady dropping her cigarette, however we will not show where the cigarette lands or what happens after or whether or not the cigarette will start a fire and kill the man tied up in the warehouse. 

The Sacrificial Lamb Pitch



This is our pitch for our Thriller film opening of 'The Sacrificial Lamb'. 

Tuesday 25 November 2014

Parity Order of Shots & Title Slates

Below is a plan which orders each shot we have to record for parity as well as a plan of our title slates and what shot they will be put over the top of.



Due to an unexpected problem we encountered when trying to get permission for our required location, the filming and production of Parity was halted just after we finished the planning stages.

Parity Animated Title Slates

To help us prepare and plan for the filming of Paritiy we drew out rough pictures of each of the different frames for each shot and included where we would be the title slates.







Monday 24 November 2014

Preliminary Task


Before we started working on our thriller opening sequence we completed a preliminary task. We had to film an interrogation scene, this was for us to have a last chance of understanding how to plan and film. When editing the task our software made the videos very jumpy/jittery which made it very hard to piece it together, also some of the shots and sound were not in sync after exporting it and we have tried various ways to overcome these issues but we haven't managed to solve it. We think that the reason these problems occurred was either because we filmed the footage on our phones or because each individual clip was very short in length.
However this did help us to be prepared for facing and tackling problems when we begin our planning and editing of our final project. We know that some of the software can be a bit unreliable and can cause faults within our work, to overcome this we will make sure our shots are of an appropriate and decent length (e.g. 15 seconds) and we will also use the correct proper equipment which should help improve the quality and standard of the shots which could help prevent problems occurring at the editing stage. 

Thursday 20 November 2014

Our Production Logo


This is our Independent film production logo. This was created using dafont.com and also photoshop. We used dafont.com to find a scratchy and rigid 'thriller' text to match the genre of our film opening sequence. Because our Film Company is called 'Dynamic Productions' we chose to use the first letter from each of the words and shape and format the text to look dynamic, by making the 'D' a triangle and the 'P' a quadrilateral shape. The font is a scratchy brown colour. For the background of the logo, we found a scratchy and grungy image from google and then edited it to fit into the shape of the logo. To finish, we added a thin white edge to the logo to make it stand out.

From researching the difference between Independent film companies and Studio film companies, we discovered that Independent logos are often more plain and also use darker colours. Because of these findings, we decided to make our logo look like this; yet still attract and appeal to our target audience.

2nd Iconography of our Thriller Production


We created a second iconography mood board to show images that represent our final idea for our thriller opening sequence. We incorporated images of: a woman applying red lipstick, a woman lighting a cigarette, a woman walking in heels, a woman's body being dragged across the floor, a dressing table (where the female will be getting ready and the title slates will be shown), a man tied to a chair with rope, a man in a black suit pointing a gun, someone putting out a cigarette butt and lastly a petrol explosion.

This is selling to male audiences of 18+ due to the main character being female. She is a action chick and also villain, and teases the audience by applying red lipstick as red symbolises love, intimacy and lust; also on the contrary conflict, intimidation, danger and death. This will attract the male gaze as men find this attractive as they see the female character to appear as a sex object throughout the opening sequence and film.

Audience Vox Pop

To help us when creating our thriller opening sequence in a few weeks we went out to do some audience research based on our target audience (males 18 years old and older). We asked three people two questions each, the first was 'what do you expect from a thriller film?' and the second was us delivering our pitch for our thriller film and then asking 'what do you think of our idea?'. 



We asked Louie Summers to share his view, this is his response.



We asked Shivam Patel to share his view, this is his response. 



We asked Michael Carr to share his view, this is his response. 

Classifications of Past Students Opening Seqeunces


Inner Evil
I would classify this film as a 12 as there is a small amount of violence shown when the girl is dragged off the street and at the beginning the girl is laying motionless on the ground with blood on her head however it is a very small amount of blood and it doesn't show any violent scenes that cause the girls trauma. The sequence isn't too explicit or inappropriate for those aged 12 and over. 


Exception 
I would classify this film as a 15 as there is quite a lot of blood shown throughout the sequence and also there is a small bit of violence and a chase scene where someone ends up threatening to kill someone else whilst holding them in a headlock, I think because of the use of the blood and the violence that it is inappropriate for the viewing of those aged below 15. 


Alice
I would classify this film as a 15 as I think the overall theme of the sequence could be inappropriate for younger viewers (such as people 12/13 if it was classified as a 12) and I think it may be a bit too disturbing for the younger audience. There isn't any explicit content, although there is a knife and some stabbing actions shown through a shadow and some blood I still think that the film is appropriate for viewing of people 15 and older. 

Production Companies & Logos

What is a Production Company? 

They are involved in producing records as well as live entertainment. The purpose of their role is to:
  • Manage bookings
  • Oversee budgets & funding & purchases
  • Distribute films and TV programmes
  • Help with casting & performance
  • Be involved with marketing
  • Post-production
  • Time management
When Companies make and produce films, it is essential that the Production Companies have logos so audiences can recognise their work and also for copyright reasons. All logos and brand names are featured for the purpose of the business or company's concern. There are two types of Production Companies:
  • Studio Company
  • Independent Company
A Studio Company is a large scale Production Company who often have a large set number of crew, large number of actors (expensive talent), catering, large budgets and have often created a reasonable number of films in the past.
An Independent Company is a much smaller scale Production Company who often have a very small set number of crew, small number of actors, no catering and a very minimal budget. 

UK Thriller Independent Production Companies


Syncopy Films Incorporation
Syncopy is a British film production which is based in London. It was founded by director, screenwriter and producer Christopher Nolan. The name of 'Syncopy Films' comes from 'syncope' which means fainting or being unconscious.


Tea Shop & Film Company
It was set up by James Harris and Mark Lane. Tea Shop & Film Company's aim is to create budget movies which are screened in the UK. They aim to make two a year so they can work towards setting up a larger international project. 


Unstoppable Entertainment
It is a small production company which was founded in 2007. Unstoppable Entertainment took on its first deal with UK sales. Their aim is to continue to produce entertainment within the UK as well as commercial movies. 


Heyday Films
It is a British film company which was founded in 1997 by producer David Heyman. Their most famous film involvement was the Harry Potter series and also The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

Studio Production Companies


Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
It is one of the six major American film studios. It is located in Los Angeles and is the world's largest major film studio with Warner Bros owning the largest studio. The company was founded in 1915 by William Fox.


Regency Enterprises
It is a film production company located in Los Angeles which was founded in 1991 by Arnon Milchan. They produced the well known film Mr & Mrs Smith.


Warner Brothers
It is an American company which specialises on film, television and music entertainment. Warner Bros owns half of the CW Television Network. It was arguably founded by several people between the dates of 1903 and 1925.


Black Bear Pictures
It is a New York based film company which was launched in 2011. It aims to produce original, engaging and commercial films which stand out within their chosen genre.

Monday 17 November 2014

Final Idea Outline: The Sacrificial Lamb

Target Audience

18 +
No limitations on our opening scene. We are able to show scenes containing strong violence.
Male audience-
This would appeal to a male audience as on the whole they prefer strong violence and more action.

Plot


Ex CIA assassin is seeking out revenge on her old boss after he ordered her partner to kill her. Her agency has now set out a bounty to kill her and she is seeking her revenge. She was adopted at a young age after her parents died and she had a neglectful childhood. This lead to her having no emotion and connection to other humans and that she shows no remorse when killing.   

Opening Sequence

Our film is about a female character who is an action chick, who is an alpha-female character. She is an ex-assassin who is interrogating her former boss who tried to kill her. She goes into a warehouse where her male boss is tied up and she will be interrogating him and there will be dialogue between the two characters. She will then grab a knife from her bag and slowly slit his throat. One of the enigma codes will be, is he really dead.

Thursday 13 November 2014

Iconic Directors

Final Thriller Idea Inspirations



The Usual Suspects
The Usual Suspects is one of the clips we are using to get inspiration from. We are going to use the idea of the victim tied up, however incorporating it so that the victim is on a chair and has limited movements due to being strongly tied up. We are also going to use the fire and petrol idea so that the character will be killed by the burning.


James Bond Casino Royal 
This scene shows James Bond being tied up onto a chair, which is an idea we are going to use in our Thriller film. This clip has given us inspiration to include torture and hostage, as well as giving us ideas for camera angles and facial expressions to include.


Kill Bill
This scene has given us inspiration to use an action chick as the protagonist (main character) as it is not often included in thriller films. This also goes against stereotypes as it is usually the male character who is most dominant, however we will be challenging the stereotype.

Final Thriller Idea Mind Map


This is mind map that shows the details and plans for our final thriller opening sequence idea. 

IMDB Thriller Film Ratings



The pictures above show the IMDB ratings for the film Gone Girl. The overall rating is 8.5 and the highest rating comes from males under 18 closely followed by females under the age of 18.



Above is the IMDB ratings for the thriller film The Maze Runner. The film has a rating of 7.3 and the highest rating comes from females under the age of 18 and the other age ranges have a higher rating from the females showing it is appealing to more women than men. 



Above is the IMDB ratings for the thriller film Divergent. The film has a rating of 6.9 and females under the age of 18 gave a higher rating and over all the age categories females gave a higher rating showing it appeals to more females. 



Above is the IMDB rating for the film the Cabin In The Woods. The film has a rating of 7.1 and males under the age of 18 gave a higher rating. The ratings from people above the age of 30 are very similar for both the gender and age category, and the highest ratings came from younger people showing it is more appealing for them. 



Above is the IMDB profile for the thriller film Nightcrawler. The film has a rating of 8.3 and the highest ratings come from people, more specifically males under the age of 18. 



Above is the IMDB profile for the thriller film John Wick. The film has a rating of 7.9 and the highest ratings come from males under the age of 18.


Above is the IMDB profile for the thriller film Dawn of the Plant Apes. The film has a rating of 7.9 and the highest ratings come from males under the age of 18.



Above is the IMDB profile for the thriller film Behind Every Code Is An Enigma. The film has a rating of 8.5 and the highest ratings come from females under the age of 18.



Above is the IDMB profile for the thriller film X-Men Days of Future Past. The film has a rating of 8.2 and the highest ratings come from males and females under the age of 18. 



Above is the IDMB profile for the thriller film Foxcatcher. The film has a rating of 7.9 and the highest ratings come from males under the age of 18 .