Our Final Opening Sequence...

HOPE YOU ENJOY OUR OPENING SCENE TO 'OBLIVIOUS'

Looking back at you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

When I look back at our preliminary task, I feel my group and I have come along way. We have used various types of camera angles, different types of mise-en-scene and we used a soundtrack that we would not normally use.
I think everyone in our group had a speciality in the process of the film. I, for example, edited and mixed the soundtrack with the footage. Salim was the camera man and director of photography. Ainsley and I were the 2 main characters. Kiyan was our funding and director.
During our planning and preparation, we all did different items to help us start our filming quicker. I did the storyboards, Salim did the screenplay, Kiyan did the product and audience research and Ainsley the location scouting.
During the course of our filming, I learnt a lot of new things, i learned that mise-en-scene plays a huge part in setting the scene. For example, the graveyard scene would of looked much better and more formal if I was in the black suite. I also believe that I have gotten a better understanding and  know how to operate IMovie09 on a Apple Mac book.

If you compare our preliminary, in which we learned about the 180-degree rule, to our final opening sequence you will notice a huge difference in the camera angles used, the soundtrack and acting.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We used many types technologies to develop this product. In the research and planning stage, we used Blogger & SurveyMonkey to gather information from our target audience. 
During our our filming, we used our new Phillips HD camera to do all our filming. Before, we had a very old camera that didn't have that good picture quality. I must admit that we were not confident with the camera, at first we we started filming in 1080p (which is HD), however our Mac books that we were using were not compatible with 1080p. We had shot the first graveyard sequence in 1080p and I was originally wearing a black suit (as shown in our original ideas). When we came to editing that sequence, we could not edit it and were forced to re-shot that scene and due to some wardrobe malfunction, I am forced to wear casual clothes. 
We also used 'Photoshop' to create the two newspaper articles in the opening sequence. We got a sample page from the Sun and The Guardian and erased certain parts if the front page and edited it with pictures of Ainsley character Tyler. We used IMovie09 from our school's Apple Mac books to edit our footage together.

How did we attract/address your audience?

We did not want to go with the rest of the other groups in our class that made opening sequence for a movie. We chose a thriller but more specifically a psychological thriller because we knew we could do a lot with that genre. Also, the 'thriller' genre is very broad, which consists of many sub-genres such as conspiracy thriller (The Da Vinci Code & JFK), political thriller (The Men Who Knew Too Much & State of Play)  and spy thriller (The James Bond Series, The Bourne Series & Mission Impossible Series). Alfred Hitchcock was one of the most famous and pioneer in psychological filming.

 We chose a psychological thriller because our main character's struggle is not physical but mental. We could play about with our ideas and confuse the audience. This is what we exactly did in our opening sequence, we played with the audience's mind. 

One person commented on our movie on Youtube saying "The scenes flowed really well and makes me want to see more". 

Many people I have showed the video to said the sense of confusion creates a good feeling and also wants to make them watch more. However, many people said that they were confused and did not get what was going on. Many if not all said the choice of music was very good and fitted with the tone of the movie.

Who our Target Audience is

I think that our target audience is aimed at young males aged around 18-25. Our movie is a gritty urban supernatural thriller, sort of like 'Attack the Block'. It is set in South London, a very urban and youth populated area. Our movie also stars fairly young actors. 
I don't think our film will get many female viewers as there aren't female character in this,it is mainly male predominant. There are no female characters in our opening sequence, they are just mentioned in the opening credits. However, they still might go to see it due to our cast, which they may find attractive. This populorised by the hit TV show 'Supernatural'. The content of the TV show is rather poor, but due to the good looking cast, many females and a few males, watch it.
I strongly believe that many youths would go and watch the movie as it has almost every element that a youth looks for: it has thrilling sequences that startles the audience, it is set in the urban area's of south London, and many people can relate to a death of a close friends or family member (not necessarily the haunting, but the loss of a close one).
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This is a clip from the film 'Attack The Block'.
 Viewer discretion may be advised.

Companies that would endorse our film

The two film companies that I think would endorse our film are Vertigo Films and Verve Films.
Vertigo films is independant British film company which is situated in Kentish Town. It has distributed films like Bronson, London to Brighton, Street Dance 1 & 2, Doghouse.

Verve films is also an independatnt film company which are passionate in discovering new talent. Since the company was founded in 2003, it has made hits such as Red Road, Bullet Boy, Dogtooth and The Arbor.

The reason i think these two companies would endorse our films is because we have new talent (which Verve are very passionate about; over 75% of their releases are from first time feature directors) and Vertigo because it has a range of thriller's, especially British horror's and thriller like Outcast, Wake Wood and 1 Day.

By clicking on THIS, it will send you to the 'prezi' version to this.

"How does your media product represent particular social group"

In our opening sequence, my character (Dhylan) seems to be weak and powerless against the haunting of Tyler. Even though in the opening sequence we use the low angle shot to show that he is powerful, in fact that he has no power what so ever, he has no control over the situation. The whole power actually in control of Tyler. We have represented Dhylan to still be emotionally connected to Tyler as he is visiting his grave.

Our opening sequence has not got any female characters, yet we have a few female names in the beginning credits.  Our film mainly male dominant, our opening sequence is very male dominant. Our characters are around 19-20; Tyler and Dhylan are both more or less the same age, in fact all the characters are all similar age.

Evaluation: "In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"

We start out opening sequence with a montage of pictures to emphasise the closeness of the two main characters, Dhylan and Tyler. We got this idea of a monatge from the movie 'Proposition'(John Hillcoat, 2005), the movie starts with black and white montage of 

presumably aboriginal and the British colony, with a sort of meloncholoy music of a little girl singing in the backgrouynd . We have 4-5 pictures of Dhylan, Tyler and a few more friends and 2 newspaper articles of the death of Tyler.  With the use of a pathetic fallacy (the rain pouring down), it sets the tone and the greyness of the sky emphasises the atmosphere.

We use the conventions such as ‘ordinary people and extra-ordinary situations’. The main character, Dhylan, is just an ordinary guy with an ordinary job living an ordinary life. The extra-ordinary situation is the haunting of Tyler. We got this idea from the film 'Collateral', where Jaime Foxx is an ordinary cad criver but when his world is turned upside down when he bumps into Tom Cruise. This is not something everyone faces in day-to-day life, the same way that Dhylan doesn’t know how to face and fight the problem, he panics and gets scared (this is later on the film, not in our opening sequence). A code and conventions of psychological thriller is that of deceptive mind games. In our opening sequence, there is no playing of mind. We do actually make the audience wonder who the character is when is chows Dhylan in front of a tombstone, it then cuts to a hand held shot of someone emerging from behind a tree and then cuts back to Dhylan still at the tombstone but now the audience can see a black figure in the background, but the audience still don’t know who he is. There are also other deceptive mind games in the course of the film.

We also challenge the conventions of the main character. Most, if not all, thrillers do not have an Asian character as the protagonist. Just recently, Asian actors are becoming more and more common. Take Riz Ahmed for example, he has starred in Four Lions, Shifty and the new movie Trishna. Another example would Freida Pinto, who shot to fame in Slumdog Millionaire.Another character in the opening sequence is Tyler who is of African-British decent. There are many black actors in British films and Hollywood (such as Samuel L Jackson, Morgan Freeman and Noel Clarke) so we are not really challenging any forms of conventions, more the fact we are using them.


One of our key members in our film, Kiyan made his directors chair video.

Se7en Opening Sequence

This is the opening sequence to the American thriller movie Se7en ( directed by David Fincher 1995) with horror and neo-noir elements. The opening sequence starts with a sort of montage of pictures and close ups of razors and photographs. the music is very 'abstract', there are faint screams in the background.
The font as well looks like it has been done by children. The mise-en-scene of the film is very dark lighting, almost creates a very Gothic or dangerous feel to it.

A New Movie Being Filmed.

I was in Greenwich a few days ago and was walking to the new 'Franky's & Benny's', were I walked past a film set, there was a prop of a almost 3 story high elephant. The big patch of grass was covered with a big black mat with sand and gravel placed over it, there were a few bushes and some places with smoke coming out of them.
I asked one of the production crew and they informed me that it was a film to do with the French revolution starring Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway.
I was not allowed to take picture or videos as it was forbidden I would get fined if I did.
So, keep a look out for a film about the French revolution, soon to be near a cinema near you in 1-2 years time.

The Devil Inside...

The Devil Inside is a 2012 American supernatural horror film directed by William Brent Bell, and written by Bell and Matthew Peterman. It is a documentary-style found footage film about a woman who becomes involved in a series of exorcisms during her quest to determine what happened to her mother, a woman who murdered three people as a result of being possessed by a demon

The movies starts of with a call to the police where this woman (character name Maria Rossi) say 3 people, the police officer asks what happened and then she say's that she had killed 3 people and then hangs up abruptly. The next scene is of a police investigation video where it shows 3 people violently and brutally killed. the camera zooms into a little space underneath the wall and something attacks the camera and then the movie fades to black.

Warrior...

Warrior is a 2011 American sports drama film directed by Gavin O'Connor and starring Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, and Nick Nolte. Warrior tells the story of two estranged brothers entering a mixed martial arts tournament, and deals with the brothers' struggling relationship with each other and with their father. The film was released on September 9, 2011 to overall positive reviews, and earned an Academy Award nomination for Nolte. Warrior is dedicated to the memory of Charles Lewis Jr., as seen just before the ending credits.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy...

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 2011 Anglo-French espionage film directed by Tomas Alfredson, from a screenplay written by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan based on the 1974 novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré. The film stars Gary Oldman as George Smiley, and co-stars Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch and Ciarán Hinds. Set in London in the early 1970s, the story follows the hunt for a Soviet double agent at the top of the British secret service.

Johnny English Reborn...

This is the sequel to the widely popular film Johnny English (Peter Howit, 2003) starring Rowan Atkinson. The opening sequence is a sort of montage from a MI7 Classified folder. On the side of the folder is written 'Johnny English" with the words SIR crossed out in a red pen. the camera moves about alot- all most as if it is being shot with an eye-line match. The audience can only see the hands and lips of the two characters, they seem of high importance as they are both wearing a suite and they remain anonymous with the use of shallow depth of field, through out the opening sequence. There are pictures of Rowan Atkinson's character Johnny English, there are also newspaper clippings, some saying "MI7 Securtiy Balls Up" and "Doh-Zambique! MI7 Disaster in Africa". The scene changes to a bunch of Tibetan monks training. This is where we first see Johnny English, this is very comical as the audience immediatey know that he is not somewhere he belongs. There are many comical moments during the scene but it ends when he is sent back to London for a mission.

Anuvahood Opening Sequence...

This is a comedy movie starring Adam Deacon (Kidulthood & Adulthood). The movie starts with a grime instrumental in the background and alot of close up of youths face while they are smoking. They are talking about some incident that happened a few days ago and there are hints in the movie that is or was fight. As the music increases the the tension between the 3 character build up and they suddenly walk away in a hurry to do something, presumabely to go and attack the boy they were talking about. The camera pans with there movement and it parralel edits with Leathal Bizzle (a popular grime/funky artist in the UK, who does a cameo in this movie) and with Adam Deacon's character Kenneth. There seems to be a sort of confrontation where Kenneth gets punched to the ground and all the other boys start laughing. The brightness all of a sudden gets brighter and the camera pans up to show the entrance of a Sainsbury supermarket.

Success in Progress

On Sunday 4th February, we started our filming. We filmed our scene in the grave yard. This is was originally our first scene but we then decided to start with a panning shot of central london, we are still yet to go to central london and do thye shot. I suggested we filmed while the sun is setting and then during our editiing stage we fast forward it to give a sort of melancholy feel to it.
We did face a few problem while we were filming, first of all we could not find the black rose that we needed, so we had to settle for a red rose-type flower. The second of all is that it was extremely cold!!
However, we soldiered on filmed the rest of the graveyard scene that we required.
Overall, everything went well and by the use of varied camera techniques, when we edit it all together, hopefully, it would ube great.

Top Gun Opening Sequence

I watched the whole movie of 'Top Gun', and this easily became my favourite movie of all time within the first 20 minutes. The opening sequence starts with a ground level camera on a battleship, it shows a lot flight aviators guiding fighter jets being launched of the battleship. The scene is all in silhouette and the lighting is as if it is shot in the morning or sun setting, the air is all red-orange-ish. The non-diegetic very fits the scene and creates an uplifting melancholy feeling, it sounds almost patriotic. The diegetic sound is of voice on the radio and sounds of fighter jets landing and taking off, especially the sound of engines as the jets fly past.

The music suddenly uplifts to a quicker tempo and very heroic, the camera then follows the back of a fighter jet and then cuts the cock-pit of inside of the 2 fighter jets on there routine flights.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 comedy film directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning. Set in 1937 rural Mississippi during the Great Depression, the film's story is a modern satire loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey. The title of the film is a reference to the 1941 film Sullivan's Travels, in which the protagonist (a director) wants to direct a film about the Great Depression called O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The American folk music soundtrack won a Grammy for Album of the Year in 2001.

Kidulthood Opening Sequence

I watched the opening sequence of the British urban drama called 'Kidulthood' (Directed by Menhaj Huda and written by Noel Clarke, 2006). The characters in the film generally behave in a violent, lawless manner and are reckless and antisocial, with petty theft, serious violence, and drug taking endemic in the culture portrayed. 
The opening sequence opens in a school playground with all sorts of children playing and talking and having fun in their own way. 

"Oblivious" Is Under Way...

On Sunday January 8th, our group started filming. We got alot done within that day, we finished our graveyard scene with alot of various camera angle. We are yet to edit our final footage. We were under time pressure as the cemetry was about to close within the hour but we got all our footage together.

Montage

As you are aware, our opening scene starts of with a montage of my character Dhylan Khan and Tyler Johnson (Ainsley character) as teenagers in college just having fun. We tried to make this as realistic as possible by everyday me and Ainsley wearing different clothes, different places and different situatuions. There are a few with me and Ainsley and other boys who were willing to be involved in the picture from our college to to help us make it look evenmore realistic.
We are still due to make the newspaper article about the death of Ainsley's character, however on the plus side, our montage is going pretty well. We decided to take as many pictures as possible and pick out the best ones for our sequence. This is one of our pictures we are hoping to use in our montage sequence.

This one is taken in our college during our breaktime. This was actually taken when me and Ainsley were taken off guard, this makes it more realistic as we did prepare for anything, but taken when we are in action. Me and Ainsley both decided that this picture was actually pretty good and decided to keep it...

Like, Comment and give opinions please :)

Memento...

This is the introduction to the film memento. It is a very unusual opening sequence as we are watching what seems to be the occurrence of the film but it is going backwards. This creates a sort of flashback sequence which confuses the audience a little which I think has been deliberately done to confuse the audience. This idea would be useful if my group decide to do a crime film as we will be able to play the crime backwards which leads to uncertainty and confusion about what is happening in the film with the audience and creates suspense which will make the audience want to watch more.

Enter The Dragon (Robert Clouse 1973)

One of the most popular kung fu films ever, and perhaps the peak of the famed Bruce Lee's career, Enter the Dragon achieved success by presenting a series of superbly staged fighting sequences with a minimum of distractions. The story finds Lee as a martial-arts expert determined to help capture the narcotics dealer whose gang was responsible for his sister's death. This evil villain operates from a fortified island manned by a team of crack martial artists, who also host a kung fu competition, Lee uses his skills to enter the contest and then tries to chop, kick, and otherwise fight his way into the dealer's headquarter