Thursday 31 January 2013

Story Board

We needed to create a story board so we had an idea of what it is that we were going to put into our film.

This is a brief overview of what is going to happen in our film in the 12 shots.

Shot 1: The guy enters the house
Shot 2: He places his weapons on the table
Shot 3: He then walks to the bathroom washing his hand with blood on it etc
Shot 4: Leaves bathroom... walks towards the kitchen
Shot 5: Gets a glass and he opens the fridge door
Shot 6: The 'hitman' is sitting on the coach
Shot 7: The guy pours drink in his glass
Shot 8: Hitman aims with his gun at the guy
Shot 9: The guy closes the fridge door
Shot 10: Hitman shoots the guy
Shot 11: The guy is limping and squirming
Shot 12: Hitman points the gun at the guy and shoots him.



After producing our first copy of our story board, we believe we had to improve it and make add a few amendments so that our planning before filming is even more easier and less time-consuming, adding more visual shots and angles. 






Wednesday 23 January 2013

Production Name & Logo Ideas

We were instructed to create our own individual production name and logo for our film production company. At first, we had to think of our Production name; which lead to a possibility of 4 different production names as potentials:

  • UN Productions
  • A-Game Studios
  • Captial Productions
  • Winning Productions

Why A-Game Studios? 


We specifically looked at a  range of established Production Companies and we noticed that Paramount Pictures resembles a 'top' and 'supreme' Production Company film, where our Production name 'A-Game Studios' has a similar concept which effectively emphasises a superlative Production Company, reflecting on why our opening sequence should be disseminated as a mainstream. 




Below are 6 different logo idea's for our film production company, 'A-Game Studios':




We then decided that number 1 and 4 where both potentials for our Production logo, where we then decided to create both and then decide which one we believe is more prominent: 

Logo 1: 



Logo 2: 



Whilst designing our production logo, we had a few difficulties with creating from our initial idea, therefore we had to make a few alterations with the logo design.  


Comparing: 

We believed that Logo 1 was fairly complicated and unclear to notice our Production company named as 'A-Game Studios' - where it is arguable that it looks like 'GAME Studios' instead. As a result, we decided to select Logo 2 as our final Production logo. We believe that 'A-Game Studios' is highly emphasised in the logo itself, where the capital letter A clearly represents our Production Company as a superlative. However when coming to create animated indent we had great difficulty to make it look professional and therefore went with the first logo. When animating the first logo we would make it obvious that the production company name was A- game studios.

Animating our final Production logo:

To create our final production logo, we experimented using a variety of software's such as Final Cut Pro, LiveType and Motion. At the end we decided to use LiveType as it was the easiest to create from our idea. We didn't relate the indent completely to our logo idea, however we did our best to try achieve this.



Tuesday 22 January 2013

Mood Boards

We both created separate mood boards highlighting some individual influences and inspirations, in which we took from other films using images which emphasises some aspects of the theme in majority of the films, helping us have a better sense of the film we want to create.

Umed's Mood Board:


 
Naiem's Mood Board:




Reflection on our Mood Boards:

We created individual mood boards, as we believe it would be fairly straightforward to identify the main theme/concept of our movie, through images. Essentially, this would help us respond back on a range of influences and inspirations, leading us to make further progression in our film production, where we both can exchange each of our ideas and thoughts and eventually start building the main core of our own film. This involves influences such as: props being used, make-up, costumes, potentially the setting of the film and even possible camera shots/angles.

Los Blancos Synopsis

In this synopsis we outline the main parts of our film and what is going to happen in these parts. The Introduction involves: production logos, main title, credits, music and opening scene. The middle or the climax of the film. To end the synopsis we will indicate what our plan is for the conclusion of the film.

The film will begin with the logos of one already established film production company and one which we created ourselves. It will be followed by dramatic music which will set the tone of the film and emphasise its genre. Whilst the music is playing a few credits listing the main people involved with the creation of the film (both actors and backstage personal). Following a few credits we will introduce our character (the victim)  who has just returned home after completing an assignment. Being covered with the blood of his victims he begins to remove his clothes and take out and place key props which he used during his assignment. He then walks into the bathroom and begins to clean himself. He then enters the kitchen where a Hitman, 'Jose Sanchez', is sitting on the other side of the room, where the victim does not notice him.

The climax of the film will be after this scene, which explains how the protagonist, Jose Sanchez, joined a 'world-known' agency, Los Blancos. Eventually, he fails to complete a specific mission; leading his fellow agents from ‘Los Blancos' to terminate him. He then responds and attempts to kill as many members from the agency.

The ending of the film will then contain a cliff-hanger, which will therefore let the film open as a potential sequel, where Jose Sanchez escapes from his killers by leaving the country, but on arrival to the border his being awaited for by another assassin, who is the founder of the agency, Los Blancos. 

Influences

Here is our influences and ideas for our film. We had two ideas for different films which fall under two genres. We created a spider diagram evaluating key features of films which are in those genres and their main themes. We then decided on the film type which would be manageable and both exciting for both us and the audience.

We then went on to create a more in-depth analysis of our influences.

Thursday 17 January 2013

25 Word Pitch

Los Blancos

"Brought up by agency Blanco. Jose Sanchez a deprived young orphan who kills anyone, anytime, any place starts to lose his mind after a routine contract becomes unsuccessful."

After giving our presentation we received feedback through comments/questions/suggestions. Below is the feedback we received:

Group 1: Why does he kill people?
Group 2: What is his profession? Was he a hitman?
Group 3: Why is it called Los Blancos? What genre?


Thursday 10 January 2013

What is an Opening Sequence?

An Opening Sequence is usually the first few minutes of the film.

What an opening sequence must have? 

An opening sequence must have the logo of the production company which produced the film (this can be more than one company). 

What an opening sequence might have?

An opening sequence may include credits which states the title of the film and may also include the main people of the film, (this can include actors and other people involved in the making of the film). 

Some opening sequences introduces the main characters straight away or dives straight into the plot. Other opening sequences just include background music. Some also include a self containing narrative set piece.  

Examples of Opening Sequences: 

Example 1: Office Space. 

Office space begins with the inclusion of the production companies which created the film. The film title then appears and the type of font used indicates the genre of the film (comedy). Background music which is upbeat and comical further highlight the genre of the film. Throughout the opening sequence credits are running whilst also introducing the audience to the main characters. 

Example 2: Bourne Supremacy.

It begins with the production company logos and has a downbeat soundtrack. The title is immediately revealed. Also involves a quick montage of flashbacks which are a nightmare. No credits are used. 

Example 3: Red Lights

Begins with production company logo and soundtrack playing throughout the opening sequence. There are no narrators and involves 'teasing images'. There are no characters are revealed. It is a complete title sequence which establishes the atmosphere through music and titles. 

Example 4: Batman: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight begins with multiple production companies. There is also dramatic music which creates suspense and set the mood. It does not focus on main characters but goes straight into the action with the 'bank robbery'. This therefore immediately reveals the genre of the film (action). Also there is a lot of
dialogue.



Tuesday 8 January 2013

Umed & Naiems Preliminary Project - Media Studies LPGS



Umed: In this task I found that I enjoyed most of all was filming the actual scence. I appreciated the fact that I got to broaden my skills with using the camera in many different camera angles and shots. However I found that using the 180 degree rule was the most difficult due to the my movement being restricted because of the small amount of space available in our setting, this caused the camera to be a little shaky in some shots. This is most evident from 5 seconds to 8 seconds in the clip.


Naiem: In this task, by having the role of the director allowed me to assist Umed with what camera shots and angles should be used in this scene. By taking a range of clips of each shot, it allowed Me and Umed to put this film together. I found that when editing our project, was the most enjoyable as this expanded on my editing skills. However, I found that the most difficult the complexity of trying to figure out how to achieve certain camera shots such as the aerial shot.