Teacher feedback

Your mood board is good at communicating your chosen genre but something that communicates your intended visual style is needed.
Some clips of films that influence you and an explanation as to the specific things that influence your idea is needed.
Also, the idea you have is influenced by a crime caper with an ensemble cast but your chosen scenario is an adventure film with a young audience, how are you going to combine the two?

Good work so far, after the pitch you need to start drawing your storyboard and write up a fill shot list on the blog.

Film Synopsis

Our opening sequence will have a similar visual style to Oceans Eleven where a close up of the main characters is shown with their name and what part of the group they form. This visual style would suit target audience (children and young teenagers) because of its simple art style and interesting colours to grab there attention. Furthermore we will be able to introduce characters more efficiently by showing their names as well as maybe there personality, so younger audiences will find it easier to relate to the characters. We will use photographs of each characters as it is then possible for us to add a fantasy backround to the image to make it 3d using 3 2D images.

We want to add have the background to the images to look similar to this.

What Lies Beneath Opening Analysis

In the opening sequence of of this What Lies Beneath to begin with there are titles shown underwater which is very dark and shows from the begginning that it is going to be a dark thriller. As the titles fade in and out staying black for a while there is very earie and quiet music playing. After the titles the woman brings her head out from beneath the water and gets out of the bath. Then we see her trying to get rid of the condensation on the mirror but the power goes. As she trys to get the power back on at the socket there are sparks which come of and the hair dryer starts working again.

The sound of the film only has diegetic sound in it of the woman breathing and the hair dryer. This brings the viewer in as there is no non-diegetic sound making it easier for the viewer to remember they are not there. Aswell as this the sound adds to the shock of when she comes out of the water and when the switch sparks as it is a sudden lound sound.

The mise-en-scene is natrual as all the things in the scene are what would normally be in somebodies bathroom. The lighting in the scene is very dark though as there are no lights on in the bathroom just natrual light coming through the curtain from outside.

The editing is very basic as it doesnt jump around alot as there is no thrilling action happening.

The camerawork is effective as there are close ups on the more sudden whtings that happen like when we first see her there is a close up on her face. There is also a midrange establishing shot of the bathroom which also tracks in as if someone is there without her knowing. The use of these to things show that she will be the main character in the film.

Scenario Final Decision

We have weighed up the choices, though we have been limited a lot due to our group, we have decided an Adventure film for a younger audience would be best, there are locations close to both the college and where we live where we could possibly film to both draw the attention of the audience and present mysterious atmosphere, such as a wooded area that could possibly be seen as a secluded uninhabited area, as well as this each person in our group has seen there share of younger adventure films and know at least minimally of the conventions of these, even more so as it is to appeal to a younger audience, as the conventions will therefore be a lot simpler, as a younger audience, be it children or young teenagers are a lot easier to captivate within the film world.
Overall we have chosen this due to the groups knowledge of this genre, albeit not that wide, but wide enough to provide a small head start in to the conventions of this genre, and thus we will not have to spend so much time researching the conventions of this genre whereas we will have had to spend more time with any other choice, for example British social realist drama, this genre of which we have no current or previous knowledge of and we would have to spend a lot of time researching conventions and defining what exactly this genre is.

The Golden Compass Opening Sequence analysis

In the opening sequence of The Golden Compass, the genre and sub-genre are introduced. The golden text connotes to the adventure genre and the name of the film 'The Golden Compass'. Furthermore there are numerous tiny small particles that fade in and out while fluidly moving continuously. The particles match the wind low wind sounds that are in the background of the film. The text also introduces the golden theme of the film.

In the sequence the music is slow paced and stays constant. This presents mystery, following to this there is transition that shows stars and planets in space. This slow paced, mysterious music matched the theme of being in space. After this narrator begins to tell the background story, and the video begins to match with sound and what the narrator is saying. For instance when the narrator is talking about galaxies and stars, there are transition of stars, galaxies and planets. This sends enigma codes to the audience so that they can try predict what would happen next.

After this character a introduced one after the other. Each character with his/her own significance to the film 's plot and to the target audience so that they can have a character they could interact with.

As the opening is concluded the most important factor of the film is shown. Which is the golden compass. Not only does this show us the relevance of the name of the film to actual plot it also sends important enigma codes to the target audience.

Discussion on Scenario choices

1. A supernatural thriller with a strong female lead.
This scenario stood out straight away as we have already spent several weeks studying thriller conventions and analysing opening sequences, thus this would be an ideal choice for us given we have previous knowledge of the genre and this could give us a helpful head-start in to the project, though, that being said we have no previous knowledge of supernatural thrillers other than what us in the group have seen ourselves, also, we have no female member of the group to complete the scenario as it has been told to us, this being the main reason we cannot use this for our project, though it will have been an ideal choice otherwise.

2. A British social realist drama.
Here we have pasted a definition for Social Realism in films for ourselves as we do not know of this genre ourselves, and have had to look it up before we could discuss it.
"Social realism in films is representative of real life, with all its difficulties. The stories and people portrayed are everyday characters, usually from working class backgrounds. Typically, films within the social realist canon are gritty, urban dramas about the struggle to survive the daily grind." This definition being applied to solely a British way of life defines this scenario, though, our group has little if any knowledge of this genre and as such will have to spend time looking up conventions whereas with other genres we would not have to do as much work to provide a successful opening scene for the scenario, as with many other genres we have previous experience of, or at least knowledge of the genre from watching relevant films and so can get on with our work a lot more quickly and efficiently and will only have to research the more complex conventions of whichever genre and scenario we choose to use in our opening scene project.

3. An adventure story for younger audiences.
This scenario is a possibility, though it does not instantly appeal to anyone in our group their are no limitations holding us back in terms of group size and there are many locations close-by where we could set an adventure film, such as a wooded area that from within could look secluded and mysterious to a younger audience, though we are not settled on this idea, we could do it and are not limited by anything within our group or location.

4. A teenage romantic comedy.
This idea did not appeal to our group, given our particular tastes of movies are not based around this genre and would therefore limit our knowledge and make it all the more difficult for us to produce this as an opening scene, that said, we are also limited by the group again we have no female member and a romantic comedy generally involves a romance between a male and a female.

5. A crime caper with an ensemble cast.
This instantly seemed to be a possibly enjoyable scenario for us to do for the project, especially as crime capers usually have an element of comedy to make the crime part of the genre look lighthearted and give the protagonists a likable feel to them, whereas a simple crime film may not portray the main characters as likable or heroic or at least positively influencing characters, though, much like with the first choice we are limited by there being on 3 people in our group especially as one of us will have to be operating the camera when we film, leaving little possibility to make a crime caper with an ensemble cast as best as we could, given three characters - if we could somehow get all of us in a shot - would only barely, if at all make the project eligible to be called an crime caper with ensemble cast.

Production Logo

This is our production logo. We decided to call it Syndy pictures because it has conventions that would appeal to our target audience. The word Syndy is unique for production logo and the target audience would find it easier to remember. Furthermore we aimed to make the production logo professional and innovative. To do this we made our logo unique and different from most production logos. Our logo is fast moving and has numerous flashing lights and light strokes to create a glamorous and professional feel, to instantly grab the attention of the audience and give them higher expectations for the movie in order to keep their attention and have them focus on the narrative and other elements of the film instead of just seeing it as "just another film", in other words, to have the film stand out before it has even seen.