Shotlist of remake

Nathan

TIME	SHOT	CAMERA MOVEMENT	NOTES
0:00	Mid shot	Still	First shot of all characters in a café, to show how they are presented and where about they are in terms of location
0:18	Reveal shot/ sideways panning	Sideways turning motion	Bit a larger view to see more of the characters as clearly their appearance could be quite important (smartly dressed)
0:25	Medium close up	Tracking from front	Show close up of character to show who they are (actor) and their appearance
0:30	Medium close up	Tracking from front	Show close up of character to show who they are (actor) and their appearance
0:34	Medium close up	Tracking from front	Show close up of character to show who they are (actor) and their appearance
0:39	Medium close up	Tracking from front	Show close up of character to show who they are (actor) and their appearance
0:43	Medium close up	Tracking from front	Show close up of character to show who they are (actor) and their appearance
0:47	Medium close up	Tracking from front	Show close up of character to show who they are (actor) and their appearance
0:52	Medium close up	Tracking from front	Show close up of character to show who they are (actor) and their appearance
0:56	Medium close up	Tracking from front	Show close up of character to show who they are (actor) and their appearance
1:00	Long shot	Still (as characters walk away from camera)	Show all characters together once more and then the title of the film comes which also gives you a name for the group of characters

Considerations ( in terms of audience ) for creating our film opening

Billy Parker
 
For our film opening, we have chosen an age 15 rating. And so, we will need to consider the age of our audience as being quite mature and smart, so we will need to create a storyline which gives away some very minor details if any, as so we will not give away the complete narrative of the film. We will also be able to use more adult things such as blood and maybe even some swearwords to try and present our age rating to the audience immediately. Another consideration is who to cast. We will need to cast an older person due to the older audience, as well as we would want our audience to know that the character of our film will be experienced and know that the character will be able to trace the details of a long and convoluted murder. Our audience will also want a fresh idea, and so I believe that we will need to do something different than just a generic murder in the opening, to help the audience understand that our film wouldn't be generic and just any other opening.


I believe that with the age of audience that we would need to show how our film is real, so we will be using realistic props and costumes wherever is possible to try and engage our audience as opposed to say a PG rating where we would have to give extremely generic props to the detective character such as a magnifying glass, etc. Due to the older audience, we also will have to ensure that our sets are particularly perfect, because they probably will take more notice to what is happening in the surroundings and the wider picture. The fact that our audience is mature means that we can make a darker and more disturbing 'villain' in our film, which would create a darker tone for the film as well as building a bigger bond between the main character and the audience.




Overall we will be taking the ideas from Luther  about how to structure the frame as well as how to include a more villainous antagonist to entice our older audience.

Post on costume ideas - what the look is

George Watkins

For our film opening will have around 6-7 characters involved in it and they will be required to wear costumes and uniforms to look in character and make what happens in our opening more believable and realistic.

o   Police costumes (X2)

We need 2 police men costumes (British) as in our film opening we open at a murder investigation where police officers will be on site to help try and solve the crime and calm the situation down. The type of police costume we want isn’t the police with bright florescent jackets but ones with an ordinary suit with a police vest and hat as this is the cheaper option yet it will still look affective or the option to have a police pullover jumper with a checker tie and police hat as this option also we feel is a good one to make our characters look as best as they can.

 

o   Dust sheet (for dead person)

This option is rather straight forward, we don’t particularly want the viewers to see a death in the opening scene so we feel having the dead character covered up is a good option and the best way to cover them up is with a white sheet which we could make out of a dust sheet, bed sheet, etc. another option we have is the classic white chalk mark around the body however with the locations we want to use this isn’t an option.

 

o   Detective uniform (X1)

For this character I and the group have decided to go for the stereotypical detective with a hat, long coat and a suit, it is important that we may this character look as much like a detective as we can due to the confusion that may come with this character if he was only to be in a suit and the viewers may think this character is an ordinary person.  

 

o   Forensic scientist uniform (X2)

A classic character found at an investigation scene is a forensic scientist who are usually analysing the crime scene for evidence and investigating the dead body, these characters are relatively easy to spot as they have quite unique costumes with the plain white overalls and blue face mask and blue rubber gloves.

 

o   Member of public (Runner)

The member of public is the person in the film who first finds the body and will be dressed in some kind of sports outfit or something you would expect someone to go running in so for example a thin T-shirt and jogging bottoms of any colour however for our film we would like a black costume for the runner, similar to the picture on the right for the example of the type of costumes we are looking for below.  

 

 

These ideas will help us when creating our film opening as we can get a feel of what we want  our characters to look like and how to make these characters look as best as they can buy supplying similar costumes to the ones seen in this post.

 

Moodboard showing what the film will include and it's look.

Billy Parker

This mood board represents how our film will look, including:

The location, which will be a forest area which is possibly fairly open and not too constricted whilst also having woods and trees in all directions. basically, the centre of a forest. It also is on a cloudy day, which is what we want to have our film opening set in.

The props, which are some sort of danger weapon, which in this I used a knife which is covered in blood, but this is not definite for us. I also have used some pictures of yellow crime scene signals which represent pieces of evidence to the police. I have also included some blood, which I believe that all of these props overall represent our genre and the look of the film.

The costumes, which are a suited male character in our piece, which is to make our character seem realistic as well as powerful. I also included a 'dead person' under a white sheet which is what we will be using to represent the dead character in our piece.

Overall I believe this mood board will help us visualise the look of our film and will help us in the set up of our shooting location. We also now will have a rough idea of the props which we will need.

Why we did the film opening remake

Nathan

We completed this remake task to help us understand the way we should film our final film opening and how the title sequence will be shown throughout the clip. This task allowed us to use the specific camera angles needed for the remake and allowed us to understand how they have an impact on the film genre and audience. This remake task showed us how to portray generic conventions of the specific genre we were remaking and how the generic conventions help the audience understand what genre the film is based upon the content in the first opening scene. Throughout the remaking of this film opening, we had to create the title sequence. This helps us understand how the title sequence is portrayed in a comedy and how this may be different from other genres. Therefore from this task we can now distinguish the differences between title sequences for different genres.

 This will help us make our final film opening because we now have a clear understanding of how film openings are made and how they impact their audiences based on their genres. Therefore we now can distinguish the difference between different film openings of different genres, so that we can make our genre clear to the audience when we come to film. We also learnt a lot of editing techniques and how to perform them in the editing software. This will help us use these editing techniques when coming to film our own film opening so that we can make it the best we can. Overall I think that this task has helped us understand the construction of film openings and how they use generic conventions to portray the specific genre.

Remake of Reservoir Dogs: Evaluation

Billy Parker

Remaking the opening of Reservoir Dogs has been a helpful experience to us so we can learn a number of things for filming our task. One thing is organisation of actors. This opening required a high amount of actors so it would always be difficult to get it right, but we ended up having to miss out one character due to the lack of actors who could film on the day. Therefore in our final piece we will attempt to keep the number of actors at a minimum. Another use of this task was to learn and work with camera angles and how titles go with camera angles. We learnt that to introduce each character the best way is to put their name with their face so the audience can recognise each character and so this also is something we will be implementing into our final piece. The practice with editing is also a very helpful skill for us to learn because it is a very difficult process and so it takes a long time to perfect their skills at it.

Genre Research

Generic conventions of a crime film;

Characters

The lead character will often be a detective or some sort of police investigator.  They will usually be a white male - 40 years old plus.  The lead character will have some sort of major personality defect or flaw such as a failed marriage, alcoholism, gambling addiction etc.

Sound
Serious and dramatic non-diegetic music.  Often this is very sombre and brooding during dark moments and fast-paced and bombastic as action sequences occur.

Narrative and Theme
The narrative will usually be centred on a detective trying to solve a crime - often a murder.  There will be an investigation taking place which involves clues and red herrings.  The killer's identity will often be revealed at the end.

Iconography
Police cars, blue flashing lights, crime scenes, police tape, murders, dark lighting, guns and weapons.

Settings
Interview rooms, urban settings, police stations, crime scenes, forensics labs, morgues, and the killer's lair - often dark, ominous and threatening.

Examples of Crime Films;

•  

Types of Institutions

Josh breeze

Mainstream films;

• They are widely released in cinemas for a short period of time and then released for home use.
• They are highly commercialised in order to attract customers.
• The films storyline and content attracts a wide variety of audiences.
• Usually makes use of A-list actors so that they can appeal to the audience.
• Usually film in famous location due to their higher budgets.
• Make use of the internet to distribute their films. Popular sites such as YouTube attract audience and allow easier accessibility.

Mainstream film examples- Jurassic World, Furious 7, Star trek and Interstellar.

Independent films;

 
• Unlike mainstream films, they are not produced in major film studios.
• They are very different in terms of style but usually similar in content.
• Usually distributed straight to DVD release.
• They have a much lower budget compared to mainstream films.
• They are not commercialised but rather specific audiences are attracted through methods such as word of mouth etc.

Independent film examples- A field in England,

Our decision-
After researching into each institution and also taking into consideration our film idea, we have decided to go with the mainstream option. This is because we feel that this institution will fit our overall film well and also that we are more knowledgably about the elements that are needed for a mainstream film. 
 
 

Independent Research on Film Openings

Nathan

History of film openings:

In a motion picture, television programme or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of an action shot in the background. There may or may not be accompanying music. When opening credits are built into a separate sequence of their own this is a title sequence which most films use. Opening credits since the early 1980s, if present at all, show the main actors and crew, while the closing credits list an extensive cast and production crew. Historically however, opening credits have been the only source of crew credits. In movies and television, the title and opening credits may be preceded by a cold open or teaser that helps to set the stage for the film. In the 1970s opening credits were seen to keep in a lot of detail and only present important members of the crew. Some opening credits are presented over the opening sequences of a film, rather than in a separate title sequence. The opening credits 1993 film The Fugitive continued over 15 minutes into the film.

Mainstream and Independent:

The difference between an independent and mainstream film is that an independent film targets a niche audience, this is a small group of individuals, this means that these types of films usually have a more specific topic compared to a mainstream film, which is more generalised. Mainstream films tend to have a broader topic as they want to target a larger audience to generate more  money from the film. Film openings usually contain the institutional logo of the production company, there may be two or more logos depending on the amount of production companies involved. Independent films usually have more smaller production companies, however mainstream films usually have two big production companies. Film openings contain Non-diegetic and diegetic sound. The diegetic is usually dialogue and the non-diegetic could be a narration or music. The titles in the film opening usually correspond with the genre of the film as the font and style they are displayed needs to portray the genre. Overall film openings usually give the audience a slight insight to what may occur throughout the film or it will give key hints which may be foreshadowed for later on in the film.

Storyboard for remake of Reservoir Dogs

Billy Parker

 

This is the storyboard for the opening credits of Reservoir Dogs. We need this for our remake so we can structure our piece as similar to the actual opening of Reservoir Dogs as we can. 

 

25 word film breif

George Watkins



                                                             25 word film brief


Murder takes place, people search for solution until they eventually find the hidden truth and the story behind how these events took place and why.

Individual Institutional logos

Billy Parker

 

Here are our institutional logos for the name 'Moose Productions', I have commented on all of the logos beneath them.  

 

 

Billy Parker

 

This is my idea, I like the visual of having a type of badge for the institutional logo. I feel like this has a good look and doesn't look too childish so the film wont be taken seriously or too professional so the film would seem generic and boring. 

 

Joshua Breeze

 

 This is Josh's idea and the look was chosen to look very basic and simplistic. there is no writing underneath but it still works as a logo and can be used for any film genre and any scenario.

 

George Watkins

This is George's post.  The idea of this logo is so the logo is clear and has relative colours to the animal. The justification for the font is to maybe bring the audience in to the world of the film due to the friendly feel.

 

Nathan Copping

This is Nathan's Logo. The idea behind this is that the logo looks different to all of our other posts. The logo looks professional and real as opposed to our other ones which are cartoons and badges.

Audience questionnaire analysis

George Watkins

 Audience Questionnaire Analysis

Question 1) what would you commonly associate with a crime type film?

o   I set this question up to try and find out what people commonly expect to feature in a crime type film so that we can include it in our film and see what we could include in our film to meet viewers expectations of our film. Answers I received from this question include; guns, murders, police, criminals and violence.

Question 2) what characters would you expect to see in a crime film?

o   The kind of characters we original picked for our film opening came up a lot when receiving responses for this question, these characters were; police officers which were mentioned in 40% of the responses, gangsters and ordinary members of the public therefore we will keep these characters in mind for our film opening.

Question 3) do you know what kind of characters to find in a thriller film?

o   This question did not get a massive response when we handed out the questionnaire, in fact out of the 10 individuals asked only 3 managed to come up with an answer of which 100% of these people said a family with 1 out of the 3 saying a family and a monster so when thinking about characters we can use throughout our story line a family will be in contention to feature as the main focus of the film and possible a monster however this character is very unlikely to feature.

Question 4) what generic conventions would you expect from a crime film?

o   This question was set up to see what audiences would expect from our genre of film so we can include them in our film to meet audience expectations and these responses consist of; questioning/ investigating, police, guns, mysterious music, crime and murder. So with these responses we can look to include them in our film opening to enhance our genres conventions shown in our opening clip.

Question 5) how often do you watch a crime or thriller film?

o   This question didn’t have specific answers but it had rough timings for example a lot of people responded with; twice a week, twice a month, once a month, etc. however many people could not think of a thriller film when asked so this could mean people were answering with rough estimates but if these responses were accurate it would mean crime & thriller film are frequently viewed by the public.

Questionn6) do you watch more independent or mainstream institute films?

o   This question was placed in this questionnaire to help us with our decision on what kind of institute we want to go for when making our film, mainstream in this question seemed by far the most popular answer of the lot with independent films getting only 10% of the votes so using the results of this question we would probably want to consider mainstream more than independent institutes considering mainstream got 90% of the votes. 

Question 7) can you name a crime film? If yes give example, if not leave blank

o   I had a range of different answers from this questions of which were; police academy, snatch, green street, spider man, the godfather, public enemies and a few others, therefore if we struggle to think of crime elements to add into our film our group could take ideas from these films and make our own versions of them.

Question 8) can you name a thriller film? If yes give example, if not leave blank

o   This answer only had one out of the 10 to partake in this questionnaire response which was the recently released film ‘ no escape’ featuring Owen Wilson, so as we are heading down the thriller genre root our group could watch this film and use ideas within the film to add into our own.

Question 9) who do you go to the cinema with?

o   This question was set up so that when making our film we can consider what group of people we want to aim our film at for example you may go and see a different film with your friends compared to a film you may go and seen with your wife or girlfriend and looking at the responses of this question, friends was the most common answer so we will try and aim our film at friendship groups aged 15+

Question 10) which age certificate would you expect a crime thriller to be?

o   100% of the answers from this question were either 15 or 18 which are the age certificates my group and I were looking at previously to aim our film at and with the justification from this questionnaire we will most likely try and make our film in the 15 -18 bracket.

Audience questionnaire

George Watkins

Audience questionnaire

o   Question 1) what would you commonly associate with a crime type film?

o   Question 2) what characters would you expect to see in a crime film?

o   Question 3) do you know what kind of characters to find in a thriller film?

o   Question 4) what generic conventions would you expect from a crime film?

o   Question 5) how often do you watch a crime or thriller film?

o   Questionn6) do you watch more independent or mainstream institute films?

o   Question 7) can you name a crime film? if yes give example.


yes/no

o   Question 8) can you name a thriller film? if yes give example.



yes/no

o   Question 9) who do you go to the cinema with?

o   Question 10) which age certificate would you expect a crime thriller to be?




this is a questionnaire set up to find out some information our group can use when making our film opening for example, what to include, type of characters to include and films we can look at for insperation that have similar genres to ours to try and make our film opening as best as we possible can. From this questionnaire we can take some information on what people expect to be included in our type of film so that we can include it into our film opening to meet audience expectations.

Why did we choose to remake Reservoir Dogs

Billy Parker

We chose to remake Reservoir Dogs because we really enjoyed the opening and we thought that we could remake it on location at our school. We liked the way that there is character emphasis because this is how we want our piece to be, and even though the genre of comedy will not be similar to the genre which we want to do the opening still has features of what we want in our opening such as the way the credits are set out. We also knew that with our resources this will be the opening which we can get the best result from.

Choosing a genre (mind maps)

George Watkins

Choosing a Genre (Mind Maps)

During class my group and I created 3 different mind maps displaying 3 different genres which branched out with several features of these genres, the features included; A few generic conventions, Film examples, Ideas for our film and stereotypical things within these genres. The point of this exercise was to try and give us some ideas of the genre we would like to use by looking at the ideas from each genre and deciding which we think will work best for our coursework.

The 3 mind maps we did were; Action, Horror and Thriller. Here are the images of our genres with our own ideas we thought of within our group.

Reservoir Dogs timeline

Nathan Copping

Reservoir Dogs opening titles

 

o   7 seconds: Non-Diegetic music starts

o   11-15 seconds: A Film by Quentin Tarantino

o   26-29 seconds: Harvey Keitel

o   30-33 seconds: Michael Madsen

o   34-38 seconds: Chris Penn

o   39-42 seconds: Steve Buscemi

o   43-47 seconds: Lawrence Tierney

o   48-51 seconds: Eddie Bunker

o   52-55 seconds: Quentin Tarantino

o   57-60 seconds: and Tim Roth

o   1 minute 1-3 seconds: are

o   1 minute 6-15 seconds: Reservoir Dogs

o   1 minute 19-25 seconds: Randy Brooks, Kirk Baltz, Rich Turner, and the voice of Steven Wright.

o    1 minute 27-30 seconds: casting Ronnie Yeskel, C.S.A

o   1 minute 31-35 seconds: Music Supervisor, Karyn Rachtman

o   1 minute 36-39 seconds: Costume Designer, Betsy Heimann

o   1 minute 40-43 seconds: Editor, Sally Menke

o   1 minute 44-47 seconds: Production Designer, David Wasco

o   1 minute 48-52 seconds: Director of Photography, Andrzej Sekula

o   1 minute 53-56 seconds: Co-Producer, Harvey Keitel

o   1 minute 57- 2 minutes 1 second: Executive Producers, Richard N. Gladstein, Ronna B. Wallace and Monte Hellman

o   2 minutes 2-5 seconds: Produced by Lawrence Bender

This is a timeline of the titles in the opening scene. I did this because we needed to understand how the titles were displayed so that we could copy them exactly to make the remake the best we could. This helped us use the correct font and style in which the actual film did.