For my A2 Film project I chose to make the opening sequence of a film
between 3 – 5 minutes in length and instead of a sequence that would be part of
a film. When making my film I chose to work alone and therefore I could have
full control over planning, directing and editing my Film project. I used a
digital blog: www.bethanyhironsfilmstudiesa2.blogspot.com to keep track of all of the production process, including looking into
detail into my chosen genre; Thriller. I chose to make a Thriller opening
because I liked the stylistics that was involved; I also liked the vast
possibilities that can be studied. The title of my film is “Drug Squad” and the
narrative is about a police officer who is mentally disturbed following
childhood trauma. The title came from research online into the thriller genre,
but also studying previous film titles which are short but sweet.
In order for my audience to feel empathy and upset for my protagonist
(Guy), I had to show him as a child seeing the death of his mother, this is
easy for an audience to empathise with, because no matter what culture you are,
the mother is the pinnacle of the family and losing her is going to be
traumatic. I wanted the audience to begin to understand Guy’s obvious
monotonous emotions so I decided to use a silent sequence which shows his past,
this way I could create an alignment between the audience and Guy. One of my
aims was to make sure that my film was as realistic as possible; in order to do
this I could only use locations which were high in verisimilitude. In order to
achieve this I used public streets, houses and a forest, all the places my
audience will have heard of before, and realise that the film is set within
this reality. The ending of my opening sequence was filmed at my house, it was
done there because within it, it had all of the props and set design that was
required. The scenes outside for the montage were filmed locally within a forest;
the only item I needed to take was the costume for my protagonist.
The name of my protagonist holds significance due to what it means, when
doing research into names, I found that this name was used a lot centuries ago
before ‘Guy Fawkes’ tried to blow up the tower of London using gun powder. During
the early pre-production stages I had issues finding the right name that fit my
characters profile, until I stumbled upon a website that stayed that it is very
common in American thriller films for the police officer. This is very alike my
narrative. Guy usually means the very masculine one of the group, or even the
leader, in my opening sequence I feel that I did not achieve my aim of making
Guy look like the leader in the group, if I was to do this again, I would
change the opening and show him in an office.
Within my film I wanted to experiment with music, I felt I did this
successfully by using ‘Little Lion Man’ sang by Mumford and Sons and editing
the 30 second montage sequence to the beat of the drums . I found it hard to
find a song at first that could be edited in this way as I was sure that the
lyrics would also have to match what was being seen on the screen; however,
after a trial and error process I found that the lyrics in this song helped me
to achieve my goal. Lyrics such as “Weep for yourself, my man, You’ll never be
what is in your heart” where shown when he was sat upset in the forest, these
were all small details to show that he wants to be living in his mother’s
shadow but he does not feel he is achieving it.
As part of my pre-production process I analysed several film openings,
one of which was Inception, which showed a montage sequence whilst playing the
opening credits, this was one of the things of which I took inspiration from
and chose to use in my own opening. My opening is very similar to inception, I
chose to use music in the background and also chose to have a sequence before
the credits, although, I do feel like I did not meet my aim of making it look
as professional as this. The reason I do not think I achieved my aims is because
I used to much artificial lighting due to poor planning of filming. If I was to
do this again I would plan my filming schedule better so that I would have an
image that is not grainy.
My original aim for the narrative was for it to be gritty and violent,
although I could not achieve this because I did not have the special effects
available. So instead of my original aim of making my film an 18 because of the
issues it touches upon, I feel that it would be suitable for a 15. It would be
suitable because although Guy does walk in on his dead mother, this is suitable
for a 15 as although it causes shock to the audience, it does not show
physical violence that makes them feel uncomfortable. The BBFC classifications
for a 15 are:
·
strong violence
·
frequent strong language (eg 'f***').
·
portrayals of sexual activity
·
strong verbal references to sex
·
sexual nudity
·
brief scenes of sexual violence or
verbal references to sexual violence
·
discriminatory language or behaviour
·
drug taking
I feel
that my film would come under these categories because although we do not see
these in the opening, we can expect it later on when Guy aims to find the
murderer of his mum. I feel that I have reached my aim of making my film a 15
because of the context that it is in, it would not be suitable to see dead
bodies and violence if this film was a 12A.
Once my
video was completely and put on my blog, I gave out a questionnaire which asked
the audience what they thought of my work, the sample consisted of 10 people
who could all correctly guess the genre of which my film is, however, they
agreed that I had not reached my target audience of people aged 18 – 24, if
this film was to go to general release, I would have to bring down my age
rating in order to get a better showing. On the Likert scale at the bottom of
my questionnaire the average number my opening was given was an 8, this was
because the narrative was not explained thoroughly, I agree with this comment
and feel if I did this again, I would pay more attention to the scene where his
mother passes away.
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