Marcus Allan 9157

Claremont Fan Court School 64680OCR Media Studies J526

B324 Production Portfolio in Media Studies

Video Brief 7: opening sequence from a new thriller with storyboard: Firewall

I worked in a group of three with James Peters & Ali Gibson. We made a thriller film opening entitled Firewall, a hybrid of Spy and Thriller genres. We worked very well together, allocating roles & checking joint progress via our blogs.

I took specific responsibility for the Photoshop work on the title sequence and all of the complicated computer FX. The Photoshopping was making the title ‘Firewall’ scene at the end of our opening sequence and the complex sequences of computer FX were displayed on the screen by using a screen capture software called ‘CamStudio’ this is much better than just filming a computer screen with a camera.

I also collaborated with James writing up a treatment for our film and did some of the editing our film.

‘Firewall’ is based around the idea of computer hacking and was originally going to be mainly special effects on the commuter but after some creative decisions by the group we opted for a more conventional and more mainstream narrative treatment which is a kidnapping, but with very high-tech computer effects, which would engage younger audiences and which computer savvy audiences would like.

The genre of our film is mystery thriller so, we did not have any action chase sequences but really played up the whole mystery element of our film, you never get to see the main villain in my movie opening it is all just POV shots as well as dialog from behind a computer monitor. All of the kidnapping that we see is just of the kidnapper walking up behind a boy and then after a few shots with his father we cut back to a chair tipped over with a bottle rolling down a small mount of dirt to show that the kidnapping was very recent.

Research into similar films/music videos

The Matrix (Andy Wachowski 1999) – I have mentioned this movie at various times throughout this project because it has just been such an influence, without this movie our idea about heavily integrating the idea of computers into our movie opening would have never taken off. This film was based around the premise that our world is simply a computer program called ‘The Matrix’. From this film we took the idea of green scrolling text and computer hacking scenarios.

Taken (Pierre Morel 2008) – This film is predominantly about a retired CIA agent trying to find hid kidnapped daughter. This film is shot in Paris, I tried to replicate the storyline of this film by writing in the computer program to call the user, which is our main character Arthur, an Agent and we also had his son get kidnapped just like in the movie. Combining these two films was simple and gave me a really great outcome. The main aspect of this film that we took would have to be the storyline and a few of the camera shots such as, an over shoulder shot of a phone or iPod and a crane/birds eye view shot.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Niels Arden Oplev 2009) – This is a Swedish film and features a Swedish computer hacker when I saw this film, which was the first of the three movies that I had scene, I saw different shots on the computer which really intrigued me such as one shot showing what was on the computer as well as her face, almost as if the screen was transparent with a camera filming behind it. This film also had quite a dark and gritty undertone to it which I tried to aim for with my film opening which I am not positive that I achieved.

I researched intensively into other Thriller genres

I researched intensively into other Thriller genres

Research into similar films openings

Art of the Title: 300 This is the opening to a movie called '300' this is an action movie with lots of gore and violence the opening has a slightly cartoon feel to it as you can only see the silhouettes of the people and not any of their details. This is like how my ideal opening would turn out although I have none of the talent or the time or the resources to produce something like this.    

Art of the Title: Blade II This is the opening to a movie called 'Blade II'This movie is an action movie featuring lots of blood and gore this is also a style that I would like to take for my movie opening because of the of all the gore that it features and all of the blood on the titles, the opening title was very well done as it appeared when the door opened, it faded in as if it were attached to the door.

Art of the Title: Casino RoyalThis title sequence has a very cartoon style to it which is strange for the whole action movie genre but fits really well it features gunshots and women in attractive dresses. It manages to show off the movie in a really cool way by showing tings that are going to be in it like poker cards etc.

Our Target Audience

Audience profile: our target audience is likely to be both genders aged 15 to 40 years old the 15 year old can relate to the young actor which got kidnapped, they are also the age group that spends the most time around computers so they can marvel as the computer effects, because that is what really made me love the Matrix (Andy Wachowski 1999) since it could actually happen in really life one day someone watching this film could actually have that happen to there computer. The film also attracts the older audience preferably with children by putting forward the fact that the child could be taken from the comfort of there own back garden.

They are likely to have seen these films recently: Zombieland ( Fleischer2009), The Matrix (Andy Wachowski 1999), Shutter Island (Scorcese 2010), Inception (2010 Nolan), Pirates of Silicon Valley (Martyn Burke 1999), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Niels Arden Oplev 2009)

They are likely to go to the cinema once every two months when they see a trailer that really catches there eye as well as see films they already have on DVD but keep watching over and over because they love so much and possibly downloads to their computers.

Audience figures show how popular the thriller genre is. Box office returns for films similar to mine show the following figures (source Box Office Mojo): The Matrix ($171,479,930);

Audience profile I made in Photoshop.

The forms and conventions used in our film

Opening - We showed many POV shots in the opening sequence of our film, these shots were taken from the bushes with leaves clearly in front of the camera to show that someone was trying to remain hidden.

Titles – Our title appeared in the bottom right hand side of our video and were white, they faded in and then faded out again to show some sign of suspense in stead of just blinking on and off to whatever shot we switch to like in some children's films. I made the main movie title ‘Firewall’ featured at the end and James Peters edited it in, I made the title have a texture as to avoid it from looking to plain it was red to show that it was about firewalls on the computer as well as actual fire.

Mise-en-scene (locations) – Our locations was just simply a back garden since none of us had access to any other interesting locations but we did the best with what we could and just filmed at interesting angles from the bushes and really tried the best we could to get nice shots such as the Crain shot and an over shoulder shot on the MP3 player that our actor appears to be playing with ad listening to music with. We created a suburban home that would link to our audiences home to reach out on a much more personal level. I took responsibility for creating our ‘Cyber world’ which is the computer programs the audience sees. I made it look as realistic as possible, I used green text for the ‘Hacking prompt’ (The second program you see) and I used a very plain and official look for creating the F.B.I login window.

Costumes – As our film was set in a suburban home we did not have to alter the actors clothing much from what they were already wearing, which were jeans, a T-shirt and a jumper although we did have to alter the actors playing ‘Arthur’s clothes (The boy on the computer) I gave him a long black adult looking jacket to put over his normal jumper, he also wore full black shoes whereas the little boy wore trainers.

SFX - I took charge of most of our special effects, these included the computer scenes with the Matrix style text reviling what the F.B.I have and are going to do to Arthurs son and the computer program that Arthur logs into, I used a screen capture software which records a section of the screen, I found this easier to record and it looked more professional than just recording it with a camera, I did this for all of the computer scenes and from what I saw of it I could have used a higher quality screen capture software which was unavailable to me as any higher quality would have cost money.

Forms and conventions (continued)

Sound – I did not use any sound effects for my film as the only sound heard throughout it was the song that was playing, I did however add in a door closing sound when the hero Arthur shuts his car door.

Music - I used the song ‘Clubbed to death’ and I cut out the violin section at the beginning of the song, that part really did not fit with the theme of our opening at all, this song ran through the whole film opening and fitted perfectly well, this song was also the theme to the Matrix.

Atmosphere – The sense of danger is really crystallized when you see the cyber threat though a POV of Arthur you see his reactions are very worried which shows that audience what they should be feeling at that moment. The safety of the garden has been breached the boy feels the same way about his garden that the audience feels until we start being show that something is going on by the shots from the bushes.

Suspense – My film opening was based around suspense, the suspense builds as you see the POV shots of the kidnapper through the bushes you know something is wrong and that something is going to happen to the boy but you don’t know when. Suspense is always hard to pull off on movies but I believe that I was successful. The shot of the boy behind the bushes instantly shows the audience that he is being watched and that raises the question of who is watching this boy.

Audience feedback

Matthew Hart – “This was pretty cool, I like the computer parts the best”

Our Teacher, Ms Mann – “I like it all, but I feel that the music does not fit at times” We worked on this and cut out the violin intro to our song so that it got straight into the beat but after a few days with This our group decided to add it back in again so that would fit with out ident.

Aiden – “I think that all of the different angles are really effective, you could have steadied the shots though ” This was very difficult to achieve as I did the best with what I could, I really tried hard to isolate the steady shots and reduce the extremely messy shots (When the camera move around

Sophie – “I liked the film but the ident could have been improve” We attempted to make the ident better but all three of us had little to no experience with after effects and iMovie is very limited when it come to text movement. We did the best we could with what we had

Comments from YouTube. I uploaded our movie opening to YouTube.com and these are a few of the comments that I received, they were very positive and My group and I are very pleased with the response. There were not many errors pointed out in the comments but that is fine.

How successful our project is as a film opening

I believe that my film opening was very successful as it conveyed what my film was going to be about by placing the kidnapping right at the beginning of the film. It set the genre of the film straight away through the music used which was suspense thriller and it managed to show what two people were doing at once e.g. Arthur was just coming into the home and was about to go on his computer whereas his son is sitting in the garden listening to music it did this very effectively as both of the plots harmonize when Arthur is told about the kidnapping. Obviously one major thing that could have made this film opening even better would be re-filming it using a tripod, without the tripod our film suffered from terribly shaky shots but I did the best I could with the materials I had at present and managed to edit out most of the shakiness. I used a variety of different shots such as POV shots of both Arthur and the kidnapper, over shoulder shot of Arthurs son looking at his iPod and even a crane shot of Arthurs son right at the beginning.

In conclusion, my film opening manages to show what the movie is about and what genre it is very early on it set up a solid storyline and makes me think that the audience is itching to know more answers to questions such as “What will happen to Arthurs son?” and “Who are the people that hacked into his computer, and why are they doing this?” This leaves a great hook for our target audience.

How successfully the whole project answered the brief

The whole project went well and surprisingly better than expected I found that the video editing was a lot easier than I had previously remembered I found it to be smother this time around. The brief was to effectively create a film opening which I believe I accomplished very well. My film opening was one based on the film The Matrix (Andy Wachowski 1999), I took the whole computer concept from this film and tried my best to make it look as professional as possible. I incorporated such tactics as computer coding and graphic design to make my login window for the FBI look as good as possible.

Simple Batch File

Simple Batch File

C# program I made myself

C# program I made myself

Project Log

Project Log

I believe that my project logWas very successful, I managed to add most of what I have accomplished during this project but obviously I have missed out a few things purely down to human error on my part.

I put in a lot of work into this project both inside of school andOutside, I have done various things for my group and I. A few of theseThings are creating idents, editing the video, editing background sound

I believe that my contribution to the group has been one of great importance. I came up with the original idea of making the movie opening, computer based. I also took charge of most of the technical things such as taking responsibility for equipment. I shared the workload of editing the movie opening with James and I designed the titles. Overall, I believe that the project went very well apart from a few minor things such as camera quality and some shaky footage. I also took charge of all the SFX.

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