I decided to go deeper into audience research and sent out a survey to people my age and older - the question was: What's you favourite film genre?
Action - 31%
Thriller - 17%
Comedy - 16%
Romantic - 13%
Sci-Fi - 10%
Drama - 7%
Horror - 6%
From the above results i can see that the majority of people questioned enjoyed watching fims that fell under the genre of action. This has further justified our decision to make an action film opening. These results have helped make sure that our decision was the right one, and judging from the response, it was.
Below are possible fonts for our film opening, which we have decided to call "Full Time". I have decided to choose fonts that do not have curls on each letter, signifying the action packed theme of our piece, also connoting how it won't be pretty. Our target audience is men, therefore I believe they'd be more attracted to a blunter font.
Full Time – Accord Heavy SF
Full Time – Superfly SF
Full Time - Blatant
Full Time – Crazy loot btn inline
Full Time – Folio XBd BT
Full Time – gf ordner normal
Full Time – goudy stout
Full Time – maximus bt
Full Time – Modern735 BT
Full Time – Orbit-B BT
Full Time - stencil
Full Time - Papyrus
Full Time - Punk Kid
Full Time – Super Black SF
Full Time – Undercurrent BTN
Full Time – Vineta BT
Full Time – WC ROUGHTRAD Bta
Full Time – Wide Latin
Full Time – Zap
Full Time – Zolano Serif BTN
Note: These fonts can only be seen if on a computer with Microsoft Word 2007 installed.
The opening to a film is important to how the audience will interpret the rest of the film. Producers and directors of the film need to know what the target market want and what will grip them to a film, it is important they are interested in the film right from the start. Character's are established in the opening scene along with the tone and main theme of the film.
The above diagram shows the demand for different genres of film, based on a poll taken by 1,978 people. Adventure, the genre of the film opening for my group is the second most popular demand, making our target market greater and room for creativity larger. Adventure has always been a prominent figure of the film industry, I do not know a single day where there hasn't been an adventure/action film out at the cinema.
Adventure's popularity is justified here, being the second most popular genre. Men over 35 most enjoy this out of any other gender. The action packed nature of this genre could be to blaim for this result.
This is the top ten UK box office results from the current week. The action packed films appear to have the highest gross profit because of its popularity, people like to watch them because of the tension created in them and the creative story lines.
As part of our coursework we will be completing the Film Opening Task. My group has decided to make an action film, therefore an action packed opening. With a lot of work we've decided to assign roles to each other:
Michael - Audience Research and Typography
Sam - Storyboarding
James - Titles
Josh - Sound
As a group - The Narrative and plot
We have decided to call our film "Full Time" because of the action involved in the film, it will start at a football match and the fight will slowly evolve into a life threatning situation, hence the name Full Time. Sam will be posting the storyboard on his blog.
The usual shot staring at someone through the barrel of a gun was predictable of this James Bond film, as it has been tradition that each film begins with each one. This black and white clip then transforms into an array of pungent colours, signifying the difference of this James Bond film to any other. The patterns that appear are those that correspond to the patterns on a pack of cards (Spades, diamonds, hearts and clubs). The anchorage effect the colour red has on the audience is one of love.
The names of the production team appear in the middle of the spiral that these patterns are forming, showing the production team as the centre of the film, and without them, it wouldn't be possible. The budget of $150 dollars means the production team were able to perfect this film to whatever standards they wish.
Throughout the opening fights often occur between two men, one in black, one in red, connoting the future events of the film; there will be gambling, and violence. Although violence, the friendly colours and the way it flows from shot to shot makes it looks like a piece of art. The violent acts are filmed from a panning shot, showing the background changing and fight dynamics evolving.
The lighting however, is dark, illustrating a darker, more sinister side to the beautiful foreground colours, showing the juxtaposing events going on in the film. The colour red can have the anchorage effect of love or lust on the audience.
The setting of the Alps has always been known as a driving hotspot for enthusiasts, the wealthy looking man in the elegant Ferrari are testimony to the roads surrounding the area and set the scene well. The man is dressed in a smart suit signifying his social class, also connoting his social class is the Ferrari he is happily driving along the rural roads of Italy, the car also adds to the man's power.
As he continues to drive, non diegetic music begins to come into play, this music is a slow Italian opera piece suitable to show the relaxed manner this man possess whilst driving his expensive car, he is completely at ease with the world. The singing begins in the music when the production teams names are revealed...
The names of the institutions involved with the film etc. are shown at first from a shot showing the inside of the car looking through the front windscreen. The main actor's names are shown from this camera angle possibly illustrating their on screen jobs, being in an "inside" corporation. The rest of the names continue to be shown from this camera angle in an orange, fairly classic looking font. The high budget this film has allows the pyrotechnics to take place in the tunnel and many other action packed scenes to happen throughout the film.
The next part of the opening is the crash of the car. He enters the tunnel, with the awaiting Mafia on the other side, there is a huge explosion and the car emerges on the other side in tatters and the man dead. The supposed leader of this corporation is emphasised when he walks out of the mist, taking this it in his stride and tells the digger driver to destroy the car. Juxtaposing this cruel even the Mafia then lay down a reef of respect, acknowledging the person's life and almost feeling sorry for him.
This opening scene of the hit film Spiderman is an action packed, scene setting gripper that tells the audience a lot of what the film's going to be about and the features of it. The budget for Spiderman wasn's small, and this is justified by the well edited opening with great computer effects. The institutions present in the film are Coulmbia and Marvel, Marvel is a company that runs a lot of comics and owns a lot of characfters, Spiderman is one of these characters.After the sponsors and institutions of the film pass, the opening proceeds with the credits, showing who possess' the main roles in the film. It begins with a panning shot of some never ending mist, the shot then escalates into a crane shot revealing the title "Spiderman". After this sequence of events each important cast member's name is flung onto a spiders web, signifying the action packed nature this film inherits. The soundtrack throughout all this is a sequence of short notes of a symphony, making the action taking place seem very fast and exciting.
The mise en scene in this opening sequence consists of a spider web, to which the names of the cast are involved, the letters of each persons name are spread unevenly across the web, like how a flies would be caught in a web. The background is dark and daunting, connoting danger and risk, as the camera dives deeper into the illusive dark background the webs become more entangled, showing how the roles of each crew member becomes more complex as it continues. As the webs continue, some buildings begin to emerge, this is the first time the audience see Spiderman, hanging from a building. This is the first taste the audience get of the protagonist in the film. The audience s likely to be a male based audience, judging from the opening as the colours show a male orientated scheme, blacks and dark blues.
Whoever the audience is, they'll be glued to it from the start given this action packed, fast opening sequence giving hints as to what to expect in the film.
The slow, sad music this extract begins with is representative of the boy, Luke's emotions. As he leaves his desert house, he walks over to see the sunset, an often quite tranquil image as the quietly droning fanfare continues at a slow pace, connoting the emotions of Luke, who seems to be in deep thought and of some confusion. It could be signifying the climax to an event, or contrastingly the beginning of a new one.
The fanfare then changes from a quiet sound, into a louder one illustrating a new found hope he has, even in the actor's eyes you see a new sense of optimism and a lifeline. He seems to of had some kind of epiphany or moment of realisation. However, the notes are still the same length, therefore signifying the problem still at hand and although one problem may be resolved there are many still to conquer and the battle is far from over.
In October 2011 I completed my preliminary task with my media group; we followed the mark scheme that was assigned and tried to incorporate the necessary camera shots, angles and the video manipulation and editing techniques that we were unfamiliar with.
This particular preliminary task - which was completed in November of last year - was similar to our groups in a number aspects.
Firstly the film is that of a 'thriller/action' genre that we - amoung many other media groups in the past - had chosen; consequently the camera shots and angles were limited by the popular choice of filming inside buildings or in confined and limiting space.
Secondly, and emphasing the genre further, the script of this prelim video was kept minimal and the audience were immediately placed in a situation of conflict and climaxing with a cliff hanger;
However this group was kean to show parts of the filming process through the use of bloopers and comical outtakes - this would never happen in a feature thriller as the filmakers are determined to never leave the genre they have chosen.
Finally the editing in this film was minimal and though this is sometimes a choice by the director to enphasise the sluggish/low budget genre of the film, in this case there was little consideration to advanced shot sequencing and the typography and choice of font was changed from the default setting; I know this because the font in our piece was the same.
In conclusion this prelim task was indentical to ours in parts but unlike ours there was very little if any at all consideration for emphasing genre through the use of props, costume and editing.
The use of a dialect building in this scene creates an uncomfortable feel for the audience, and as the two men close in closer together you get the impression that something chaotic will happen soon.
