Task 5 The Script: Subject: X - Script

FADE IN

Ext. St. Editha’s church graveyard – dusk

Everything is quiet and peaceful. Birdsong in the background. All gets disturbed as Subject: X run past the camera followed by chaser. Cuts to voice.

VOICE         Have you got the data cell?

Subject: X    Of course, why do you think I’m bloody running? I need an escape route.

VOICE         Right away. Take a left here!

Subject: X follows instructions. Music intensifies.

Subject: X    Now where?

VOICE         What? I can’t hear you! Someone’s tapping into the line!

Subject: X is backed into a corner by Chaser. Chaser raises gun.

Instant to black as gunshot rings out. Title screen.

Dialogue of VOICE calling out to Subject: X over the top.

VOICE         X! Come in X! Can you hear me?

Black screen disappears leaving title on screen still over the top of the camera footage for a few more seconds. Roll opening credits over the top of footage.

Int. Landau Forte Medical Room (Hospital)

Subject: X lies comatose on hospital bed. Chaser is in the room already, sat in chair in the corner.

Doc Enters. Audience sees the top of the head of Subject: X, then the focus changes to the Doc as she entered.

Doc           So this… is Subject: X. Was the data cell damaged?

Chaser        It’s still intact

Doc           Good, so it still functions?

Chaser        Yes 

Doc           Now all we have to deal with is Subject: X.

Over shoulder view of Doc looking at Subject: X

Chaser        I’ve got the perfect idea

Doc           Fill me in later, I need to run some diagnostics on him.

Chaser        Sounds good

FADE OUT

FINISH

Task 4 The Pitch: Movie Poster

This is are example posters of what we would use to advertise the film. It follows the generic look of movie posters and has a generak release date on it for the target audience to see. The general design behind them is one of suspicion and mystery to lure an audience in. The way in which we'll achieve this is through the natural inquisitiveness of all humans, as you can see it's just a logo with the movie title and people will be wondering what the logo is and what it represents. We've also made other posters with other logos to represent the different factions that reside within our film world. They're all dark and 'scary' to appeal to our desired target audience who are people who usually watch this style of film as we plan to feed off the 'Hunger Games' and 'Divergent' audiences through the use of a dystopian world with teenage protagonists. 

*Note - There is a clear difference in one of the images due to certain fonts not being available whilst at school so it was impossible to reciprocate the 1st image precisely.

Task 4 The Pitch: Mind Maps

Me and Callum planned out some different ideas based around a few different gneres (Rom Com, Horror, Action/Thriller and Film Noir). We created a basic narrative, or multiple, for each one and they all followed general codes and conventions for each genre, except one. One of the Rom Com narratives was based around the love shared between two gay males to escape the perils of being bullied at high school.

Another narrative follows a stereotypical horror plot and we created two different narratives for this opening sequence, both ending in the same way. One was more extravagant than the other and was based around stumbling across what is an abandoned building and finding a hospital bed inside with a patient's notes still attached. This then queues a flashback that is somewhat scary to the viewer and big, red titles follow.

 

Our third narrative was a very, very stereotypical Film Noir which starts off with a private detective in his office and an attractive young lady enters. She claims that her husband has been murdered but she is in fact the murderer and is lying to lure the detective into her trap.

 

 

Our next narrative is the one that we finalised. It starts with a chase scene that results in Subject: X getting shot at the end of the chase as the chaser is after the data cell that Subject: X is carrying. Subject: X then wakes up in hospital and is surrounded by the Doctor and the Chaser. The Doctor and the Chaser then converse about Subject: X before The Chaser leaves the room so only the Doctor and Subject: X remain.

Task 4 The Pitch: Subject: X - Synopsis

Genre: Action Thriller

Narrative:                 A male protagonist (Subject: X) is chased through the city by the antagonist after obtaining a data cell from an evil organisation. The chase continues on whilst the protagonist is in contact with 'Voice' getting instructions on how to escape. They lose communication with each other and 'Subject: X' gets lost in the city, they look frantically for a way out but to no avail. They are backed into a corner by the antagonist (Chaser) and the screen cuts to black. Despite not being shown, the audience know that 'Subject: X' gets shot as a gunshot rings out during the title screen. The following scene is that of the Protagonist comatose in a hospital bed with 'Chaser' in the room. A doctor (Doc) enters and he converses with 'Chaser' about the data cell before the opening sequence ending.

                                

Location:       St. Editha's Church

                                   Various Town Centre Locations

                                    Landau Forte Academy Tamworth Sixth Form Medical Room

Audience:              12A Due to dark themes (death & medical experimentation) and violence.

Representation:     Our film clearly follows the codes and conventions of the Action/Thriller genre. The sexuality of all characters is presumed to be heterosexual males as no homosexual deviances are shown, this is one of the most important conventions to follow within this genre. The nationality of the main protagonist is British and carries a posh, upper class accent, much like the stereotypical spy as seen in the classic James Bond films. The antagonist is also clearly identifiable as they are wearing dark clothing which represents their mindset and evil nature. We have managed to challenge one of the codes and conventions by having 'Voice' as a male in a stereotypically female role (an example of this being 'M' in James Bond).

Task 4 The Pitch: Studio Logo

Me and my partner, Callum, drew up five different logos each based round the idea of our production company name, NoChill Studios. The first image was one of a fire in the center and the words No Chill across the top and Studios across the bottom. This was to play on the name of studio.

The second image, much like the first one is a play on the name of the studio yet this time we had a snowflake as the image. We envisioned that this could melt off of the screen as to suit the name of the studio even further.

 

Our next two designs used capital letters at the beginning of each word so they stood out to the viewer and made the studio name easily recognisable and easy to remember. However we realised that after sketching them that they spelt out 'NCS' which is a well known organisation in the UK based around getting young people to partake in social action projects in their local community. So as to not get our studio confused with their organisation we decided not to use either of these logos.

  

 

This last sketch is the one we finalised and turned into our finished product which can be seen in our final film and in the video embedded below. We decided to have two, large letters to represent 'No' and 'Chill', we then wrote studios at the bottom of to show it is in fact our studio logo. It is purely black and white so it stands out and is easily recognisable and memorable to the public. We made it first using Photoshop and then on Adobe After Effects to add on the animated, blurred spheres that come towards the screen. We feel that it looks extremely professional and wouldn't be out of place at the beginning of a real, high budget film. We knew how to produce the logo due to prior experience in both Photoshop and After Effects and whilst we were creating it we toyed with different ideas such as varying animations and colour patterns.

Mr Judge Feedback

Medal: Well done on catching up with the previous tasks that were outstanding  You have completed them to a good standard with appropriate images

Mission:What we now need is to see is your evidence for designing and creating studio logo's and your understanding of the correct conventional title orders as studied in class for 'SkyFall' . You also need to complete the BFI yearbook data for 2014 in particular the Horror/Thriller genre as discussed yesterday.  

Please provide feedback, in the form of a new post, how and when you hope to achieve the tasks. 

Task 3 Target Audience: Subject: X Target Audience/Age Rating

Our film, Subject: X, is an action/thriller that we have given a 12A age rating after researching the BBFC age ratings. Our film involves dangerous behaviour that children should copy but isn't show as glamorous, as well as this it involves a small amount of foul langauge (one swear word) throughout the film. There's a bit of the film which involves a weapon being used but it isn't glorified and is very minimal, there's also partial nudity within the film as one of the main characters has their top removed in a scene but they still remained somewhat covered with bandages.

Therefore we feel that it should be this age rating as it isn't strong enough to be rated as a 15 but still involves themes that are deemed too dark to be a PG.

The target audience of our film is more masculine over feminine as our product embraces the masculine codes and conventions that surround the action/thriller genre. It involves a male lead and two male antagonists, however this could be an attraction for a female audience. The use of violence, chase scenes and foul language are stereotypically things that men look for a film and are deciding factors as to whether they want to watch it or not. The ages of our target audience range from 15 - 40 as younger people tend to enjoy an adrenaline burst, which you get from watching an action film. People who are over 40 tend not to be our target audience because as people get older they prefer usually 'slow down'. So we have lost the majority of that audience but it will be made up by the amount of people from our target audience who watch the film due to the 'cash cow' that is the genre we have chosen. The general income bracket of the people watching this film would range from B-C2 (middle class to skilled working class), as well as there will most definitely be E class people (students) who will watch the film as well. Usually the action genre attracts C1 middle class but due to the upper class portrayal of the main character as well as the use of intellectual themes in the film we feel that may also attract C2 middle class so we expanded the target audience bracket further.

Task 3 Target Audience: BFI Statistical Yearbook Analysis and Summary

The Horror film genre released 37 films in 2013 taking in 57.5 million pounds. Whereas the Thriller genre had 64 film releases but only took in 29.1 million pounds. The Horror genre is twice as popular as the Thriller genre despite only realising around half (57%) the amount of films as the Thriller genre actually did. Thus making Horror the more popular genre, in the UK and Republic of Ireland, out of the two as it took in 5% of the box office compared to the 2.5% that Thrillers took in. However, in 2013 the all round most popular genre in regards to gross intake was Animation after taking in 246.6 million pounds despite only releasing 33 films.

The average amount of sites showing horror films at its widest point of release was 145 whereas the average amount of sites showing thriller films at their widest point of release was 89. Linking this back to some of the data in the previous paragraph, Horror is still more popular. It was more popular as, on average, it was shown at more sites despite having less films released. In comparison to the film with highest average number of sites at its widest point of release (Sci-Fi), both of these genres seem relatively weak as Sci-Fi only had 9 releases but its average number of sites at its WPR was 422.

The highest earning genre of film per site, on average, was the Adventure genre. It earned £28,816 on average across 2,004 sites. Horror only mad an average of £10,108 across 5,367 sites. Basically a third of what Adventure did despite having over double the amount of sites. The Thriller genre doing even worse, making around half (£5,127) of what the Horror genre did on average per site despite also having around 5,000 sites (5,667 to be precise).

In the UK, action films grossed the most out of the UK Box Office making £64,100,000 which accounts for 25.1% of the UK Box Office despite only having 9 films released. Horror released 7 films which is 5% of the total amount of films released in the UK and made 5.8% of the UK Box Office with £14,800,000. Thriller, once again coming in last, released 17 films which is 12.2% of all films released in the UK but only managed to make £4,100,000, only 1.6% of the UK Box Office.

Task 2.2 Research Into Existing Products: Studio Logos/Film Titles: Conventional Title Order

Albert R. Broccoli's EON Productions Ltd. Presents...

Daniel Craig

Skyfall

Starring...

Editors

Music By

Written By

Produced By

Directed by

The order of titles is essentially in order of importance, starting with the production company as they're the ones that made the film possible. This is then followed by the main star of the film, in this instance it's Daniel Craig. The main star's name is displayed on its own as it is potentially one of the main attractions to the film and is therefore more important than the rest of the cast. For example, a majority of women aren't interested in the James Bond series but they are interested in Daniel Craig. Then the title is displayed and all the names of the rest of the cast are seen on screen. After this all the 'behind-the-scenes' roles are displayed such as editing, composers and screenwriters with the director being displayed as the very last name as he/she is the most important and the name that they want you to remember the most.

(above) A title order made by us as an example of how it will look in our film.

Task 2.1 Research Into Existing Products: The Representation of Gender/Ethnicity in the Thriller/Horror Genre

Representations are often pre-established in genre films such as Horrors and Thrillers and certain representations have now become stereotypes and archetypes. Dracula is the most widely recognised horror character and still has the same general stereotypical and archetypical values as in the the original 1931 film made by Bela Lugosi. His gender, age, costume and social class hasn't changed much, if at all. He has to be a middle aged, Caucasian male with an Eastern European accent that speaks broken English whilst wearing a black cape, having fangs, living in a castle and having the ability to turn into a bat.

Cultural Bias

Hollywood  has always been 'white' centric.

 Lead actors and directors have always been male Caucasians with coloured and ethnic minority actors only playing minor roles and parts. However some actors have defied the white centric bias of Hollywood taking on lead roles to become some of the most famous actors of the modern period (Will Smith & Morgan Freeman are just a couple of examples). In thrillers its common for the main protagonist to be a white male. In the 1990s, things started to change with Morgan Freeman playing Detective Somerset in the 1995 film 'Se7en'. After this, many films and TV Dramas continued to field black or ethnic minority actors as the main protagonist.

 Gender Bias

In Thrillers, females have predominantly been assigned the victim role or the femme fatale. Since the Silence of the Lambs in 1990, specifically Jodie Fosters role as FBI rookie 'Clarice Starling' the representations of women have been more and more challenging in both Thrillers and Horrors. In Horrors the main antagonist is also generally male, and a white Caucasian in their 40s/50s unless they're an other worldly creature.

Heterosexual Bias

Having a non-straight protagonist is extremely rare even in modern, liberal Hollywood. The thought of a non-straight lead detective in a film isn't heard of, most likely due to the connotations of sensitivity associated with homosexuality because they're most often cold individuals. This is a major criticism of Thomas Harris, the author of the Hannibal Lecter books whose antagonists all feature homosexual tendencies and sexual deviances. By doing this he has contributed to the formation of a negative stereotype.

MR JUDGE FEEDBACK

1. WELL DONE SO FAR - GOOD AMOUNT OF TEXTUAL ANALYSIS CONTENT - GET SOME QUALITY IMAGES ON TO GET TO A LEVEL 4  
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF THE OPENING OF SE7EN WITH IMAGES AND VIDEO EMBED FOR SE7EN

2.   CHRISTIAN METZ MODELS OF GENRE DEVELOPMENT – HORROR (12D ONLY) + IMAGES

1.   FILM NOIR & HISTORY OF GENRE (HSR) + IMAGES/VIDEO EMBEDS

2.   STEREORTYPICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THRILLER/HORROR GENRES/CHARACTERS

3.   TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF OPENING OF A HORROR FILM – WOMEN IN BLACK/SCREAM etc.