Target Audience For Film ☮ ☮ ☮

Our group has gone for the age certificate rating of 15, as this gives us the opportunity to include certain violent themes in the scene that often we wouldn't be able to in a 12 or lower rating. This means we can use the idea of suffocation and heavily beating someone.

 We will believe gender wise the male audience will be heavily attracted to the film due to the high amount violence and dark tones throughout the scene, This is due to the stereotypical male love for the violent thrill of films and video games, whereas women tend to stir away from the violent gory type due to them being stereotypically squeamish towards it. This specific film will be psychological and will have a impact on the audience as we are using a slow painful and somewhat effecting to the audience death, so this has made us believe that this age rating is appropriate as anyone younger may be heavily effected by it and find it too gory for it to be watchable.

Age wise we believe that a older teen/young twenties will be most interested in the film due to the thought that they would have the capability to run and do action type activities which are going to be shown within the film, but also show a restriction and the sense of restriction when it comes to murder and violence, as the actors in the scene will be around their ages and show a psychological impact of the fact that people of their age are capable of killing. We don't believe it would be as popular with the older generation as the fast paced and dramatic sudden music will make them too jumpy and the imagery and the uniqueness but also the gore of the assault seen may be too much for them and be horrified with the graphicness of the shots involved.

Initial Film Opening Ideas ☮ ☮ ☮

Our film opening being a thriller we have decided to embrace certain conventions and stereotypes within a typical thriller film, so that is why we are focusing on the theme of assault/murder.

Initial Plot
The initial idea is to have the scene take place in two places at once, where we have our protagonist walking through the wood like alley,which has a dark and creepy setting to show the mood of eeriness to our audience,walking her dog, we will also have another innocent character waiting for our protagonist in a coffee shop, we wanted to also involve technology into the scene so we are using close ups on the screen of the phones whilst messages are being sent to our protagonist as this is a way of telling the audience information about the plot of the film whilst also incorporating certain themes of the "teenage lifestyle" in doing so,texting. We'll also have our antagonist be shown barely throughout this scene to remain confidentiality to insure a mysterious look, and show them suffocating our protagonist with a bag which will also have bloody hits involved to show a gory look to it as well. Our protagonist will collapse making the audience assume death. Straight after this we will have our antagonist reveal their face by removing a mask this will be revealed to be one of the protagonists friends to have the shocking betrayal convention within the scene then see the antagonist take an item from the presumed dead protagonist , after this we will then follow the antagonist back to their presumed home where other one of our antagonists friends are waiting to hear if our antagonist has killed the victim yet. following this we will then see a shot of the protagonists hand moving to show hope.

Characters
Tara: Our protagonist who is assaulted in the alley.- Nadiye Killick
Rosemary: Our antagonist who assaults Tara.- Chloe Bennett
Ellie: Taras friend who waits for her in the coffee shop.- Mae Fisher
Bella: Rosemary's associate in assaulting Tara.- Katy Welch

Mise En Scene
Our protagonists will be wearing light colours to show the sense of innocence and purity, she will also have earphone listening to music and a dog she will be walking, to show realism and the effect that she is just a regular ordinary girl. Our Antagonists will be wearing dark colours most likely black this will make the audience see them as dark spirited and evil this also makes it hard to identify them as they will be committing a crime. Our antagonists associate will be wearing a mixture of dark and light tones as she would not have committed a crime but would have been involved in it, this is why she will be showing light tones to show in comparison to our antagonists she is more liked by the audience. Our protagonists innocent friend at the coffee shop will also be wearing light tones but will be wearing some dark as she has an angry emotion and this will be portrayed through her clothing. We will also be using a prop of a plastic bag in order to "suffocate" Tara and also fake blood within this when Rosemary hits Tara. We will then use some sort of jewellery to have Rosemary take off of Tara in order to show a reason in killing Tara.

Sound
Throughout the scene we will have eerie backing music to show the creepiness and set the dark mood for the scene. Also we will have the narrative like style of a voicemail message used over the shot of someone being assaulted. Also during parts of the assault scene we will have high tension fast paced music to show the effect of a building tension and action theme when the two are in the situation.


Equipment
We will be using the Nikon 3200 to film our opening scene, this camera is very good quality and would show a realistic image of the scene, To sturdy this and keep a balanced shot we will also be using a tripod. To edit we will be using Adobe premiere to which we will trim our clips add sound and narration and finally add credits to our scene to make a final 2 minute roughly opening scene.

Thriller Conventions ☮ ☮ ☮

Clichés

Typical thriller films involve some sort of revenge them for example, the protagonist hunts down the antagonist in order to restore justice, retrieve something or someone,or stop a radical plan, films like this involve the taken franchise and James bond franchise, although with both of these it is the protagonists job to save people and bring down the evil character. There will also usually be montages have the high tension fast paced music to build anticipation within the audience matched with a high action scene.

Conventions

Character and Location Conventions

Character types are usually the soon to be or already retired protagonist who never could bring down that one crime lord who has always hit a personal nerve and come out of their retirement or have one last mission to finally beat their arch nemesis. Other circumstances are that the antagonist is your regular work day type who has suddenly been struck with a situation where they have to fight back for the one they love or a family member, and go on a quest to success their enemy. Although sometimes the reason for the antagonists cruel plan is because of the protagonist due to a past love or a past victory that the protagonist has won over them. Location is usually in a small town at first to show that nothing much happens, which will all change when panic strikes and the real story begins,which is when the story will take the audience somewhere more exotic and crowded to show the difficulty and luxury  of the journey. Sometimes we see the character either protagonist or antagonist at the beginning of the film in a tough stage of life where we see a key event that is the reason for why they are who they are now.

Shot types/Camera angles and Effects

Typically fast paced shot reverse shot scenes are used at intense moments in order to show high tension and make the audience anticipate the climax of the scene and expect something drastic to be said or to happen. High angles are used to show the difficult route or hight of buildings of the antagonist to show the intimidation onto the protagonist, this is effective as it shows the audience the real compassion between the good and evil side. Slow motion is often used in high action scenes so that the audience can gather the full detail in the scene.Low lighting is often used as thrillers usually have dark moods throughout as one theme shown in this certain genre is not comedy, maybe subtle jokes that are acknowledged in the film but not really laughed at by the audience, so using dim lighting it sets a mood for the film to be serious and possibly dark at some points.

Theme and Narrative Conventions

Themes usually shown in thrillers are action, this is because the film will usually have fighting,gore and explosions, to have that "thrilling" mood on the audience. Also there is crime which is linked to action as the violence seen is usually illegal and is linked to the mobster and gang crime. whodunit's are common in these films, trying to find out who is causing trauma to them or society, this could also link to kidnapping, with the protagonist trying to find out who has kidnapped the victim and why. Narrative is used usually by the protagonist who guides us through the story in a very serious way, this makes the audience wonder if the story end badly or not. The narrative can also start at the end telling us how they came into this position and take us from the beginning after this.

Age Certificate Research ☮ ☮ ☮

Here I will be researching the age certificate ratings for the film industry and why certain age restrictions are put on certain films, and what genre of movie is typically targeted at certain ages.

First I will start with 12A, this certificate is usually given to a film, that could be seen as inappropriate for children, and means that any child under the age of twelve years old is by law not allowed to view the footage, but with the exception in this certain case to be allowed to watch if they're accompanied by an adult. This certain age certificate is used because of the certain tone the film or television show gives off, for example using strong language mildly, this can be passed off as a 12A, also mild sexual scenes and references can pass off as well. When it comes to frightening and intense fighting scenes, these are usually kept at a minimum, with this being more a playful and stage fighting with punches and minimal blood. This certificate in particular is usually used for films in the genre of romantic comedies, action comedies, and light thrillers, and is mainly used for companies who want to make a large income with money due to them maybe having a situation of having a large amount of money gone into a film and need to make a larger profit, Overall my group wants to go against the 12/12A rating as this limits us on what our opening scene could prosper into.

The 15 certificate is a bit more broad with references, gore, frightening/intense scenes and frequent strong language. 15 certificate means that anyone under the age of 15 cannot watch the footage as it could be deemed to as too offensive, violent and or frightening for young viewers. A 15 certificate rating could be used to prevent children younger than this age taking on certain activities that are seen in the film/show, for example violence and heavy use of weaponry, and drug taking depending on the realism of the context. The majority of film uses a 15 certificate, as it gives the opportunity to include more scenes and situations that wouldn't be allowed in a lower rating, but also being able to draw in a large audience, without loosing too many possible consuming viewers, thus leaving them with (depending on the  decency of the film) with still a high profit. 15 is also the major age for horror films as they still can pull in the targeted audience of young people who want to be scared, still bringing in a profit, and being able to involve intense and frightening scenes which is considered appropriate for the audience. Overall all film genres can benefit through this rating which is why it's the most popular, comedies can add in more crude jokes and drug use, horrors can have intense gory scenes, romance films can have longer and more frequent sexual scenes and references and finally action and thriller can add more violence and gore. This certificate rating is the one that my group believe is suitable for our opening scene as it gives us the opportunity to add more intense fighting and gore scenes, but we also feel that we are restricted still as it doesn't give us the complete right to show exactly what we want.

Lastly the 18 certificate rating is the least popular rating given to films, as it restricts the profit income as, it puts a hold on a large chunk of the world's population from buying and paying to see the film, Though with this pretty much any film with this certificate can do anything they want with their film, but even so there would still be a limit, Here you can expect very strong language being used, crude sexual references and scenes, extremely gory scenes and intense fighting which could be traumatic on certain members of its audience. Extreme horror films with this rating, would involve scenes that could cause traumatic distress and wouldn't be for the faint hearted. Overall with this specific rating my group wants to stir away from it due to the intense scenes expected and feel as if we wouldn't meet the boundary of what an 18 certificate would include.




Overall my group has decided to go with a 15 rating as it will be viewable for many and doesn't restrict us completely and for the certain scenes and what we want to entail, will fit perfectly into this category.

The Social Network Opening scene analysis ☮ ☮ ☮

The Social Network (2010) is based on the true story of Mark Zuckerberg and his journey of discovering, creating and succeeding Facebook, showing his strengths and weakness's, wins and losses in the process.

The scene starts with a black frame hearing an american man talking at a very fast paced speed about the statistical IQ rate of china compared to the USA, this immediately shows the audience that this man is intelligent due to his interest in talking about such matters, also due to his fast paced speech it illustrates a certain confidence about the man making him seem nerdy due to the sureness when he tells people these certain facts. The scene slowly fades into colour, the lighting is very dim making it quite dark moody scene, the wide shot shows the apparent teenaged boy opposite a teenage girl, seemingly on a date. The mise en scene shows that the boy conforms to his stereotype of being typically "nerdy" as he is wearing a "Gap" hoodie and has curly brown hair, showing that he doesn't have a very popular style, whereas the girl opposite him shows a style that would deem her pretty and a stylish look subverting to her stereotype of being with a jock like character and instead being with this nerdy boy.

As the couple continue to talk the shot types follow a pattern of shot reverse shot of over each others shoulder, each character is shown in frame whist they are talking showing a very quick pace as the shots alternate very quickly which builds the tension of something that is going to happen. The boy "Mark", then goes on to reveal that he got nothing wrong in his SAT test following the theme of him being a nerdy guy but also very intelligent. Throughout the scene we see that the boy continues to belittle his girlfriend making her seem less intelligent than him and continuously interrupting her when she tries to speak, therefore increasing the speed of the scene as boy speaks very fast and the shot reverse shot being used overtime someone speaks makes the audience feel on edge and anticipate the ultimate end of the scene which supposedly will end with a bang.

The subject of "final club" comes up, which seems to be linked to his college life, he appears to be very sensitive on the matter and takes this out on his girlfriend when calling her "delusional" with an irritated look on his face. We can see that the two are drinking as Mark continuously raises his beer, suggesting to the audience that he is drinking because he is stressed over "final club" and thats why he is being ,what some would deem, as cruel to his girlfriend.

We then see that Mark finally crosses the line when he tells Erica (his girlfriend) that she wouldn't have the opportunity to meet people that he will, making her breakup with him. Straight away we realise that he regrets it when he says if he's offended her he'll apologise, showing that he doesn't like to take back what he says, as he said he'll only apologise if he's offended her. Even then she rejects his offer, leading him to get angry and tell her she doesn't need to go study because she goes to BU which appears to be her college, this seriously offends her and leads her to tell him that the reason why girls won't like him isn't because he's a nerd but because he's an a*****e, then storming out leaving Mark staring blankly into the distance in a close up shot, making the audience empathise with Mark a bit, but also view him negatively as he treated his girlfriend with such distaste and disrespectful attitude that he seems deserving of the breakup.

The Purge Opening Analysis ☮ ☮ ☮

The Purge (2013), is a film set in a near future in the united states, where for twelve hours all crime is legal including murder, This is not to affect the rich suburban Sandin family, with their high security system invented by their father the family is safe, until.... Sympathy kicks in for the youngest child letting a stranger in the house, leaving the family with a big decision help the man and keep him safe and put their safety in danger, or sacrifice the man and live with a guilty conscience.

Opening with a black screen the film starts up by slowly bringing the audience into the scene, at this time a non-diegetic sound of the song Clair de Lune, a light string based song, is played in the background, setting a calm and steady mood for the audience, But almost immediately the audience are confuse as we see what appears to be cctv footage of a high angled wide shot of a man in a back alley with his hood up being shot my another guy, His mise en scene of wearing a hoodie concealing his identity, conforming to the stereotype that he is a "hoodlum" and is a threat to the peace, It also gets the audience to consider why the man is being killed and if he was deserving of it. Also looking at the poor quality clip we can see in the right hand corner the audience can see that the clip is in Jacksonville, US, setting a location for the film also, also in this corner we see that date of 2017, showing that this is a prediction of what life will be like in the near future.

We then gather that we aren't going to know the exact location and main characters of the film at the very beginning as we aren't seeing shots from just one location and aren't focusing on anyone personality's, But instead a montage of the violence, with gangs beating on people, visual use of guns, and a distressing scene of an unidentifiable person swinging an axe and killing if not seriously harming another individual, this sends off the impression of what the film is all about crime life and violence, making the film suit a higher certificate rating as this could be affecting towards kids.


Though some scenes only briefly cover the violent scenes, the audience doesn't have the chance to empathise with the characters who are being hurt, Until we see a girl covered in blood appearing to be cowering or hiding against a bright white wall in a medium shot, letting the audience see the grief that this is causing, Following this we see a distressing scene that shows a unarmed man being beaten by two others showing him a weak position as he is shown kneeling beneath the two thugs, then letting the audience to dislike the two gang members and emphasize for the people who are getting hurt. The shots now are in focus of those who are being hurt and we see buildings being set on fire, showing a possible riot that may be occurring. With the shots continuing in the cctv style shots we see in that the white text box in the right hand corner has the same two words at the top throughout "purge feed" suggesting that all of these violent acts are linked and are apart of this "purge", which shows the audience an immediate link to the title.

One upsetting shot in particular shows a blurred image of six men lying face down in an empty street in a long shot, this last roughly five seconds which is longer than the other shots, which makes the audience feel as the slow, light music is a tribute to those who have lost their lives in these crimes and that their death is remembered and valued. As we see more of what appears to be regular, everyday, innocent civilians being harmed it shows that the concept of the film could be gang life against the everyday people in society.

The scene closes with a shot of a man circling the bodies and random spots of fire in a large street in a long shot, who is a "hoodlum", also with the white text in the corner we can see that the year has changed to 2021, this year had been increased by one year every so often throughout the shots but on the same day,which shows the audience this is an annual occurrence to cause such disruption and trauma in a society, it makes the audience think for what reason do they do this annually when people are getting killed and hurt, it also makes the audience believe at this moment the gangs are on top and that the public are weak compared to them, and leaves the audience believing that at this time society is in chaos and needs to be helped.


The first purge film wasn't very good it lacked the action that it needed and so much more could have been done with the "freaky" "polite" killing gang, but failed in that department. Although the follow up was more entertaining, with its street view on the purge.

A Clockwork Orange Opening Scene Analysis ☮ ☮ ☮

The film "A Clockwork Orange"(1971) is a horror, thriller film focused on the menacing character Alex De large, The film is set in Britain but in the future, where he and his "droogs" go on a rampage of violent and sinister quests in order to mug and harm others purely for the benefit of themselves and to get a thrill from it all. With Alex having been arrested and tested by a new program to hate violence, his sentence reduced and back on the streets, how will Alex act ?

The first thing that pops onto the screen is a blood red solid background with the song "Part 2" By anonymous, which has a very low drums and and a futuristic keyboard low high noted sound , setting an uneasy and eerie mood, the blood red colour also suggests to the audience that the film is going to be violent, and must play a big role in this film if this is the first thing we are illustrated too.Although the solid red then changes to a royal solid blue colour, which shows a big contrast to the previous colour, illustrating to the audience that the film can take some unexpected shocking and changing turns, this colour is also then changed back to the blood red where the films title in a bold white appears "A clockwork orange".

Suddenly a close up shot appears on the screen of a man in a black top hat, which a menacing look on his face tilted downwards making his eyes bulge attracting the audience to look into them, we also see that the mans left eye has a very long dark pair of eyelashes, with his other eye having none at all, this shows a feminine look to the character but also a rougher side due to his other eye being appearing lash-less and having the demonising facial expression that he is pulling. His hair also seems to be neat and in a bobbed style also showing a feminine likeness to him, The man is also wearing a white shirt which is unbuttoned at the top showing he is quite casual even though he is wearing his top hat, this contrasts to his black background where his shirt pops off the screen.

The camera then begins to pan outwards showing the man surrounded by men in the same attire as him, introducing the audience to the presumed main characters friends perhaps, as the character is shown more we see him raise a glass of milk to his lips, where he doesn't remove eye contact from the camera showing a dominant personality, the milk itself also shows a child like quality as what appears to be a dark nightclub or bar setting the character is drinking milk instead of an alcoholic drink to which you would have thought a person of his age would drink, which looks to the audience late teens early twenties perhaps.

The camera then pans out further to reveal that the man beside him has blood on his shirt, suggesting to the audience that as it seems the men appear to be unharmed that they have harmed someone else. We also see that as the man who opened the scene has also got some blood on the cuff of his sleeve as he raised his glass to drink, we also see that due to him being in the middle of the four that he is the leader of their group. The camera pans out further to a long shot where we see the men resting their legs on what appears to be white statues of naked women, showing a weird and perverting sense to the men, making them seem as if they have little to no respect for women as the statues seem to have been made to wear makeup and have colourful feather bowers wrapped around them. The camera then coming to a wide shot of the scene , we gather that the place in which the scene is set is indeed a bar and then we hear a non diegetic sound of narrative over the music in a croaky and sinister voice, "There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs", due to the high focus on the character in the middle of the four we gather the narrator to be referring to this character (himself) to be Alex, and gather that the three surrounding him are his "droogs", to which the audience wouldn't know the meaning of.

The camera does not halt as it continues to pan further out showing a wider and wider shot, showing the characters centred at the back to be the main focus still as Alex's narrative continues, to which he confirms they were in a bar, but a milk bar, which Alex claimed that " This would sharpen you up and make you ready for, a bit of the old ultraviolnce" to which the dark and eerie music becomes louder and higher showing the character as twisted and frightening. Thus confirming the violent and dark themes through the colours at the beginning of the film we see that our supposed protagonist is going to be on terms of liking him a mixed emotional type.

Preliminary Task ☮ ☮ ☮

In this certain task my group focused on the continuity rules of filming the three rules were, Shot reverse shot, 108-degree rule and match on action shot. We used the staircase to set our scene to show multiple possible angles to use that could be different. Our clip only lasted a couple of minutes but we put in time to edit our shots so that the scene ran as smoothly as possible.

Strengths

I really felt that our group had good ideas and the staircase idea was a strong one, I feel like we could position the camera in a way that would look good with creating the right space for the actor on screen, especially when looking downward toward the brunette girl at the bottom of the stairs this was a balanced and successful angle as it was at more of a tilted shot.

 I also felt as though our skills for adding the sound effect of the school bell was successful, as it set to the scene perfectly, illustrating exactly where the scene was being set. Also with trimming the sound clip down to the size that we wanted, which we wanted to overlap to the next shot where we done our match on action, where our actress walks down the stairs in a close up of her feet showing that its still the same person and time, as to not confuse our audience.

 I also liked our strategy of filming each of our actors lines all in their own take and trimming them down in to separate clips in order to get the same position and maintain that continuity and realism of the scene, With this we could also point out any problems and plan out our scripted lines easily and delete any missed takes immediately removing any case for error.

Weaknesses

I believe there were some points which we could of improved on, for example with our camera skills I believe we could have made a better all round shot of the part of the scene where the two actors greet each other as it cut off the tops of their heads and they begin to laugh at the end but the camera cuts to the girls talking normally immediately after showing a lack of continuity and realism. This again shows at the end of the clip where we should see the blonde actress be in shot still when the brunette says goodbye, and seems almost as if it's a late reaction or that the girl is talking to herself.

We also could have improved on the cutting of the clips, although i though we had managed to do a reasonably good job at points there were places where the scene lacked speed and wold catch us just after we had begun to act and would show the conversation as unnatural due to the pauses in-between each of the actors sentences.

Targets

I think in order to improve our scene it all comes down to the majority of editing skills, the main problem is the cutting to show a realistic effect at the begging and in-between shots, which I believe we can do if our software's sound stopped muting in random places which made it difficult for us to get an accurate shot.

Then also positioning the camera in a place that would be perfect to fit the needed requirement of the actors body to fit on screen, so that the audience can identify who is on screen and can follow the scene more easily.

Then also making sure that are actors stay in character in order to make the scenes easier to cut, as having a certain bit you need to cut out in order to make the scene seem realistic, it would be easier to have a choice on where you cut your shot rather than knowing you'll have to cut out the laughter straight after.

Rules of Continuity in Film ☮ ☮ ☮

Continuity in filming comes with the post-production of editing to make the scenes shot fit as smoothly as possible to show a realistic and believable set. This comes with certain rules that are vital to follow in order to carry out the realistic effect to make sure that the audience can follow it's narrative without getting confused about the type of edit or angle the camera cuts to at certain points, Which goes as follows...

Shot Reverse Shot

This particular type of shot is used mainly when filming a conversation between two characters, showing two different shots of the characters talking to the other in a close up, typically one character looking left and the other character in another close up shot looking right. Usually with this shot the camera crew will film the scene either by filming it twice with shooting from the different angles as to not show the camera filming the character opposite, or will film all one characters lines without moving as to get the correct spot and vice versa. This type of shot is effective when wanting to show the characters reaction to each other in the conversation and the emotion they're portraying, It also is a clever way to make the audience feel up close and personal with the characters and make them feel as if they're actually involved within the conversation.

108° Rule

This rule is set to make sure that the camera crew don't edit the scenes shot to exceed more than 180° more than the previous shot, If the camera crew where to do this it would cause confusion to the audience as you would be crossing the characters line of vision, exceeding this shows an unbalanced set, as the audience would be introduced to new surroundings quickly without being able to show more of the actors or objects whereabouts gradually through a smaller cut to a different angle. Though some films can break this rule if they do it correctly, e.g.. if the director wanted to go for a more disorientated and wild scene this can be used when a certain character is mad, drunk or depressed to show how the character feels which rejects the confusion with the audience as they can understand that this is how the character would feel and would get the correct mood that the scene was trying to give off which could be eerie, creepy, disorientated etc...  

Match On Action

This particular shot shows an actor's movement or action, in a shot, then cuts to another angle (usually a close or extreme close up shot) which shows specifically what the character is doing, which shows the audience a precise move to preform this action. This particular shot is used usually in action films where a specific stunt is performed and then edit to show a a close up or slow motioned shot from another angle to show the shock or coolness of a particular move to make the audience see in detail the difficult move. The shot is also one used to create mystery and an eeriness, especially when it is a casual or normal move that people make in everyday life which is weird to see the camera focusing on it making the tension ride and seem suspenseful, whilst also giving off the sense of continuity.