Initial Ideas - Script

Initial Ideas

Ideas for movie title and caption:
• End of the tunnel – (Caption) At the end of the tunnel…Try the beginning of it
• Any day can be the last – (Caption) Live for tomorrows rush
• Where the soldiers stay – (Caption) As deep as your last breath
• Reflection – (Caption) Alone in the streets
• Honour and Respect – (Caption) Sometimes you have to earn it the hard way

Movie title and caption chosen: Where the soldiers stay – (Caption) As deep as your last breath

Characters:
Jason ‘Ghost’ Peniro – (main character) – Has lived in a troubled area for most of his life and has gone through many bad incidents which he regrets. As the movie goes on Jason decides he needs a change in life and attitude a positive change, but there are many external factors which keeps dragging him down so he must overcome these hurdle through any means necessary.

Charlene Peniro – (Supporting character) – Is a single parent that raised Jason on her own. Although she is a supporting character she plays a major role in trying to change Jason.

Melanie Andrews – (secondary character) – Is Jason’s girlfriend who occasionally gets him to stay out of trouble by pulling him away from arguments which could get Jason in to deeper trouble than he already is, she is one of the positive influences in Jason’s life. Melanie does not get along with Dillon, Jason’s cousin as she knows that Dillon is one of the main reasons why Jason gets in to trouble in the first place.

Dillon Hedge – (secondary character) – Is Jason’s cousin that plays a negative role in Jason’s life by getting himself out of trouble whilst landing Jason in to it. He is one of the main reasons why Jason usually ends up in trouble; Dillon does not get along with Melanie as she usually pulls Jason away from him to keep Jason from getting influenced.

There would also be other minor characters introduced.
Story/Plot/Narrative:
Born and raised in a rough area of West London, Jason is trapped in a lifestyle which he himself regrets getting in to, he had gotten kicked out of college for abusive behaviour as well as a list of convictions which has resulted in Jason finding it hard to get a job, which forces him in to another lifestyle of drug dealing influenced by his cousin Dillon. Tired and fed up of this lifestyle had decided to go on a straight path and change his outlook from negative to positive with his girlfriend Melanie and his supporting mother Charlene, how-ever what drags him back is his troubled lifestyle revolving around drugs, gangs, guns and knives but most importantly his troublesome cousin Dillon which always influences Jason to get in to trouble. In the movie we see Jason changing his outlook until Dillon influences him to get in to something which can potentially land Jason in jail as well as leaving him in some criminal’s bad sides which Jason goes along with. After this flip of events Jason must overcome situations which could lead to his death, his situations keep on getting deeper and deeper until finally he tells his mum and girlfriend who help him out. After a heavy turn of events and incidents Jason gets out of trouble and can finally decide to lead a good life with his mum and girlfriend but his cousin Dillon is still in a sticky situation, Dillon rings up Jason and tells him his (Dillon’s) life hangs in the balance if he doesn’t decide to show up where Dillon is. Soon after the phone call he straight away knows what he may get in to if he goes to where Dillon is, so he has either 2 options:
• Leave Dillon and settle down peacefully, or
• Leave his mum and girlfriend and possibly the good life to try and save Dillon.
The latter shows Jason choosing to save Dillon and leave everything but when he gets to where Dillon is he gets a nasty shock as Dillon had set him up with the people that were after Jason and Dillon ending in Jason getting shot and Dillon staring down on Jason as Dillon had sold out Jason to save himself.

Two minute opening sequence:
For the two minute opening scene we are going to show Jason coming out of his flat/block etc. we then see him on the phone to his cousin Dillon, who just woke up telling Jason he will be ready in an hour or two then inviting him to his house. We then see Jason making a movement towards Dillon’s house which fades away representing a time skip of about an hour. Jason knocks on Dillon’s door, Dillon fed up gets up to open the door. The scene is later shown to Jason and Dillon having a conversation about their plans for the night. Jason has a worried face whereas Dillon is carefree. The end of this scene shows Jason and Dillon ending their conversation and walking out the door.

Script

The beginning of the scene shows Jason coming out of his flat/block, we then see a P.O.V of him opening the door and then a worms eye view of him coming outside to represent that he has power outside of his house. We then see Jason making a phone call to someone as he pulls out his phone.

Jason: yeah, hello… Where are you?

Scene cuts to see Dillon waking up and picking up the phone.

Dillon: I’m at home… just woke up you know

Scene cuts back to Jason to see and hear his reply. A consistent reverse-shot-reverse is done.

Jason: What do you mean you just woke up…? How long are you gonna be?

Dillon: Don’t know… may be an hour, Come over to mines

Jason: should I come over yeah

Dillon: yeah still

Jason: alright I’m on my way, make sure your ready

Dillon: OK cool bye

Jason: Make sure

Dillon: OK bye

Scene cuts to Jason to see him making a movement towards Dillon’s House. Scene cuts to Dillon and a loud knocking is heard. Dillon frustrated, gets up to answer the door. When he opens the door Jason is show ready to nag him.

Jason: You’re not even ready yet

Dillon: So what man

Jason: What do you mean what man

Dillon: Just get in the house

Jason enters the house, angry at Dillon for not being ready. Scene fades to Dillon’s living room.

Jason: You’re letting me down man
Dillon: Whatever

Dillon is getting ready by putting on his jacket and other clothing. Scene cuts to a nervous Jason.

Jason: You do know if Hakim find out where dead

Jason is worried whilst Dillon is carefree, this line represents that Dillon and Jason would be doing something that puts them at risk. A reaction shot of Dillon and Jason is shown. Scene cuts to Dillon putting on his trainers in a carefree way.

Dillon: Don’t worry man… You worry too much… Hakims nothing man

Dillon: Let’s go!

Dillon and Jason both exit the living room which fades away to represent the end of the two minute opening scene.

MUSIC RESEARCH

Music Research

Artist name: Styles p
Track: Alone in the streets
Album: Time is money
Genre: Rap/Hip-Hop
We had thought about using this track as our opening sequence theme but had decided not to go with it, although it did go along with our storyline/theme it had not reached our expectations for the opening sequence as it did not go with the filming that we had done.

Artist name: Styles p ft Nas
Track: What they want
Album: unknowm
Genre: Rap/Hip-Hop
For a while we had used this track as our theme song but had decided to change it due to the negative feedback as well as the explicit language used in the track. The reason that we had gotten negative feedback for this track is because it does not suit the theme of our genre.

Artist: P-Money
Track: Single Words
Album: Money Over Everyone
Genre: Grime
This is the track we had decided to use since it had positive feedback as well as hardly any explicit language which meant that audiences would not be offended when listening or viewing the opening sequence. Although this is the ideal track there are negatives as well since it is a fast paced track whilst our sequence is slow paced.

Artist: JME
Track: Sidetracked
Album: unknown
Genre: Grime
This is the track that we were thinking very highly of to use since it did convey the message of the movie but the reason that we had not used it is because it conveyed it at the wrong part of the movie as it would be fit for the middle of the movie but not the beginning.

Artist: Ghetto
Track: Buss one
Album: Freedom of speech
Genre: Grime
This track was not very ideal for our opening sequence since it did not convey no message for our opening sequence at all. Also this track is a bit too violant as well as sending out the opposite message that we would want to send, overall it is the exact opposite of what we were looking for.

There were many other tracks that we went through before we had used our final track. We had gone through many artist’s playlists such as Eminem, Dr.Dre, Devlin,, Plan B, Lil wayne etc. we had gone through more than 30+ tracks before we had finally found the track that we wanted play for oour opening sequence.

Sohel Uddin Ahmeds - Evaluation

Evaluation

The coursework that we had been working and filming on was to create a two minute opening sequence to a movie, to do this we had to research on a lot of different media products and institutes to find out what makes a successful two minute opening. The research was primarily based on what kind of materials we could use for our opening product. This research was later processed in to the foundations of our opening sequence, some of the research had included:

• Watching clips: we had watched many different openings to assess which kind of footage we would be offering.

• Music research: we also researched on what type of style (genre) and track we were going to play in our 2 minute opening scene as music can help develop a dramatic effect in opening scenes and give an idea of what the sequence may be about.

• Storyboard/ideas/script: we as a group had to storyboard as well as come up with ideas and a script to finalize this idea.

There were also other research we had carried out, the output results were our final media product.

The 2 minute opening sequence that we had developed uses actual real media products as our genre was drama and drama heavily revolves around realistic themes. The ways that our media product uses real media products is by playing with the emotions and ideologies of the audience by using a music track that relates to our opening sequence for e.g. in a thriller movie you would expect a music which changes in tempo to play with the minds of the audience. Another way that our media product uses real media product is by catching the audiences interest by showing them or giving them a taster of what the opening scene as well as the movie will be about, the reason that catching the audiences attention is important is so that the audience do not give negative feedback as well as viewing the movie to the end. This means the way that we had caught the audience’s attention was by showing them an establishing shot right in the beginning of the 2 minute sequence. The reason that this will catch the audience’s attention is because the movie will be played mainly in London as well as set in London it self which means audiences may want to know the issues as well as scenarios as what may be going on.

The way that our media product develops in to a real media product is because it follows the codes and conventions of an actual media product for e.g. an actual media product would introduce its main characters in the beginning and develop on them throughout the movie not exposing too much in the start of the movie. We had followed this convention by introducing 2 main characters not exposing too much but developing on the convention by exposing a little bit of their nature as we only have 2 minutes and more to catch the audience’s attention. This is shown in our work when Jason (name not introduced for suspense) says “if Hakim finds out, you know he’s gonna kill us” this suggests that the nature of the characters run deep as the word kill is a strong word which also can show what the characters are involved in.

Our media product also challenges the forms and conventions of drama as the beginning is shown as serious as well as exposing some of the storyline and plot. The reason that this challenges the form and conventions of real drama media products is because drama movies develop their characters through out the movie by using the convention equilibrium-disequilibrium-equilibrium, whilst our product uses disequilibrium-equilibrium-disequilibrium with the seriousness of the drama and other conventions used as well. This also challenges forms and conventions since our product goes straight in to action and seriousness whilst real drama products takes time developing the situation and then adding the character/s in to that situation. Our media product also challenges forms and conventions since some of the footage shown in our drama is not part of the drama conventions yet has all the other conventions that a drama would have for e.g. P.O.V shots are not a main convention in drama, it is usually shown in third person whilst our media product has recurring P.O.V shots.

The 2 minute opening sequence that we had filmed and edited represents many different types of social groups but urban youth in particular. The reason that it represents the urban youths is because there are many different issues that revolve around the urban areas such as gun crime, knife crime, drug dealing etc. Also it represents the options that urban youths have when they get kicked out of college as many citizens of different classes are oblivious of what goes on in the urban area as well as the small and limited options and opportunities this social group has which forces them to do things to survive. Our media product also represents teenagers that get involved with dangerous conflicts as well as situations that most grown men wouldn’t be able to handle. It also represents how it is hard to turn around their lives with limited options and opportunity as well as other factors such family, friends, contacts etc.

The media institute which would distribute our media product is Revolver since Revolver is based around London as well as producing similar drama content such as KiDULTHOOD, BULLETBOY etc. We have also produced research on different types of institutes so that we can know or find out which would be the best suitable institute to distribute our media product. Although no research had been done on Revolver, primarily on the big institutes such as Columbia, Paramount etc. we had decided from internal knowledge that the best media institute to distribute our product would be Revolver as  Revolver are more in to touch with our target audience than any other media institute. Our target audience are urban youths, teenagers aged between 14-19 as well as adults so that the adults aged between 25-35 know about the situation that revolves around the urban youths. Also another reason that we had gone for revolver is because it is successful when distributing independent movies seeing as our opening sequence as well as our whole product is indie.

The way that we had attracted/addressed our audience is through marketing such as using our posters to let our target audience know about the movie. Although we used one method of marketing (poster) which may not get the result we may of wanted we had worked around that by deciding to also use viral marketing by uploading our two minute opening sequence on to YouTube. We had also worked around this issue by exposing the poster in a location where a lot of our target audience may reside. This helps us also to use another form of marketing which is word of mouth, this means the more we can expose to our target audience the more they will talk about the opening scene making more awareness towards our audience.

Whilst producing our media product I have witness as well as taken in how different platforms of media can come together to create a media product, for e.g. the technologies we use to film our product, the software’s to edit the filming as well as to create posters to market the product. Throughout the process I have learnt that there is much more to just filming and editing to product a first hand media product. Though it was a challenge such as learning how to use the equipment as well as new software’s on the iMac we were still determined to produce a piece of work that was more than up to standards. Being a windows user I found the iMac to be harder as well as confusing to use, despite these facts I was able to overcome this factor and was able to produce work that had nearly matched my skills in windows.

Looking back at my preliminary I feel that I have improved in my camera work as I had also done some camera work during our production. I also feel that I am more opened minded to different types of ideas to introduce in to my work. These ideas I feel have helped me to produce the quality of work that I have worked on. During the production process I have learnt how to use camera angles most effectively as well as using it in the timing for e.g. using a worms eye view to show power on a character etc. I have also learnt and harnessed my editing skills on the imac’s software iMovie, though it was a challenge getting used to the software in how to edit, crop, add effects etc I have found that the iMovie is a very useful as well as a powerful tool to use for an independent movie as it could be used as a low budgeted tool for indie films.

Evaluation by: Sohel Uddin Ahmed

Candidate number: 1204

Centre number: 12350

As level media studies

Mise-En-Scene - Avatar (2009)

Mise-en-scene in the 2009 film Avatar the costume has a very unique look and hasnt been done before, in this film new and innovative technology has been used to create a new world, animals and characters that has never been done before, this technology is newly developed and is a big step in future development of films. In avatar they were able to make distinctive new and never before seen creatures that look extremly life like, aswell as making a specie of natives that have an innovative design and human like features. The stand out of the film is the the world in which the movie is set, during the night the scene comes to life and mesmerises the auidence with its lighting and scenery in general.

Camera Angles - The Dark Knight

This is an Example of a close up it shows the full image of the face.

This is an example of a two shot, it shows two characters in the scene.

This is a canted camera shot as it shows distortion and shows a sense of imbalance and danger.

This is a focus zoom, it shows someone close and some of blurred in the distance.

This is an example of an over the shoulder shot where the carea looks over a characters shoulder for a conversation or meeting.

 

This shows a low angle shot, this tpye of shot gives the character a sense of power as the auidence is looking up at him.

 

This is an example of a close up it shows mostly the characters face.

This is an example of a long shot, it is used to show a character or characters at a distance with some scenery in the shot aswell of buildings.

This is an example of a tracking shot, it usually has a moving object and the camera follows it along its path.

 

This is an Ariel shot, it shows a city or landscape looking directly down toward the ground.

Film Poster Final

Institution Research - Paramount Pictures

Paramount pictures is a film production company that produces and distributes film across the world, they were founded in 1912 and are currently owned by media company Viacom, it is currently America’s oldest film production studio and is the only remaining studio to be situated in Hollywood, there current revenue stream is more that 3 billion annually.

Paramount were founded in 1912 under the name Famous Players Film Company, right from the offset they started making feature length films for the target audience, these films led to the studios being more and more recognized, in 1914’s they started releasing films under “Paramount Pictures Corporation”, this led to Paramount becoming the worlds leading film distributor, this led to paramount getting famous and well known actors such as Gloria Swanson etc, this led to them introducing the “Block Booking” system which meant that if a theatre wanted to show a film that had a well known star they had to buy other paramount films as well this is what led to paramount being the no1 film company at the time, with this new found success paramount’s key people wanted to expand this led to them building over 2,000 movie theatres and 2 production studios to maximize revenue they also acquired a 50% equity in CBS(Columbia Broadcasting System). In 1936 Zukor bought out most of the shareholders of paramount and restructured the company as Paramount Pictures, Inc, this led to paramount making some of the most memorable films of recent time, which includes titles such as Titanic and Saving Private Ryan, but early into the 2000’s paramount announced that its parent company’s have split the announcement that CBS and Viacom splitting left Paramount with networks such as MTV and BET.

In 2005 Paramount bought out DreamWorks which is a modern production studios that produces different types of media from films to video games, the deal in which DreamWorks was bought was roughly around 1.6 billion, this led to paramount getting the distribution rights to DreamWorks Animations film which raked in even more money with the releases of the Shrek Franchise, this deal was active until 2008 when DreamWorks announced that they were looking for a new distribution partner. Also during this time Paramount were one of the first major film production/distribution studio to support physical HD Media in the form of Blu-ray and HD-DVD this early support for the format led them to re-releasing there key film franchises in the high definition format as well as adding extras due to the disc capabilities of the physical disc format, also paramount extended there film distribution horizons by opting to distribute through downloads and streaming media through 3rd Party hardware and software e.g. Netflix and through game consoles i.e. Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.