Update on our film opening progress.

My partner and I have used the half term constructively and saw it a good time to crack on with our opening of our film. We have decided to change certain aspects of our films which will hopefully make it a better visual image. We have stuck to our first storyboard in terms of camera angles but due to unforscene difficulties we had to change our location but i feel it has not damaged our idea but in fact made it better as we found a location in Teddington in a scrappy group of garages which is a very good location for our production. We have also added some masks to our production for all characters to wear as hiding the identity makes the film more sinister and interesting. We have filmed almost all of our production and now need to start the editing process however if we feel it was not good enough we still have time to go back and do some more filming. But overall it has been a very productive half term.

Our Film Treatment Produced by Finbar Murray and Alex Atkinson

We are creating a crime/thriller

The film will follow in a similar style to a Guy Ritchie film for example: ‘Lock Stock, Two Smoking Barrels (1998)’ and ‘Snatch (2000)’ for example, by including gangsters and being situated in the East End of London, with a dark feel to it. Our film opening lasts only 2 minutes, and  follows a modern day trend beginning with the ending of the story;  if we were to continue the story reversing back time to lead back up to this event, we would show how the plot came to fruition.

The film opens with a jet black car coming round a corner into camera ; the mise-en-scene is an industrial estate. Whilst the car drives down a single desolate road, the camera changes between shots providing different views of the car and the characters inside the car. During this point the credits will run and introduce the number actors playing the roles. A title sequence can be unimaginative and typical, so we wanted to create our own unique take on the introduction by introducing the characters of the crime/thriller in the form of tattoos on the body of each of the characters. For example, the shot will zoom in on the tattoo and will appear into focus with the actor’s name “Finbar Murray” (for example) written on the hand with patterns around the writing to reflect the uniqueness of our specific production style. Tattoos are icons that anchor the film as a thriller and create the dangerous gangland world.

 Once the car has come to a halt, the driver then gets out of the car with changing camera angles to support following him down the side of the car to the boot where he opens it and reveals a man inside taped up. More suspense will be built as a gun is pulled out. The camera then switches to the boss who has been introduced in the credits (sitting in the front passenger seat). The camera is pointed at him for a few seconds and then a loud gunshot goes off and the boss makes no kind of emotion as a result. The driver now enters back into the car and then the two backseat passengers get out of the car and lift the body from out of the boot and dump him on the ground. The camera then flicks to the front passenger who is still sitting there with an unchanging facial expression. This shows the hierarchy of the group: the leader in the passenger seat who doesn’t deal with the body. His right hand man is the driver and the two muscle men are there to do the dirty work.

During the entire opening a voice-over will be running throughout the opening explaining how the kidnapped man had ended up how he had, which gives the audience an insight into understanding the plot more clearly. As the film is set in East London the voice-over narration needs to be a stereotypical ‘East End cockney’ accent rather than a ‘Middle Class Surrey’ accent to help work alongside basis of our film.