Main Task - Post 4a - Plot development

Synopsis
Film name - Poker face
Genre - Action
Target audience - 15+
An undercover detective faces another challenge as his girlfriend is held captive by the same mafia squad who killed his father, intense action from the start.

Dwain Jefferson, an undercover cop is on yet another case, as he hunts down a mafia squad holding his girlfriend captive at her own will. Dwain constantly searches for clues that may lead him to the whereabouts of the mafia squad and his girlfriend. The mafia squad want nothing but Dwain's father million pound fortune, will Dwain eventually have to give up his fathers money for the sake of his girlfriend? Or will the mafia squad torment Dwain and his family at the same time as gaining the jackpot sum of money?

The opening scene will be the opening credits (Dwain is in an office looking at pictures of him and his father as well as his girlfriend. Names of the actors, director, cameraman etc, will appear on post-it notes across Dwain's desk). This will be followed by the mafia squad in a room playing poker as they have Dwain's girlfriend captive, Dwain phones them and eventually finds them as he bursts through the door, the opening sequence is then followed by the name of the film.

Main Task - Post 4 - Group meeting

We have held a group meeting and after evaluating our research we have come to the conclusion that we will stick with the action genre, seeing as majority of our random people said that action was their favourite genre of film. We too brainstormed what we want our film to be about and also what the opening sequence will consist of.

Description of film
Dwain Jefferson (Danny Warwick), an undercover cop is on yet another case, the same mafia squad (Jack Cotton, Charlie Holden and Ben Howard) who killed his father and once held his mother captive have come back for his girlfriend, Dwain wants her back but all they want is the rest of the million dollar fortune left behind by Dwain's dad. The mafia squad torment Dwain to the max by eventually capturing several members of his family along with his girlfriend, but will they get him too?

Opening sequence description
The opening sequence will consist of the opening titles as well as Dwain in an office sobbing over the loss of his father, then we cut to the mafia squad playing poker whilst Dwain's girlfriend is captive, Dwain breaks in and then the title 'Poker Face' appears.

You may recognize similarities between our possible film and the film 'Taken' We all agreed that this film is what we were going for, we liked the idea of a set of people holding family members of an agent at their own will. Where in the film 'Taken' a group of foreigners kidnap Liam Neeson's daughter, we take a spin on it where a mafia squad kidnap an agents girlfriend. So I suppose the film 'Taken' influenced our ideas a fair bit.

Main Task - Post 3 - Research into opening sequence designs

Kyle Cooper interviews
He believes that the present title sequences set the tone/scene for the film about to be watched, he says that once watching the opening sequence of a film you are fully focused on the film itself and nothing else. The opening titles also set the tone for the film, so if you are liking the look of the opening titles then you will probably like the film. He says that the opening sequence often sets expectations for the film overall.
Kyle Cooper talks about 3 main title sequences that he did, 'Darkness Falls' Se7en' and 'Spiderman 2'

Kyle talks about the first title sequence that really had an impact on him was the opening sequence for 'The dead zone'. As it was very simple typography, the music was well used and 'mysterious'
He says a title sequence is great when it can capture the main characters obsessions, like 'Scouts' treasure box.

Kyle Cooper interview part 1
Kyle Copper interview part 2

For our film we want to take some of what he has said on board, we want it to set the tone for the film and instantly grab the audience. However we want it to be more about the build up to the potential actual film.

Main Task - Post 2 - Choosing your genre

Looking in the London metro newspaper on 6th December 2012 I noticed an article that showed the figures for the top grossing films in the UK ever. Seeing as me and my group were still undecided of what genre to choose for our opening sequence I looked at which genres performed best in the UK box office over the years. The top ten varied from Skyfall to Toy Story 3, Mamma Mia to Harry Potter, and also Avatar to Lord of the rings.

From reading this article I noticed that the new James Bond movie 'Skyfall' made a significant breakthrough considering to this day it has only been in theaters for a month or so it is officially the top grossing film in the UK ever to this day. So from this I know that 'Skyfall' is a very successful action film, whilst the second and third best were Avatar (Sci-Fi/Adventure) and Titanic (Romance) respectively. I notice that action films tend to be very popular amongst the British public, as I followed up my first research by looking at the top grossing films for 2012 on http://boxofficemojo.com/. This website gave me the figures for the top 100 grossing films in the UK for the past year. Shown on this website too, Skyfall dominates the table this year, but it was followed by The Dark Night Rises and also The Avengers (noticeably both action).  

As a group at the moment we are leaning over towards action because it seems to be very popular with people in the UK, especially in the past year, but we will conduct further research and ask various members of the public to fill out a short questionnaire that should in turn help us make our decision more clear.

Questionnaire

So as a group we created a nice and short questionnaire that we hope would help us into deciding what genre of film to make our opening sequence about. Below is a sample of our questionnaire that has been filled out by one of our random people. The questions on the sheet varied from 'What is your favourite genre of film?' to 'How often do you go to the cinema?'. With questions like these we made sure that the questionnaire was short and to the point as well as being fairly easy for our random public to fill out.

Above is a questionnaire that I asked one of my neighbours to fill out, to categorize him I would place him as a middle-aged man. We as a group asked around about 30 different people of various ages in order to get the best possible results that would in turn help us decide and make the most appropriate opening film sequence. My neighbours response was what I had expected, due to the previous researches showing that action films were the most popular amongst the British public. The trend continued with the rest of the random people and we tallyed it up as a total and from the 37 people that we asked to fill out our questionnaire, 22 said that action was their favourite genre of film. The other possible genres to chose from varied but in second it was comedy.

Main Task - Post 1 - Conventions of an opening sequence

When it comes to opening sequence there are a lot of conventions that you would expect to see in them. In any genre, the same conventions are likely to appear. Be that the name of the film, the cast/crew members, or a background to the film itself. I will look at two opening sequences from two different genres during this task.

Below are a list of conventions that I would expect to see in an opening sequence.

• The films title
• The production company's name
• Details of the cast and crew
• An overview of the setting for the film
• Information regarding the mood and tone of the film
• The theme tune/soundtrack for the film
• An introduction to the main character and supporting actors
• Codes and conventions that would appear in the genre of film, for example I would expect to see explosions in an action opening sequence.

Batman - The Dark Knight Rises
The first opening sequence that I watched was the recent Batman movie 'The Dark Knight Rises'

• The first convention of an opening sequence that I noticed was the productions company's name and logo, this is important because it lets the audience know what company produced the film.

• The second convention that I noticed was various names of the cast and crew appearing in the opening sequence, the person behind the film is usually first to appear seeing as that person (in this case Christopher Nolan) thought of the film.

• Another convention that I noticed was that the general idea of the opening sequence was that it was based around the idea of mystery and clue solving. This is a good idea as the film is about batman who takes on the role of a superhero and detective. In this shot we notice the Batman logo and also the place of setting (Gothan City).

Here is the actual opening sequence for the film 'The Dark Knight Rises'

Forest Gump

The second opening sequence that I watched was 'Forest Gump'

• The first convention that I noticed was the production company responsible for the film, it shows Paramounts name clearly and also its logo. This is important as it clearly shows the audience what company produced the film.

• The second convention that I noticed was the name of the person who directed the film. This is important as it lets the audience watching know who is responsible for the film that they are about to see.

• The third convention is similar to the second, in that this one lets the audience know who is in the film, in this case it is Tom Hanks who stars as Forest Gump.

• Here we see Tom Hanks as Forest for the first time, the camera floats down and pans across to him sitting on a bench, this convention introduces us to him and the film.

Here is the actual opening sequence for the film 'Forest Gump'

Post 12 - Independent Work Towards Targets

In preparation to the main task I have looked to meet the targets that I set in the previous post in the build up to the main film. So for example for Specific, I have been onto youtube to watch the opening sequences for certain films that I like