Characters In Our Film

The picture on the left is the ideal character for our film. This man is smartly dressed and looks like a presidential figure. The character has neat hair and looks old enough to be a young prime minister. This is the sort of person that we would want in our film opening because it starts with the prime minister in his suit however his identity is different to his looks as he is a criminal. The man in the picture is also a good height as we would not want someone who was too short as it could make the character seem as though he is too young for the role.
This is the only character in the opening of the film and therefore he needs to be dominant over the screen so that the audience can tell he is the main character. As he has more screen time than any other character that might come later in the film, it makes him look important because all the attention is focused on him.

Rhys Williams

What to consider when developing our film opening

Film openings are made so that the audience will want to see the rest of the film because they have been enticed by the opening however they are made so that the viewers do not get too much information and therefore want to carry on watching in order to find answers to their questions.

Most of the time film openings want to start with an establishing shot in order to give the audience an idea of location, time of day and the time period the film was set in (past, present or future). This shot is required because it gives them that little bit of information about the film before we see anything else. Another key part of film openings in order to attract the audience is the sound used. It needs to be exciting sounds that are not dull but it also needs to fit the genre well so it doesn't look out of place.

Film openings can attract audiences by giving them small pieces of information from mise en scene and character. The generic conventions are important in an opening because people want to see the right props and lighting in order to recognise the fact it is a film from that particular genre. Characters are important because some people go to see a film due to the actors that are in it and therefore they will want an introduction to the big names within the opening. There are also generic conventions that relate to characters and people want to see characters that are typical for that genre, for example an action film has a hero and people want to see these characters done well in the opening as it gives them a short introduction to the storyline.

Rhys Williams

Our Film Certificate

The film certificate we have chosen to give our film is a 15 rated. Our film is a drug related action movie which contains explicit content and numerous references to illegal activity. For these reasons I believe it warrants more than a 12 rating because there are too many inappropriate references however an 18 rating would be too high for this sort of common action film.

The BBFC say that you can view the following things within a 15 rated film:

•   strong violence
•  frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').
•   portrayals of sexual activity
•   strong verbal references to sex
•   sexual nudity
•   brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
•   discriminatory language or behaviour
•   drug taking

Our film features many from the above list but nothing more inappropriate than that which is why we feel 15 would be the right category for our film. There are limits to how much these categories can be shown but they are relatively high.

The film being rated 15 would also be our ideal choice as the target market we hope will watch the film are from this age group and up. The common social cinema going age is from 16-24, these would be our main target of people who regularly go as a social event. The age group is perfect for our certification as anyone from that group can watch it.

One of the most recent action films to come out was called Deadpool which had a $55-60 million opening weekend and was rated 15. This film has a similar level of inappropriate behaviour and was successful with its age rating as it could gather a larger target market. 

Sometimes people do not go to see a film because the rating is too low and they feel it wont be as enjoyable because it is suited to younger viewers and therefore it puts them off the film, this is one of the reasons why a 12 wouldn't be our desired category.

Rhys Williams

Evaluation Of Remake

 

This remake we have created for the film opening Superbad will help us when we make our own film opening title sequence because it gives us some practice before we do our actual one. The remake has helped us to get an idea of how title sequences work and the timings in them. We have learnt that the more important company in production usually gets longer on screen than someone else. This is the same for actors, the most famous ones will get longer on screen as they are more important. The sequence is also ordered so that the more important names are before the less important. The title also stays for longer than anything else.

 

We have also learnt and had some practice in the editing and camera wok for opening scenes which gives a brief idea on how to use the software and hardware involved in the production. Our title sequence will be similar to this film as it is mainstream companies and it will be similar length.

 

Rhys Williams 

Type Of Insitution

As the genre we have chosen to do for our own film opening is action we have decided to operate as a mainstream institution instead of being an independent production company.

Our storyline consists of a plot that would be more enjoyable and focused to a larger audience because it is not too dissimilar to films that are currently being shown in cinemas across to the world. Mainstream in media is mass media that influences a large number of people and both reflects and shapes prevailing currents of thought. This means it is a more popular institution and therefore more people go to watch it. As an action film it would mean we are more able to get films out to a bigger audience across the country.

Mainstream media is generally better quality than an independent film who will usually budget to use cheaper equipment. Although we will not have access to the pieces of equipment that typical mainstream institutions would use we will have to just use the equipment available to us.

Rhys Williams And Sam du Berry

Moodboard

Rhys Williams and Sam du Berry

25 Word Film Brief

The Prime Minister is leading a double life as a politician and a drug distributor when a detective becomes suspicious. He tries to take him down.


Rhys Williams and Sam du Berry

Shotlist Of Remake

Time	Time elapsed	Shot
3:01	3:01	Still (zooms out)
2:00	5:01	Transition (cross blur)
4:01	9:02	Still (zooms out)
2:00	11:02	Transition (cube)
4:01	15:03	Still (zooms out)
2:00	17:03	Transition (cube)
3:01	20:04	Still (zooms out)
2:00	22:04	Transition (cross zoom)
2:08	24:12	Columbia pictures presents
2:11	26:23	An Aptow Company production
2:04	28:27	Superbad
2:00	30:27	Jonah Hill
2:00	32:27	Transition (circle open)
4:06	34:33	Seth Rogen
1:20	35:53	Bill Hader
1:00	36:53	Transition (wipe up)
2:11	39:04	Kevin Corrigan Joe Lo Truglio Martha Macisaac Emma Stone
2:14	41:18	And intro Christopher Mintz-Plasse
2:00	43:18	Transition (page right curl)
0:15	43:33	Casting by Alison Jones
1:13	44:46	Transition (cross zoom)
1:07	45:53	Costume designer Debra McGuire
2:18	48:11	Co-producer Dara Weintraub
2:15	50:26	Music supervision by Johnathan Kare
2:19	52:45	Music by Lyle Workman

This shows the different shots and transitions at different times throughout our remake of Superbad. This shot list of our remake is similar to the original film opening however, it is a shortened version. This helped us to understand the timings of how long each title should  be on the screen for and how the importance of each one is shown throughout the opening scene.

Rhys Williams & Sam du Berry

Why we chose the film genre

Our initial ideas for the genre of the film opening were either Action or Horror as these genres appealed to us the most. Existing action films such as James Bond, White house down and The Transporter inspired our film ideas for this genre and we based the majority of our plans around these types of films. Alternatively, our main ideas for a horror film was a supernatural based film of a typical family haunting or a zombie inspired film which was influenced by films such as, Insidious and I am legend. We came up with film opening ideas for both genres before we decided to go ahead with one of the ideas. We ended up choosing to do an Action film as we had a clear, realistic storyline and concept for a film opening. After analysing both genres, we both felt like this is the most suitable genre for us as we were both motivated to do it as we felt that this was the best idea for a storyline and we can create an intriguing, unexpected opening scene.  

 

Sam du Berry  

Mind Maps Of Potential Genres

 

Sam du Berry and Rhys Williams

How we made the remake?

In order to recreate the Superbad opening we needed to find 2 actors because throughout the introduction to the film the couple of males who seem to be the main characters were dancing. This was the most simplistic bit and in order to do it we picked out 2 people with similar body shapes and asked them if they would.
When we were picking the location for filming the piece we needed to think about the lighting in order to get a clear and crisp shot and therefore we chose a large room with naturalistic lighting and filmed in the day time. There was an opportunity to use a home - made green screen but we didn't feel it offered us a good quality so in the end we chose against it and to instead edit the colours when we went on to the editing stage. This meant that we just needed a relatively plain wall to film against. We set the camera up with a tripod sitting on a table approximately 2-3 metres away in order to get both actors in the shot and as minimal of the obstructions as we could. We then did multiple shots of each of the characters and their respectful parts in the clip. Following on from this is the editing stage.

We withdrew the footage from the camera and imported it onto the Apple Mac. From here we opened it up in iMovie '11 and started a new project. We took our footage from the event library and inserted it into the new project. We took one clip at a time and ordered the footage so that it was in the same sequence as the actual opening. The next part was to edit each of the clips and add effects and various colours to them. The actual film opening had three changes in colour throughout it but unfortunately as ours was slightly shorter we could only incorporate 2 changes and we decided to use the x-ray effect and then edit the contrast and brightness. This meant it faded out the facial expressions and resulted in a similar effect to the actual opening. The second effect was day into night which gave us a colour change and another different effect, it also again removed the characters facial expressions. The next step was to split all the clips into the amount of seconds a subtitle would come up for, we did this because we felt the editing was more organised although we could have left them as they were. As this was complete we added the subtitles into the corresponding position on the screen and then changed the colours. We changed the font into Gill Sans because we felt it was similar to the actual font and looked good in the piece. Finally we added some copyright free music which was as near to the actual music as we could. The genre of music we had to look for was soul.




Rhys Williams

 

 

Superbad Storyboard For Remake

 

 

The purpose of creating a storyboard for our Remake of Superbad was so that we have a guideline of the different shots and editing throughout the opening scene. This will also prepare us for when we produce our own film opening as we will need to draw up a storyboard showing all of the different camera angles used within our piece.

 

Sam du Berry

 

 

 

Timeline Of Superbad Opening (Actual)

TimeLine

The following timeline is the Superbad opening which shows the order of the title sequence and gives the time frame. This is the one that was chosen for a remake and therefore it gave us an understanding of the opening. This helps us because we knew the routine for the opening and copied it into the remake.

When	What
0-5	Black Screen
5-13 Seconds	Zoom, Sony pictures entertainment company
13-20 seconds	Zoom out, Columbia pictures
21 seconds	Silhouettes appear
23 seconds	Logo Disappears
25 seconds	Columbia Pictures presents
28 seconds	An Apatow company production
30 seconds	Superbad
34 Seconds	Jonah Hill
36 seconds	Michael Cera
39 seconds	Seth Rogen
42 seconds	Bill Hader
45 seconds	Kevin Corrigan Joe Lo Truglio Martha MacIsaac Emma Stone
49 Seconds	Christopher Mintze Plasse
52 Seconds	Casting By Allison Jones
55 seconds	Costume designer Debra McGuire
57 Seconds	Dara Weintraub
60 Seconds	Music Supervision By Jonathan Karp
63 Seconds	Music By Lyle Workman
66 Seconds	Edited By Williams Kerr
68 Seconds	Production Designer Chris Spellman
71 Seconds	Director Of Photography Russ Alsobrook, ASC
73 Seconds	Executive Producers Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
77 Seconds	Judd Apatow Shauna Robertson
80 seconds	Written By Seth Rogen Evan Goldberg
83 seconds	Directed by Greg Mottola
Rhys Williams