Looking at Feature Films

After creating a first draft storyboard and animatic, the advice we got from our audience was to firstly improve the quality of the storyboard as well as improve the animatic to help understand our ideas for this short film better and secondly, to develop the storyline of our short film more by maybe researching into more film examples which we could borrow ideas from. In addition to looking at several British and American short films to give Alex and I some inspiration when we come to plan our short film narrative, I decided to research some popular Action/Adventure films which could help Alex and I draw up some more ideas for our short film.

The first iconic Action/Adventure spy film franchise of all time I looked at was James Bond, more specifically "Skyfall". The obvious reasons for choosing this film were to borrow ideas from is its classic British ideology of a fearless spy and someone who is willing to put their life on the front line to help defend his country. When a mission to kill a fierce assassin goes wrong for James Bond, a hard drive is stolen which contains the names and whereabouts of several agents from MI6. THis forces M to relocate the agency underground and her position challenged by Garreth Mallory, the new head of Intelligence and Security Comittee. Whilst MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

Overall, my thoughts for Skyfall and the James Bond series in general have really impressed me and other fans of Action/Adventure genre films. The film franchise is an iconic portrayal of British Action films and is now expanding its audiences across the whole world. The smart suits, glorious cars, props and landscapes which are shot in this film are typical conventions of a spy film which Alex and I would like to incorporate into our short film.

Another worldwide popular franchise is the Harry Potter series. Since Alex and I want our short film to be following the conventions of a typical British film with a mixture of American stylised shots and action sequences, we would also hope to incorporate some more fanstastical themes and ideas into our short film as this will broaden our audiences viewing. In this trailer for Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Harry, Ron and Hermione continue to find the rest of Voldemort's Hprecruxes, until Harry discovers that on is at Hogwarts, they flee there as soon as possible but Voldemort instantly finds out about their mission. The battle is drawn at Hogwarts as students and staff fight to protect Harry Potter. Harry then realises that people are dying constantly for his mistakes and then eventually fights Voldemort for the last time. Along the way, crucial secrets are unraveled, and the mysterious but legendary Deathly Hallows reappear.

The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 and the rest of the Harry Potter franchise incoporate many fanstastical themes and ideas which make this series one of the more iconic Action/Adventure films in the fictional world. Some ideas for visual and sound effects which have really caught our attention where the smoke effects made for the death eaters the rumbling thunder noises to enhance the presence of these characters. Another key feature of the Harry Potter franchise is their ability to create new landscapes and characters using CGI effects. Due to our inexperience in these techniques, we are likely going to be filming in real locations since this is also a typical convention of British films.

Alongside the Harry Potter series, the Star Wars franchise is one which has gathered mass audience over the last few decades. It's impressive use of both visual effects and real life stunts are what make Star Wars such a success whilst keeping the storylines of the film very gripping and original too. In this trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the scavenger (Daisy Ridley) and a renegade stormtrooper (John Boyega) enlist the help of legendary smugglers/freedom fighters Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca to transport a drois carrying information regarding the whereabouts of long lost Jedi Master Luke Skywalker to General Leia Organa of the Resistance before it falls into the hands of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the First Order.

The Force Awakens and the rest of the Star Wars franchise mix a variety of action sequences and shots which we would like to replicate. A very common shot used in the Star Wars films is the tracking shot since they follow the action sequences when the characters are fighting or traveling between dimensions. Many of their camera shots are CGI created, however the fight scenes are generally done using dolly cams and steadicams too.

The last Action/Adventure film which I recently re-watched is the Kingsman: The Secret Service. Since its release, there have been many interviews with the director Mathew Vaughan about this film tying many controversial topics with post-modernism. This is due to the film attempting to represent a James Bond like action film, but the result is more comical and stylised than the traditional look and feel of a James Bond Action/Adventure film. The film shows the agent Harry "Galahad" Hart helping the troublemaker Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, who is the son of an agent that saved the lives of Harry and his team sacrificing himself seventeen years ago. Harry invites Eggsy to be a candidate to the vacancy of a new agent in the agency. He would eventually be trained by Agent Merlin and competes against the other candidates. Meanwhile, the Kingsmen investigate the industrialist Valentine, who is an insane genius of technology that is plotting a deadly plan with his assistant Gazelle to save Earth from global warming eliminating most of the population with a chip and saving only those that he has chosen.

Aside from this film being on the crux between reality and fiction, there are plenty of camera shots and themes which Alex and I are closely thinking of taking inspiration from when we redraw our storyboard and create our new screenplay for the film.

Having now looked at several examples of classic Action/Adventure feature films which I like, I will continue to sit down and write the improved screenplay and storyboard for the short film. In the meantime, Alex and I will be meeting to discuss the new ideas we have come up with for the short film and potentially change some of the ideas around to make this short film fit with the typical conventions of an Action/Adventure film.

Animatic | Draft 1

The storyboard collection Alex and I had created as shown in the previous blog post was evidencing our current rough story we both put together for our short film task. This time we wanted to create a working animatic for our first draft storyboard to help both give us a better view of what our short film will be about. So far we have included the some shot angles which we are going to use in our film as well as showing how our story is progressing throughout the sequences. We also had included the backing track which we will use in this short film to add some meaning to our storyboard too.

After creating this animatic, this has definitely helped me realize how the film is progressing and giving me a better picture of what needs to be added to the storyboard in the next few drafts we make. As of now, I am planning in our next storyboard and animatic to add more detailed sketches, shortlists, time lengths for frames as well as progressing the story forwards by adding more conventions and enigmas in for increased audience interest.

Storyboard | Draft 1

After completing some research for our short-film as well as delivering a our pitch towards our secondary audience, we have successfully generated a first draft for our storyboard. We selected our ideas after researching through the ideas of my short film list I have watched, the Pinterest Moodboard I had created to gather ideas for key themes to explore in our short film as well as deconstructing a passage from a opening of a successful film.

The storyboard is illustrating the main protagonist who is being held hostage by a gang from a syndicate that are asking for a key to extract information from a secret location. Despite the protagonist's refusal of giving in, the leader eventually arrives to the scene and increases the tension in the atmosphere by threatening more with violence. The protagonist eventually escapes from the scene in a car and a car chase begins. The protagonist escapes from near death after loosing the syndicate between a train track crossing which leads to the protagonist being able to live another day and keep the key he still holds.

The first draft has given us a foundation solution to our storyboard and we are planning to next make a animatic which will give us an insight to how our film will be presented. Shortly after making our first draft, we will make another more refined draft of our storyboard with added details such as camera angles, location shots, time lengths etc.

Student Pitches

In addition to the pitch which Alex and I delivered to our secondary audience, we also got the opportunity to watch some of the pitches from the other members of the audience. The pitches varied in context, some were planning to do music videos and others were planning to do a short film. The ideas which were delivered were varied hugely and all sounded very interesting.

A slideshow below shows some of the images of the pitches from the other groups. 

Pitch to our Secondary Audience

Once Alex and I had completed the moodboard which was a method for us to begin establishing some ideas down for our short film, we then went ahead to make a short pitch in front of our secondary audience explaining our ideas to them about what we would like to achieve in this short film which we are making for our Main Task. The slideshow above is the presentation we used to pitch our ideas to our secondary audience.

Successes and Flaws of Opening Sequence at AS:

• In the beginning of the pitch, we both felt it was necessary for us to explain to our audience what the successes and the flaws of our Opening Sequence at AS and discuss what aspects we would like to improve at A2 to make this short film the best it possibly can be. With the successes, we stated that first of all the narrative of our Opening Sequence was simple but very easy to follow. By not over complicating the narrative, we were able to tell the story of our Opening Sequence through the excellent use of camera work which we were complimented for hugely at AS and the excellent performance by our very talented actors. We wish to use these same actors again for our short film at A2 who will essentially form the story for us if they continue their acting performances to the same level as they did at AS; the same aspect goes for the camera work too. We both felt that the editing of our footage was also very clean and professional, despite the footage at some times being too dark for the audience to really see what was happening. The editing is another factor we wanted to improve even more for our short film as this was one of our strongest points during post production. The last aspect we were both very encouraged by after receiving outstanding audience feedback about this last year was the extensive use of camera work and camera angles. We both wanted each shot to be framed perfectly and to captivate the emotions of our actors through the variety of shots we experimented with. The biggest challenge we will face for this short film is to add even more variety of shots into our camera work given the fact that we are working on more then one location for this short film.

• Moving onto the flaws of our AS Opening Sequence, we felt that the titles of our film were very basic and didn't match with the genre of our short film. As my skills in video editing and graphics have improved significantly in comparison to AS, I want to push my skills even further to making more suitable graphics and title entries for the short film. These skills will also be shown when I begin to make my ancillary tasks too as part of my coursework for A2. We also believed that our preparation for filming was very sloppy and didn't reflect the way our Opening Sequence turned out. Alex and I were overall very lucky to how our work turned out despite the fact we made up the majority of our camera shots on the spot, instead of following a formalised storyboard. We both agreed that our organisation is something we wish to improve a lot more for this short film. The last flaw which we were heavily criticised for in our Opening Sequence was the quality of the sound. Even though we used the bet possible microphones to record our Opening Sequence, we faced some technical difficulties when it came to us editing the sound together since we could here small radio signals flickering in the background as the actors were speaking. After researching thoroughly on how to record sound effectively, I believe that I the quality of our sound recordings will be improved significantly if our organisation and planning for the short film is successful.

Our Pitch:

• Our Short Film for our Main Task is going to be once again based on the Action/Adventure genre since this is a genre which we are both captured by when we watch any Action/Adventure film we've seen. This genre was what we both chose to work with for our Opening Sequence at AS to so it was logical for us to decide to work and improve our knowledge and understanding about this genre at A2.
• We took some inspiration of conventions from both American and British films we had researched initially.
• The story is initially about a spy who is working for the CIA who has been held hostage by a ferocious gang who are member of the Syndicate International. The man in charge of the gang has hired a bounty hunter who tracked the spy down and has brought the hostage to unfamiliar location away from all civilisation with the help of two other members from the Syndicate. The spy is being held hostage as the main gang member is after a special tool from him which will unlock the secrets to the location of whatever this may be (have not yet decided what this thing will be). After talking to the spy, he makes a quick escape with his half and the gang members' half of the tool and makes a run for it. The scene progresses with several short fight sequences and a car chase in pursuit of the spy. 
• The story of our short film is arguably a similar story-line to our Opening Sequence, however the challenge to this is not to copy the exact story of our Opening Sequence to the point where the idea becomes unoriginal and loses the audiences interest in our short film. 
• This time we are thinking of our short film to completely different environments compared to at AS where we were mostly shooting in one location the whole time. The additional environments will add more interest to the story and push the boundaries of our skills in filming.
• We were praised heavily for our excellent use of props in our Opening Sequence, which is something we are planning to recreate once again for this short film. The use of props can carry many signs during any film and can have an impact on the overall story line of the film too, which is why Alex and I are going to plan extensively each individual prop we are going to use for our short film and make sure they all contain relevance to the story of our short film. 

Feedback from our Secondary Audience:

• Positives: The biggest positive comment our secondary audience told us was how much they liked the overall idea/story line for this short film. Compared to the story line of Opening Sequence at AS, they said that the idea is more original and very exciting at the same time. After the successes of our project at AS, our secondary audience have full confidence in us pulling off this piece if it is shot beautifully.
• They were also very excited to hear that we are introducing the same actors at AS into our short film and introducing new members to the cast as we will need even more actors this time for our short film. The actors we used at AS have a huge influence on how the new members will deliver their performance in this short film.

• Negatives: As with any big pitch, there was always going to be some negative but constructive feedback from our secondary audience which we were going to have to consider. An audience member first mentioned about the use of the cars we going to be using. When Alex and I mentioned to our audience that we will be including a car chase for this new escape scene, the person was concerned about the type of cars we were intending to use since the main gang member is supposed to be wearing a black suit and appear more superior then the rest of the gang members as well as the spy. Since using the right type of cars counts as a prop item and has a huge impact on how our characters are going to be portrayed in this short film, its important that we both research into the type of cars we have access to drive with. 
• Another audience member also concerned about the difficulty of pulling this piece off. During the rest of the student pitches, Alex and I noticed how simplistic the ideas of other people's music videos or short films are which increases their chances of making a more successful piece. We have both realised how challenging this idea of ours is and how difficult this is going to be for us both to pull this off in comparison to our work at AS, however we are both determined to give this idea a shot and take into consideration that a lot of factors could go wrong when we make this short film if our organisation is not on point.
• Another member also mentioned that the genre of Action/Adventure will not necessarily tailor to everybody's pleasures which is why they suggested to maybe include conventions of this genre which could attract wider audiences eg: attractive actors, flashy cars, beautiful camera work etc. 

After Alex and I had delivered our pitch to our secondary audience, we felt like we really needed to work on our initial story idea as well as wanting to do some more research into our audience more. 

   

Moodboard

After brainstorming our ideas for our short film and analysing and researching into the conventions of typical British and American short films of my choice, I have began to make a moodboard which helps me to visualise better my ideas and will also give me some guidance for how I wish to shoot my film. Alex and I want our film to be an Action/Adventure story as I have already explained in my research about Action/Adventure Short Films as well as my post about the factors to consider when choosing a film genre. On the other hand, we both wish for our story to be about a main protagonist character who is being held hostage by a leading criminal, however the protagonist this time escapes from the his interrogation by escaping using his sly escapist techniques against the villains.

In the moodboard, I have shown several images of cars in close up angles which is a possible method we wish for our protagonist character to escape from the criminals. There are also some images of costume designs since we were both thinking that we wanted to change-up the costumes compared with the ones which we used in our Opening Sequence last year. As well as the usual suits, we wish to have a couple of actors wearing more sci-fi outfits which can create a new edge to the story. Very soon, Alex and I will be posting our rough cut storyboard as we need to continue refining our story more.

In my next post, Alex and I will be pitching our idea to our secondary audience who will then hopefully give us feedback on our ideas.

Titles Workshop | Sion Rowe

Last week during a Media Studies lesson, our Media class were lucky enough to have a Film Titles workshop on Adobe Premiere Pro hosted by ex student Sion Roe. He gave us some huge pointers on how to create a title sequence which moved and magnified inwards over the top of a film clip.



These were the steps we took to make our own film titles:

1. Drop and drag a video clip into your workspace on Premiere
2. Create a title and keep all the settings on "Default"
3. Make the title bold for a more cinematic effect
4. Go to "Keying", then "Track Matt Key" and drag this onto Video 1
5. Go to "Video Effects"
6. Click "Matt Key" and change the title from "None" to "Video 2"
7. Go to "Video Effects/Effects Control", then "Motion", then "Scale"
8. Click the clock and move the timeline scale to whatever you want
9. Change the scale from small to big on first frame to create a zoom like animation for your title
10. Re-position your title if necessary 

The workshop was overall very useful in helping us give some ideas for how we will make our titles for our short film later on this year.

Film Poster Remake | Oblivion

After watching several short films and getting inspirations from these films, I have decided to look and recreate an existing film poster from the film "Oblivion". Even thought last year at AS I had looked and analysed a film poster from "Interstellar", I still wanted to have a go at remaking a film poster from Oblivion so that this will help me for when I have to make a film poster for our final film at A2 as part of my ancillary task.

When I was remaking this poster from Oblivion, I was only allowed to use the existing picture of Tom Cruise in that pose for this poster. Otherwise I had to find images from the internet of Morgan Freeman and of the background that were not the same as the original poster I was attempting to copy. Despite the challenge I was given, I still tried my best to replicate the poster as much as possible considering my skills in Photoshop are fairly good. This process has now helped Alex and I to think about how we should be making our film poster for our short film. A factor however I need to be aware of is that film posters will generally include other bits of information such as the production companies, the director, the age rating etc. The minimalistic style are the sort of posters I really like. 

Below is a speedart clip of me making the film poster in a timelapse.