Zoe's Media Blog

Evaluation: Activity One

The nine films that influenced our main task are ‘Taken’, ‘Gone In 60 Seconds’, ‘Die Hard 4.0’, ‘James Bond: Quantum of Solace’, ‘Man On Fire’, ‘The Mummy Returns’, ‘Sucker Punch’, ‘The Expendables’ and ‘Mission Impossible 2’.
For a more in depth analysis of opening sequence please go to one of my older blog entries at the link below.
http://zoe-scarlett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/opening-sequence-analysis.html

Our media product is an action/thriller film and so when we did our research for our main task we look at other films in the same genre(s). The films we used in our research are the ones mentioned above. We used these films because each one has something in common with the film we made for our main task and a convention we wanted to follow. ‘Taken’ is a film based on the kidnapping of the main characters daughter. In the film the protagonist followed the people who took his daughter in an attempt to get her back. This is a convention we have followed in our film because the main character’s half-sister was kidnapped and the main character had to under go thirteen tasks in order to get her half-sister back. We also incorporated the idea of having the main character talk to the person who has taken his daughter over the phone into our opening sequence to start off the film with a creepy, chilling atmosphere and as a way to introduce the main characters at an early point so the audience can recognize them more quickly as good and bad. It is conventional for this genre to use binary oppositions to make it clear which side to be on.

‘Gone In 60 Seconds’ relates to our film because, once again, it involves the main character striving and being put in danger in order to help a family member, in this case it is the main characters younger brother. However, this isn’t the only reason we chose the film. We also chose it because the main character has to collect fifty cars in forty-eight hours in order to keep his brother safe. This relates to our film because they both share the same convention of the main character has to complete a task or tasks to save their family member and keeps the audience engaged because they'll be tying to guess how the tasks are going to play out and what the main character will have to do. This technique is also seen in films such as 'Se7en' where the protagonist has to decode clues to solve a horrific crime where his loved one is at risk.

‘Die Hard 4.0’ starts off in a very strange and mysterious way which makes the audience wonder what’s going on and what’s going to happen next, this grabs the audiences attention and makes them want to go on watching the film. This is a convention we wanted for our own film and so we decided to start the film in the Dark Room at school which had red lighting which gave off a similar atmosphere to the one created in ‘Die Hard 4.0’. And also by introducing the thirteen tasks the character will have to complete because the characters will want to know what those will be and if the main character is able to complete them all and get back her sister.

‘James Bond: Quantum of Solace’ starts off by diving right into the action. This seems to be a common characteristic of action/thriller films and we thought to make the film more appealing to the target audience we would stick to this tradition by having our own action scene to begin the film. This is also a great way to engage and grab the audience and sets the pace for the rest of the film.
In a lot of action films different camera angles are used while the actor is doing something simple, like running, to make the scene look more action packed and make something simple seem complicated. This is something we’ve done with the character of Zoe and we’ve also the constant movement of the camera represents her inner turmoil and confusion.
We have also used fast paced, loud music to create an adrenalin fueled atmosphere that will make the main character look as though she's doing more than just running, this is a very common convention of thriller/action films to make them seem more action packed.

‘Man On Fire’ relates to our film because once more there is the theme of kidnapping and the main character has to get the child who has been kidnapped back. The convention of having a kidnapping taking place in a film seems to be a very popular on in action/thriller films because it keeps the audiences attention and keeps them watching because they want to find out if the main character actually gets back the person who was kidnapped.

‘The Mummy Returns’ is similar to our film because the main character needs to complete the task of getting a child to a certain place before a certain time in order to save him. In our film the main character has to complete a number of tasks in order to get her sister back and keep her safe. Having the main character come up against a number of challenges or hard ships created by the antagonist that get in the protagonist's way of achieving their goal is also another very conventional thing for this particular genre and is done in almost all action/thriller films.

‘Sucker Punch’ starts off with a heavily action based opening which we tried to do in our film and the protagonist's has to complete a number of tasks to reach her goal of gaining freedom. In our film the protagonist completes challenges for her half-sister rather than for her own freedom or that of her friend.

For ‘The Expendables’ the opening is all about action and thrilling the audience into being absorbed by the film, a convention of the genre. This, once again, is a very common thing to be seen in action/thriller films and so this reinforced the idea of having our main task start off with an action sequence and something we tried to do in our main task.

‘Mission Impossible 2’ also follows this convention.

All the films we look at helped us with our films to understand two things. One, the most common thing for an action/thriller based film is to have an opening scene that grips the audience through the use of an action sequence and two, there must be twist and turns through the antagonist placing obstacles and tasks in the way of the protagonist. These are the most common conventions in action/thriller films.

Below is a voice over of the above.
The titles for our main task are all very simple, we made on of our idents on photoshop and the other is writing we were able to add in on the editing programme we were using and these are the most complex. All the other titles are in white and in a very plain font to make it seem more professional and not juvenile, aside form the title which is green and in a slightly different font and we did this to draw attention to the title of the film and make it stand out from the names.
https://soundcloud.com/zoe-scarlett-1/voice-over-act-1

Below are clips from each of the films mentioned above. Please only watch the opening two minutes of each clip.
The screen grabs shown above are from these clips which demonstrate what I have spoken about in this section.

‘Taken’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q27WQj9bbpQ

‘Gone In 60 Second’

http://www.sockshare.com/file/3C1B4CD5419FEEB5#

‘Die Hard 4.0’

http://www.putlocker.com/file/1126414925B6D278#

‘James Bond: Quantum of Solace’

http://www.sockshare.com/file/SG07FB2OHDWKSK#

‘Man on Fire’

http://www.putlocker.com/file/1KGSELRDSPWGG4W#

‘The Mummy Returns’

http://www.sockshare.com/file/AD2BA396AC3C2446#