Initial Screening

The Initial Screening for my Gangster Opening:

Target Audience Reasurch - Edited

Please Take my Audience Survey:

Click here to take survey 

Target Audience Rate Card:

My Target Audience Profile:

A brief profile of the type of person that I am trying to aim my Gangster opening at...

What does it mean?

From the results of the questionnaire I have found the opening must either have gore or an unexpected death. Psychological power play between characters, where you feel a threat of violence coming before there is any. One particularly helpful answer said that "The fact that it was unexpected and you did not know where it was going to go. Also, Ben Kingsley's character was brilliant because they really built up the fear of him, so that by the time you see him you are already worried about what he is going to do.".

Pitch of our Ideas

Script for Pitch:

Our film opening is based around a gang who operate like a family. So when one member decides to leave rivalry's breakout within the group and gang warfare begins on the streets of London. In our opening we are showing the beginnings of this war, as one gang member decides to leave his close friend tracks him down and try's to convince him to stay. An argument breaks out and the friend ends up being killed and inadvertently beginning the gang war. The are many unique features we are planning to feature in our film. One of which is our use of titles, we are going to try and incorporate them onto the buildings as if they were printed. This is going to be achieved using a combination of both Photoshop and Premiere Pro. The text will include fade using Premiere Pro to make it appear as if it is printed onto the walls. In addition in Photoshop we will add perspective to make it look even more unique and realistic, the text we have chosen to use is Battery Park  as we think it looks graphic and fits the conventions of the British Gangster genre. Furthermore we are also planning to use several different shot types. For example, at the beginning of the film, we are using a time-lapse that will go from day to night over Bristol, this is to set the scene and also to make the city feel real and like it has been lived in. Moreover we are featuring several different unique tracking shots to transition between scenes, for example we will track into a wall and edit it so that we track out of another. This is to make scene cuts more interesting and follow the conventions of unique graphic gangster films such as Snatch.  Also during the fight scenes we are planning to use a close composition and shaky camera to immerse the viewer and create a feeling of tension and worry. Finally we plan to film at night and under a bridge and so will use our light to effect by using it to create mystery, confusion and revelation during the fight scenes, for example we will use it to conceal characters and props such as knives. 

Health & Saftey

Our risk assessment form for our filming:

Planning of Our Music

This is our thought proccess of how we chose the music for our opening:

Planning of Titles

The planning of our film titles for our Gangster opening:

Planning of Titles by powell97

Sctructure of Narrative

Brief Synopses of My British Gangster Opening:
A gang member who's name is Tom is planning on leaving the gang he is evolved with as he feels he can't do the dreadful deeds any more. His best friend Mike, also in the gang, has heard about this and is incredibly angry as they are like a family. Mike confronts Tom when he is walking home, they argue. They end up fighting and Tom accidently kills Mike...

Script

UNCLE BERT MOVIE SCRIPT

1. BLACK SCREEN
An ambient sound of city a church bell is heard ringing.
FADE TO:
EXT. EVENING - BRISTOL CITY LANDSCAPE
A time-lapse shot of Bristol's city centre dusk to evening.
PAN UP TO:
Night’s sky.
2. PAN DOWN TO:
Street at night time, a young shifty man can see walking across a bridge in the centre of Bristol. This is TOM NASH; he is dressed in a long trench coat, a jumper, with plain black trousers and shoes. He walks past a piece of graffiti that depicts a naked man hanging from a window as he is hiding from a woman’s husband that he has been sleeping with.
CUT TO:
A long shot of the bridge a silhouette in the foreground watching TOM in the background he is out of focus. This man is MIKE ALEKSY he is wearing a leather jacket, with a white shirt and tweed trousers and Dr Matins. He walks towards the bridge as he does this he goes into focus.
CUT TO:
TOM walking down a public stairway, he walks under the bridge he begins to look nervous. MIKE can be seen walking behind him, he looks angry. MIKE then grasps the unrespecting TOM and pulls him about and puts him in a headlock TOM shouts.

TOM
OI WHAT DOIN'?! (Pause) IT'S ME!

MIKE
(Let’s go and steps back with hands in the air looking sheepish.)

TOM
You dick!
(Walks towards MIKE and shoves in the chest.)

They pause and breathe heavily starring at each other.

MIKE
Where have you been?

TOM
Around was' it to you?

MIKE
Wat d'yo think you’re doing? We had an agreement! What are you a grass? (Shouts and walks towards him pointing down to him.) You can't just walk away from this!

TOM
(Flaps his hands, points back at him.) Are you gonna stop me?

MIKE
If I have to (pause) yes. (Pause) You're always the one to back out, you aven't got the bottle.

TOM
I don't want to do this anymore! This isn't a life goin' around beating people up this isn't how we should live.

MIKE
But its how we’ve got to live...

TOM
I've had enough (starts to walk away)

MIKE
I can let you do that Uncle Bartosz wants to see you

TOM
(Still walking away with his back to MIKE) I don't care

MIKE
I don't want to have to use this.

TOM turns around and discovers that MIKE has a knife. MIKE grabs him be the collar and puts him against the wall. TOM try’s to negotiate.

TOM
You don't need to you use that!

MIKE
(Mimics TOM) I don't care.

TOM
(Holds out hand) Just give me the knife.

TOM looks as if he's trying to calm MIKE down but makes a grab for the knife they scuffle and fight. TOM twists MIKE'S hand TOM ends up stabbing MIKE in the stomach. MIKE falls against the wall and slides down it. His hand surrounds the knife and he is shaking. TOM stumbles backwards and wipes his face. TOM looks at MIKE he is dead. TOM starts to walk away again; he looks back at MIKE'S bloody body and walks off again.

3. CUT TO:

Black, main title appears

Story Board

This is our story board for our British Gangster Opening:

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

Part 4.

Part 5.

Part 6.

Part 7.

Props/Costume List

Props:

Knife - pretend knife that looks realistic and flicks out

Fake Blood - used during the murder scene but not to much of it

Costume:

Tom - Dark trench coat with a shirt/jumper of any colour, jeans or chinos for trousers and vans shoes

Mike - Leather jacket with white shirt, dark brown trousers and dot martin shoes

Filming/Editing Schedule

Our Filming and Editing Schedule for our Gangster Opening:

The Filming Plan

Raw Footage of Our Locations

Raw Footage of Our Locations for our Gangster Opening:

Photos of Locations

Film Poster

As a way of helping us gather ideas for what sort of film we were making I made a poster to help the ideas flow:

This has really helped me with the ideas for the script and what the opening should be about...

Mood Board

This is our Mood Board of Ideas for our Gangster Opening:



Initial Planning Ideas

This was my and Jamie's initial planning ideas of what we wanted to achieve out of our Gangster Opening...

Media Preliminary Task

Our Premliminary Task



Target Audience Reasearch

Please Take my Audience Survey:

Click here to take survey

Target Audience Rate Card:

My Target Audience Profile:

A brief profile of the type of person that I am trying to aim my Gangster opening at...

Analysis of Other Students Work

Karma:

I thought they had a hint of a narrative although this was unclear. At the beginning the shots of the noose had a good overall affect that carried throughout the opening. I thought it was clever how they made the music dietetic to non-dietetic. But overall it had bad composition, bad editing and bad titles that made the plot confusing.

Deception:

Overall they used good locations, props and costumes that linked in to the Nor genre. But the music seemed to upbeat and jolly for what was happening on screen. They also used bad transitions and cuts that made the plot uneven and disorientated. The dialogue was also to quite so you couldn't hear what was going on. They also had no titles.

Born From The Streets:

At the beginning they used good titles that were reminiscent of "Snatch" they had an attempt at editing but overall it wasn't affective. Such as the jump cut when they were walking down the stairs. There was also bad dialogue that was too quite and an unclear narrative.

Made Man:

They used good and effective locations that linked in with the genre, props and costumes that also matched Gangster films. But overall they had bad editing and they got to far into the narrative it was more of a short than an opening.

Roses Are Red Title Sequence

They used an interesting way of presenting the titles in real life I thought this was very interesting to watch. I like the sense that it was shot in "real time". I thought the freeze frames helped the audience read the titles but sometimes they were too blurred, which leads me onto the point that I thought the camera was very shaky at points. I also thought that they should have removed the dialogue at the end.

The Edge

Think they had a brilliant use of graphics and editing especially the way that the titles were motion tracked with what was on screen, although people viewing this might miss the titles because they aren't very obvious such as the first title on the building. But there was one title that wasn't very good, the main title saying "The Edge" was difficult to read and it didn't match the rest of the opening. There was a clear narrative and genre but I felt that it seamed more like a short story than an opening.


From this I have found how important good dialogue and acting is and what affect it has on the whole opening, for this I have decided that I would like to have influences of titles sequences from The Edge. I also plan to have as little dialogue as possible and let the shots and acting tell the story.

Films I Will Take Influence From...

Media Theories

Media Theories

British Gangster Research

British Gangster Film Research

Ifluences on My Opening

Influences On My Opening

I will use elements of these Tv programmes and films in my opening, such as the way the text appiers in Sherlock. The use of light in the Hitchcock film No.17 and the use of silece in Southclife.

Alfred Hitchcock Research

Analysis of British Gangster Films - Openings

Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Get Carter

Layer Cake

From this I have learnt that British gangster movies use white writing with a black background, titles last at least 2 seconds long and they use music during the action which gradually builds. They also tent to put credits/titles on objects such as walls and I will be using this in my opening....

Disribution Companies

Conevntions Of Gangster Films

The History of Gangster Films

Gangster Film Research

The Top Five Gangster Films:

1. Goodfellas (1990) Martin Scorsese
2. The Godfather (1972) Francis Ford Coppola
3.  The Godfather: Part II (1974) Francis Ford Coppola
4. The Departed (2006) Martin Scorsese
5. City of God (2002) Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund

Sub-Genres:

• Crime
• Thriller
• Nior
• Mob
• Ditective

Classic/Stylised:

• Suits
• Set in the past
• Nior

Modern Day/Urban:

• The Sweeney
• Dialect
• Inner city violence