The following posts can be found on our group blog:

• Treatment Plan
• Characters
• Location
• Costume & Props
• Storyboard
• Script
• Production Schedule
• Risk Assessment

Script & Audience Research Survey

Today we finished the script and posted it to our group blog:

http://oswmedia.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Script

We also put up a link to our audience research survey, do please feel free to fill this out!

Costume & Prop Research

Today, Oscar, Will and I were working on the costume and prop research for our opening sequence. We tried to put significance to all of the colours worn by the characters. As our film is about a group of gangsters, the primary colour for all of them is black clothing.

Treatment Plan

'This Life Ain't Fair' is a non-linear action drama film that follows a music groups rise to success as they try to leave their violent and gang-related past behind an try to pursue a career in music. the opening sequence starts off with the group recording in the studio and they are interrupted by a group of people in balaclavas who knock at the door. A gunshot is heard and then cuts to a scene of the group a year earlier. Through psychographic profiling we have come to the conclusion that our film will be mostly for ''the succeeders'' ''the  aspirers'' and ''the strugglers''. This film is mostly aimed for males aged between 15-22 as the context and language may not be understood by older or younger people.

Overview
The opening sequence will start with a title shot and then fade into a shot of the studio, showing a person rapping, a producer and some people chilling on the sofa. The rapper finishes the song and for a moment all is calm with shpts of the friends laughing and exchanging dialogue until they hear a motorbike coming down the road. This is followed by a tracking shot of the motorbike as it comes down the road, approaching the music studio. A long shot then shows a group of people in balaclavas jump off their vehicles and run up to the studio door and start banging on it. The first person to get off the sofa and run to the door gets hit with a gun as he opens it, to which one person says "this ain't fair, what did we do?". One of the masked men replies "This life ain't fair", this is when a gunshot is heard and the scene changes to the group one year earlier after the screen goes black. The group then plan and carry out a robbery while a narrator explains what is happening and why etc.

Synopsis
After the opening sequence we will see that another of their friends gets killed in an attempted robbery. This inspires the group to change their ways and start making music as a sort of release from their violent past. After a lot of hardwork and dedication they exceed in the music industry and manage to leave their past behind, or that's what they think... They find out that one of the masked men is actually one of their 'friends' but before he has a chance to shoot at the group, one of the artists kills him and saves them.

Themes, Mise en Scene and other details
The binary oppositions that we will include are: Past vs future, good vs evil and gang vs gang.
some of the props that we will use are fake guns, baseball bats and other weapons such as hammers.
We will set most of the opening sequence in Oscar's recording studio in Morden, and the road just outside. To accomplish this we will need at least one camera and tripod, and at least two lights.
We hope show the darker side of life in south London while presenting themes of music, crime and gang related violence,

Opening Credits Analysis

 

1. What have out found out from doing this activity.

From this activity I have discovered that the opening credits are not as in-depth as the final credits, but they feature the main people in the production company etc. and the main cast.

2. Has anything surprised you?

I found that when timing the length of each name for example, it was a lot longer than I had thought.

3. What do you notice about the style/font of the titles? How does this communicate the genre?

The font was yellow and quite bold on the screen which went well with the scene of the men in suits as they look brave and like real criminals, which contrasts the previous scene in the diner.

4. What are the titles you will need to include in your opening sequence?

In my opening sequence I will need to put in the main actors, the screenplay writers, the production company, the directors and the title of the film.

Sin City Opening Sequence Analysis

Sin City is a crime action/drama film released on the 1st of April 2005 by Dimension Films and Troublemaker Studios. It was directed by Quentin Tarantino, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez. This film had a target audience of adults ageing between 18-35, this is because this type of audience would be comfortable with the high level of violence throughout the film. In terms of social economic class, this film would probably appeal mostly to classes of C downwards, such as students as they are looking for excitement which is attained through the films exaggerated themes.

Narrative

Although we can not tell this from the opening sequence, Sin City is an example of non-linear narrative. Unfortunately, character types and binary oppositions are hard to identify in the opening sequence of Sin City as it is all a bit confusing, this however is good in some way as it gives way for some of the enigma codes such: "Who is the man in black and the woman in red?" "Why is the woman in red?" "Why does the man shoot the woman?" "Why does the film start like this and what relevance does it have to the rest of the film?". These questions all hook the audience and make them want to continue watching to find out the answers.

Media Language

The opening scene has very low key lighting and the use of shadows in this neo-noir scene grip the audience. We can hear the non-diegetic sounds of cars and police sirens throughout the scene, we can only see certain diegetic soundssuch as the characters footsteps and voices, the lighting of the woman's cigarette, the rain while they are kissing and the gun being fired.  First of all we have a long establishing shot of the woman on the balcony with the buildings towering over her to show her insignificance. 

We then see another shadowy figure come out from behind the woman and start coming towards her. The fact that the characters face is shadowed, suggests his moral ambiguity to the audience, and the fact that the woman is stood there holding herself shows her loneliness and vulnerability to the audience.

 

We then have a close up shot of the two characters hand as the man offers the woman a cigarette, which sows his power and that he is in control.

Next we have a close up of the woman's face as the man lights her cigarette for her, her eyes turn green which could suggest that the woman is hiding something and that there is more to her than what we first see.

We then have an over the shoulder shot from the point of view of the man which is coordinated to make him seem much taller than the woman which again implies his power in the scene. He is also partially shadowed which suggests something sinister and foreshadows the killing of the woman.

Lastly, we have a crane shot of the two character as the male holds the dead woman's body after he has shot her, he is looking up to the sky, almost as if he is asking for redemption after the murder.