Question 1

Genre Research Our genre being action, gave us a wide variety of films to turn to for inspiration. We chose this genre because it was the majority vote in our group, we also had previously come up with a storyline for an opening that would fit with the action genre which was convenient. Action generally consists a person or group facing a number of different challenges. This means there are more likely to be chase scenes, fights, and life threatening situations, all of which have been included in our film opening. In multiple famous action films there is a villain for example Die Hard is an action film about a detective who encounters a terrorist and must take on a group during a heist. A typical stereotype of action films is that many special FX are used which highlights the impressive modern use of technology making it look new, different and appealing to a wider range of audience. Action films typically have the most enigma, leaving you feeling on edge throughout and leaving you wanting to see more.

 

 

Codes & Conventions

Commonly set in big cities, action films revolve around modernised areas rather than quieter places to give a busy atmosphere building up enigma and tension.

 

 

 

Sequence Development

• We initially had the idea of doing an army themed opening, basing it on a boy named Sam who grows up to be a soldier, which has been his dream since he was a child. We were going to show his growing up through a timeline style starting at age 3 of real footage of a child saying he wanted to be 'Soldier Sam'. All our group members liked this idea and we had thoroughly planned the shots we were going to take, the risks and how to overcome them however we concluded that the  shots would've been too hard to shoot in the time frame we had. We appropriately went back to 'step 1' of our individual film pitches, having agreed we were going to stick with the genre of action, and discussed ideas and thoughts towards a new opening. This is when we discovered the Heist idea would turn out to look effective if we managed to pull it off seeing that the preparation time we had was shortened due to the change of storyline. We put in many extra hours so we had made up for missed time to ensure completion by the deadline. To begin with, with our initial plan of the Army storyline we were going to mainly focus on getting close up shots to show that the film was based purely on an individual. For shots that Sam was not going to be featured in, we would make it a long shot to show lack of importance to small detail. 

Narrative

We decided we wanted some enigma rather than a lot in our opening to diminish confusion. The audience will be questioning why the characters are in the house, also they will wonder why at the end one of the characters say they are looking for their sister. Often in action films there is a lot of enigma throughout as the film is usually a constant cycle of enigma and solving enigma similarly in Luther and Sherlock.  Audiences tend to sit on the edge of their seats when watching a film with a lot of action, spectacle and enthusiasm as it connects directly with their feelings. Film openings make it hard to show layer of meaning (Semantic code in Barthes' theory) however at the end where the scripted scene occurs and the character says 'What do you mean you haven't found my sister?' this could have a number of different interpretations therefore showing a layer of meaning. We have included the symbolic code by using props such as balaclavas to show the nature of our characters. Balaclavas symbolise danger due to the lack of facial features exposed creating a sense of unease to the audience and sympathy for the young girl in the house alone.

9 shot grid