Pre-Production: Opening sequence analysis and timeline

This films opening titles start at 3:00 and ends 5:40. A duration of 2 minutes 45 seconds.
The opening sequence shows a young, white, Scottish male travelling to Uganda. This is connoted by him spinning the globe and landing on Uganda. The opening follows him through his coach journey, we see a lot of scenery, the small villages and wildlife. We also see troops in trucks and tanks moving in the villages, he becomes friendly with a native woman and she tells him that they are good and fighting for the people. He sees President Mugabe for the first time and tries some local food. The young man and his new friend then have sex, after which he gets back on the coach and finishes his journey to Uganda.

This opening hints that there will be an involvement of the Ugandan Military/Government, with a focus on Mugabe. Also that there will be more sex and a love story intertwined.


Props:

• Coaches
• Tanks
• Trucks
• Luggage
• Simple costume
• Food

This Instituional logo is from the biggest co production company for the film and is a subsidary of 20th Century Fox. It uses the same kind of logo as it's parent company. It's rather intimidating and bold. The gold connotes wealth and status.

Titles

The typography is a bold, straight edged font, all capitalised, connoting control and dictation. The letters themselves are masking images behing them, all tinted red through to yellow. These images are of Uganan men and I think most of them are of President Mungabe as played by Forest Whitaker.

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Above is a timeline of every title shown in the opening sequence of The Last King of Scotland, showing timings and what each title says. What's interesting about this opening sequence is there is no mention of any crew, this is possibly because the Director, Kevin Macdonald, isn't that well known or maybe it was a personal choice of his! Either way this is quite strange given that there were 12 titles in total.
I really like the masking effect that they used on their titles, so you get the words but with images relevant to the film in the background, it's simple but very effective. I'll be looking in to that for my opening sequence. I like the timing of this films titles too. There are nice gaps which have been cleverly thought out. It's made me appreciate the importance of timing in titles.

Pre-Production: British Social Realism in the headlines

A child of only 34 days was found dead after neglect from his alcoholic mother who's primary accommodation was a sofa in a friends house.

This story would make a great British Social Realism film as it conforms to some key conventions of the genre. The main character, the mother, has a problem with alcohol and has mental problems (see right) below which is typical of a BSR film. She has a string of criminal convictions which connotes she anti-authoritative and goes against the natural order of things, also typical of the genre.

I would get Kierston Wareing (The Take, Fish Tank) to play this role as this is the type of character she is used to playing. The distressed mother, usually alcoholic and promiscuous. I believe that she would play the character convincingly and passionately.

This story also includes flaws in the British health care structure, showing big agencies and companies failing to protect the life of a young helpless child.

The film would be about the mother's fight with alcohol and drugs, extreme pressure from the press and slating of the media. It would follow her through her court cases. An old friend from school who took the opposite path to the mother takes on her case as her legal representative. There would be a struggle with the friend trying to keep the mother clean and fighting for her legally. The film would outline flaws in the health care system. The mother would be sentenced. In jail she starts a campaign against the health care system, gets clean and turns her life around. She's let out to a suposedly new life. But people don't forget, not do they forgive. She's tormented and abused by the public and ends up turning to the bottle again. The end scene would be her sitting in her gritty flat, shaking, cigarette in one hand, bottle of unbranded vodka in the other, staring at a photo of her in hospital with her newborn baby that she lost.

I think a good director would be Steve McQueen, after his work in Hunger and Shame. His minimalist, artistic style would work well with the gritty storyline of the film

•Why is it important that British social realism films have a theme or ideology?
•What is unique about the themes and ideologies in British social realism films?
•Is there a pattern in the themes and ideologies presented in British social realism films?

It is important for British Social Realism films to have a theme or ideology as this is what the target audience want and it is in keeping with the ethos of the genre, the genre is to show a true representation of struggles in real life. And so a BSR will take on a gritty or real life theme, such as illicit substance abuse or controversial matters that mainstream films wouldn't touch because there's a risk they'd lose money. There is a pattern within this, that the films maybe even repeat them selves when it comes to themes, as there is a limit to the themes and ideologies that BSR can explore.  

Pre-Production: Analysis of 'Cathy Come Home' for generic conventions of British Social Realism

Pre-Production: Production Log Week 1

1.Minimal     2.Basic    3.Proficient    4.Excellent

Those four words are the definitions between the four different levels.
Which basically equate to

1.Hardly bothered at all   2.Did it but might as well of just left it  3.Done it with some skill      4.Smashed it.


Putting this knowledge in to action I marked some work from the previous year... These are the notes I got from that exercise.

CLICHE.
Waking up, then getting ready.
Flashbacks.

I'll be sure to use neither of these two cliches in my opening sequence, having these included would just take any real flare of creativity or originality away from my work. I've been looking at different sort of ways to go.
These cliche opening usually open the film up slowly and softly. I'd like more of a punch, a little shock, possibly something quite controversial.



I love the contrast between the fast pace chase scene/fast pace football shots and then the very slow smoking scene. Also the way the voiceover perfectly joins the two moods together. This is something I will definitely be looking in to with my opening. It's edgy and jumpy and sets the tone of the film perfectly.


I really like the layout of Gemma's blog, she has a nice way of display her work. However I'm going to try and be a little more creative with my blog, hopefully using video to present a lot of my ideas in a fun way.

TITLES TITLES TITLES.

From looking at previous work I can't say I've found one example of titles that I've thought "Yeah, that's class." I'm going to put quite a bit of effort in to getting my titles looking good, linking in with the themes of my film. I really like these opening credits from Rock n Rolla.

They freeze frame and then stylise the image adding the actors names or characters names. I did a similar thing in my GCSE trailer task. So I probably won't be going for this technique as it doesn't tie in to the conventions of a British Social Realism film, but I'd like to use aspects of this technique and adapt it accordingly.

Pre-Production: Fish Tank Review

My review on Fish Tank, including some aspects that I will include in my opening sequence.

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Pre-Production: Typical Contrasting Audience Members

Independent Audience.

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Mainstream Audience.

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Pre-Production: So you wanna make make a film...

...here's what you're going to need to know:

Inspiration is at the start of every film, books, real life events and pre-exsiting films can all act as inspiration, even an everyday conversation or object! This forms an idea, this idea is proposed to a producer, if the producer likes the idea they will need to make a treatment and pitch and so find a director. The director will visualise the idea or script to see whats feasible for production. If the director is well known this will help to get a good writer on board and even finance for the project. The writer will be found next, he or she will define and clarify the ideas, the plot and the main characters, turning it into something tangible to work with. The relationship between Producer, Writer and Director is the ket creative triangle in the film business. Once the triangle has agreed ideas the Writer will then write a treatment: A one page description to the main story and characters of the film. The treatment will assume the tone of the film, if it's a comedy the treatment will be funny. A horror, it will be scary etc. The triangle will then make a pitch, this contains all the information the producer needs in order to sell the idea to financiers to commission a script. The pitch will start with a one liner which sums up the film, then the genre will be discussed, followed by the market and audience for the film, the people attached are included alone with a rough budget and finishing off with a brief synopsis of the film. The producer then goes to production companies with the treatment and pitch and persuades them that the film will make a profit, if the producer is successful in this they will receive development money which goes towards developing the script. The producer can also offer the future sales and broadcast rights to the film in return for money to develop the script. The producer can also apply to a public funding body such as the UK Film Council for a development grant or pitch the film to private investors in the hope that they will support the project. At the end of all this the Producer will have a development deal which he or she will use to tie down a writer. First the writer produces a synopsis, then outlines the steps, from this the first draft is produced. This is sent to the financiers, who will all have their own ideas, from this the final draft is written. The final stage of the script development process is the creation of a sales treatment, which is used as a sort of advert for potential financiers of the film. With the script complete the Director and Producer decide how they want to film it and who they will employ to help them; the cast, head of department etc. A detailed budget and production schedule is written up followed by a finance plan and recoupment schedule. The final package will contain: Final draft script, sales treatment, list of attached stars and HODs, detailed budget, production schedule, finance plan and recoupment schedule. This will be presented to potential funders to get money to make the film. Filmmaking in an expensive business and the Producer must secure enough funding to make the film to the highest standard possible. With the financing secured the full cast and crew are hired and detailed preparation for the shoot begins starting with the kick off meeting, through to storyboarding, production design and SFX planning. A large film production can involve hundreds of people and it is a constant struggle to keep it on schedule and budget. Post production usually starts during the shoot as soon as the first "Rushes"(raw footage and sound) are available. While the film is still in post production the Producer is already out selling it, he or she needs to find a distributor. The Producer hires a sales agent, a trailer is made and brought to meeting with distributors to sell the film, the sales toolkit needs to stand out as the market is saturated with films. A screening at a film festival can create heat which will get attention from distributers and help secure deals. As the finishing touches are being made to the film in post production the distributors plan their strategy and begin to market it. The audience is established and advertisement is produced to appeal to this audience. Press and media coverage is needed to spread the word of the film although the Internet and new marketing models are of increasing importance in marketing. Once distribution deals have been made and the film is hot and being talked about all over the web and world it is sold to exhibitors, the cinemas that will show it. Cinema exhibition is still the primary channel for films to reach their audiences and box office success equals financial success. First theirs the premiere, attended by all the stars which builds media coverage, then it is shown in cinemas, distributors supply the exhibitors with prints of the film. The more screens the film is shown on the more prints are needed. Data is collected about the popularity of films and from this the exhibitors decide which films to cancel and which to prolong. Once the distributors have been paid the financiers can recover their investments as laid out in the recoupment schedule. Hospitality sales for hotels and in-flight entertainment can bring in millions in additional revenue, then of course the film is released on DVD and Blu-Ray of which UK audiences spend more on than cinema tickets. A while after the DVD release the television is the final source of revenue, rights are sold seperately for pay per view showings, then pay TV showings and then terrestrial broadcasting. Rights for computer games and other product licenses can be extremely lucrative sources of additional revenue. Once the film has made a profit the Producer and key creative people can reap their rewards or so the theory goes...

The final income of a film is never known as distribution continues in perpetuity. It may even be re-released in the future!