Opening titles

The opening title for hostage, its all been edited, in the colours red, black, grey and white. The fonts are always in big capital white letters which seem to suggest the film will be a strong, powerful thriller. The font in the different shots are always integrated into buildings/objects. For example the name Ben Foster goes up a telephone poll. The shots are all shot in low key lighting which suggest that the film will be farely dark and grungy. The strong red colours sugguest that there might be blood in the film. Also in the opening sequence there are a lot of shadows making the film seem eeiry and creepy.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/02/28/hostage/

The next title sequence is for This is England. It sets the backdrop for the radicalism of the National Front and a splintered subset of skins. On display: the women of Greenham Common, the Iranian Embassy Siege, the nationwide miner’s strike, a bolstered Thatcher and Reagan and of course, Roland Rat. The opening scene shows the harsh reality of life in 1983 as mines were being closed and our armies were fighting in the Falkland's. It's shot in a gritty style and uses many different images physically filmed in the 80's. The music in the background, is the Toots and the Maytals a band very much listened to by skinheads in the 80's. The opening title features the British flag many times showing the strong levels of patriotism that run throughout the film. The titles tend to be in corners of screen not to take much attention away from the on screen footage. They also names also come up as rolling numbers, the font then looks like a British soldier’s dog tag, a clear symbol to use as Britain was at war during the time the film was supposed to take place. 

In the opening sequence of 'blade 2' we are shown lots of different clips, with a voice over of blade himself. Most of these scenes, are flash backs showing from when he was born, to what he has now become. The titles are in red which could suggest blood, and the main title at the end saying Blade 2 look like swords, with blood on them. It is all black, and shot in low key lighting, showing the film is dark and mysterious. when we see the clip change, the whole screen goes black, giving the impression that a long time has gone past, and we see this as blade goes from a boy to a man.

Posted By Liam Bentley and Sam Rushton

Filming Institutions

Film4 is a free digital television channel available in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, owned and operated by Channel 4. Film4 did not originally focus on broadcasting blockbusters, but nowadays broadcasts mainly mainstream Hollywood movies. The channel frequently has themed nights or seasons in which a number of films centred around one genre, director or actor are shown. As Channel 4 also owns a film production company, Film4 Productions, it shows many of its in-house productions. Film Four was founded in 1998 but later re-named to Film4 in 2006. We would like Film4 to produce our film as we want it to be a hard hitting, gritty film. British film's usually have more depth and more emotion than Hollywood films along with better written story lines and conversations, and we want this to be apparent in our film. Film4 usually casts un-known actors as their budget does not closely rival that of a Hollywood production. We want it to be a successful hard hitting production like This is England, that is inspiring and emotional, but still very entertaining. Strong hard hitting films like This is England and Slum Dog Millionaire were produced by Film4. 

By Sam Rushton and Liam Bentley

Target Audience

The target of our film is the age that the thriller genre most appeals to roughly between 16 - 30, obviously people over this age can still and do still enjoy films from this genre but this age is the most popular. The genre usually appeals most to males, as films usually contains lots of action, violence and cars. But many thriller films have strongly appealed to female audiences such as the Titanic. Thriller's usually appeal to Working class - Middle class people, but sometimes appeal to every class, again using the Titanic as an example. Thrillers appeal would probably appeal to all races, as they have a lot of different things for different people, but Thrillers are usually watched by the Western world so therefore would appeal most here. Thrillers obviously then have a huge audience that they appeal too, and the Thriller genre has many sub-genres. This all have separate audiences that enjoy them. For example fans of horror might be attracted to the SAW films, whereas fans of Gangster/Crime thrillers maybe attracted to the Kidulthood, Adulthood films, so there is a lot of depth in the genre. This is a clear representation of demographic profiling as a white women's doctors needs and wants from a film would not be the same to the needs of a male muslim manager. Psychographic profiling assumes that the audience to be complex and to have certain needs which must be gratified, and thus aim to appeal to the audiences' emotions and psychological needs. We use Young and Rubicam's cross-cultural consumer characteristics:

1. Mainstreamers - 40% of the market, seek conformity and thus tend to buy well know brand names, these people would be attracted to the stereotypical thriller films, produced with a big budget by Hollywood, with a star filled cast.

2. Aspires - Motivated by status, buy high fashionable goods, again would be attracted by high end big blockbuster productions. Anything that was full of celebrities.

3. Succeeders - Have already climbed the ladder and want to keep control. Would be open minded and attracted to both high budget American films and lower budget British produced films. Open minded people with real world experience.

4. Reformers - This group want the world to be a better place, educated people. Thrillers may not appeal to many of these people as they usually contain a lot of violence, killing, guns, drugs etc.

We hope our film appeals to everybody, but we are aiming to appeal mostly to succeeders as they are more open minded, have more real world experience, and don't expect as much as some people do out of the big budget production of films.

Posted by Sam Rushton

Genre Conventions

The genre of our film is Thriller, but with a crime-gangster sub genre. Thriller is a genre that uses suspense, tension, and excitement as the main elements. The primary subgenres are mystery, crime, and psychological thrillers. After the assassination of President Kennedy, political thriller and paranoid thriller films became very popular. The brightest examples of thrillers are the Hitchcock’s movies. The cover-up of important information from the viewer and fight/chase scenes are common methods in all of the thriller subgenres, although each sub-genre has its own characteristics and methods. Common methods in crime thrillers are mainly ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings. We intend to use many of these characteristics in our film, although we do not really want to follow the genre exactly and want to mix it up and bring other characteristics into the genre. Thrillers are usually in busy hetic genres e.g cities. Plots usually involve something being stolen, taken etc and somebody trying to get it/them back, or some people trying to kill each other, this leads to the thriller genre to be one of the most appealing and exciting genres invented. Characters are usually male, and well built. He is always good at something, e.g he could be a good assassin or a good driver e.g the transporter. The main character is always saves the day and usually good defeats evil in this genre, all in a fast paced action packed film. All this is shown in this 3 minute clip of The Transporter 3.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phtEQ2RBx2A&feature=related  (Embedding was disabled on this clip)



Posted by Sam Rushton and Liam Bentley

Questionaire

Our main target audience would be between the ages of 16-25, but the Thriller genre appeals to most people of both sexes. The cinema is aimed at this group, and to get the most people to watch it, we have to aim it at that group. We have now created a questionaire to help us look at what our target audience want in a film, which would help us with our own film.

Age -
Sex -

Question 1 - What is your favorite film genre?

Question 2 - (from the question above) What experience do you get from this genre?

Question 3 - How often do you go to the cinema?

Question 4 - Who do you prefer going to the cinema with?

Question 5 - What is the most genre of film you have watched at the cinema?


Question 6 - What is your favorite film?


Question 7 - Do you prefer going to the cinema or watching films on DVD?


Posted Liam Bentley and Sam Rushton

Preliminary Filming Task

When filming, we learnt useful techniques, like the 180 degree rule, and the use of the tri-pod and camera. Now we know this, we can improve and produce better quality videos. During the editing, we improved the continuity, and only picked the shots we wanted, making the film look a lot more professional and smooth. We hope to bring this into our final piece of coursework.

Filmed by Sam Rushton

Uploaded by Liam Bentley and Sam Rushton

Top 20 Grossing Films of all time

Rank	Title	USA Box Office
1.	Avatar (2009)	$760,505,847
2.	Titanic (1997)	$600,779,824
3.	The Dark Knight (2008)	$533,316,061
4.	Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)	$460,935,665
5.	Shrek 2 (2004)	$436,471,036
6.	E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)	$434,949,459
7.	Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace(1999)	$431,065,444
8.	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest(2006)	$423,032,628
9.	Toy Story 3 (2010)	$414,984,497
10.	Spider-Man (2002)	$403,706,375
11.	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)	$402,076,689
12.	Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith(2005)	$380,262,555
13.	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003)	$377,019,252
14.	Spider-Man 2 (2004)	$373,377,893
15.	The Passion of the Christ (2004)	$370,270,943
16.	Jurassic Park (1993)	$356,784,000
17.	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers(2002)	$340,478,898
18.	Finding Nemo (2003)	$339,714,367
19.	Spider-Man 3 (2007)	$336,530,303
20.	Alice in Wonderland (2010)	$334,185,206

In the top 20 grossing films of all time, there are a lot of thrillers showing it is a very popular genre. e.g Avatar.


by Sam Rushton and Liam Bentley

Analysis of opening sequences - Sam Rushton

This is an intro from the film Football Factory, the into uses lots of establishing shots, showing the the football supporters walking to the pub, and there is also an establishing shot outside the pub showing their location. When the fight at the pub breaks out it is shot in a good cinematic style as the action is fast paced and the camera angle is constantly switching, showing many different characters early on in the film. There are good SFX during the fight scene and it almost feels as if you are there yourself. A clear protagonist is also created. This is shown as he is at the front of the group and is also calling the shots. There is a clear enigma in this clip that is why are these two sets of men fighting. It clearly introduces the theme of football firms early on through the way they walk, talk and fight with the other teams fans.



This is the opening to Green Street another film about football hooligism. There are lots of establishing shots, that show us the character and the locations that he is traveling from and too, he narratives the intro and we learn that he was thrown out of Harvard 2 months short of his diploma. It's clear that this character will be one if not the main protagonist as it indicated in his dialogue that he is on a journey when he says "but what I was about to learn, no Ivy League school in the world could teach me." There are obviously enigmas why has he been kicked out of Harvard? Why is he traveling from the US to England? The equilibrium is disrupted right from the beginning as he has had to travel half way across the world after being kicked out of his university.

Sam Rushton

Initial Ideas

Our initial idea for our opening sequence is a crime and gangster thriller. We have looked at lots of videos, getting lots of ideas for our project. We now have a clear image of what the genre is about, and how it should be filmed. Our main idea is, that the main character gets a phone call, saying someone is kidnapped/drugs have been stolen and the film is about getting them back, but we could come up with more ideas, later on as we do more research. We want to include a few enigmas, we will show these through flashbacks through the main character.

by Liam Bentley, Sam Rushton