Music Research

For our film opening task we decided that we would like to include music in our final piece and make it a key part of the opening sequence. Therefore there was a lot of importance in choosing the right piece of music to use and took hours of research. We sat down over three days and simply listened to all sorts of different music tracks. We cannot use Copyrighted music due to the rules of our exam board (OCR). Therefore we had to look through Royalty Free Music and music that was over 50 years old as these songs are not copyrighted.
After looking through Royalty Free Music we found a large amount of them sounded very cheap or poorly instrumented (yet still impressive for a 'one-man band') and they simply did not suit the music style we had in mind. Therefore we began listening to music over 50 years old and found to our surprise that a lot of popular and great music is of the previous generation. We came to a conclusion of three songs that we felt would suit our action-comedy genre/film idea. These were the three songs that we felt were good.

The Rolling Stones - Paint it Black



The Animals - House of the Rising Sun



The Monkees - Daydream Believer



After listening to the beat of the songs and to how we felt they would contrast or match with what was going on onscreen we decided that the Monkees - Daydream Believer was the song we were going to use as it suited the ironic comedic element of our film opening, the happy music contrasted to the killing that ensued on screen, much like in the Deadpool [film] opening.

Deadpool Film Opening Credits



We felt that 'Paint it Black' had been overused by the existing media and despite it having a good rhythm to it and sounding like a good match, we decided not to go with it. As for 'House of the Rising Sun', the overall feel of the song was great but the beat of the song seemed like it would be hard to match with what was happening on screen. Therefore we decided that 'Daydream Believer' was the best song to use. We tracked the scenes to certain points in the song and felt they matched perfectly.

Genre and Audience

The action genre is defined as wherein physical action takes precedence in the storytelling. The film will often have continuous motion and action including physical stunts, chases, fights, battles, and races. The story usually revolves around a hero that has a goal, but is facing incredible odds to obtain it. 

Action film examples:

@ Die Hard- A New York cop gives terrorists a dose of their own medicine as they hold hostages in an LA office building.

@ Raiders of the Lost Ark - an adventuring archeologist races around the world to single-handedly prevent the Nazis from turning the Ark of the Covenant into a weapon of world conquest.

Our film is most certainly an action film with its slow beginning which transitions into a fast pace combat movie.

A target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message. In marketing and advertising, it is a particular group of consumers within the predetermined target market, identified as the targets or recipients for a particular advertisement or message. In this instance our target audience is ranged at 15 and above, however to be more accurate the audience will be aged between 15-40, simply because the actors in the opening look particularly young meaning the audience could certainly relate to them.

When deciding our target audience, we had to look at what we were going to include, and how discrete we were going to be. We chose this age specifically because the audience is seen as active producers, to make sense of media text from their social position.

The Magnificent Seven Review

I absolutely adored this 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven franchise which represents such a diverse relationship between seven warriors. Director Antoine Fuqua brings his modern vision to a classic story in The Magnificent Seven. With the town of Rose Creek under the deadly control of industrialist Bartholomew Bogue, the desperate townspeople employ protection from seven outlaws, bounty hunters, gamblers and hired guns. As they prepare the town for the violent showdown that they know is coming, these seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money.

First of all we have Billy Rocks is based on James Coburn's Britt from 'The Magnificent Seven', who himself is based on Seiji Miyaguchi's Kyuzo from 'Seven Samurai'.

Goodnight Robicheaux- Based on Lee from 'The Magnificent Seven', Goodnight has severe cases of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Josh Faraday- The trickster/gambler who dares to challenge death, sorry for any spoilers.

Christolm- the leader of this delightful group, who motivates his group and is one of the strongest above all.

Vasquez- the only Mexican of the gang, very fast with his gun and joined the group in return for hiding his outlaw background.

Jack Horne- the 'bear' of the group, named this for his huge size and animal like fighting style; a ruthless hunter.

Red Harvest- the native American who is hunting for revenge against the people who murdered his family, prefers a bow and arrow over a gun any day; and would still win the fight.

These are the magnificent seven that are presented to the audience, they have altered the original characters hugely in comparison with the last movie of the 1960's. These characters represent the modern age where all cultures and races are accepted in society, I enjoyed each one of these individuals fighting styles in relation to their background. I recommend this film to others and would definitely watch it again myself.

Marketing Campaign

Marketing campaigns promote a product through different media, including television, radio, print and online platforms. Campaigns don't have to rely solely on advertising and can also include demonstrations, word of mouth and other interactive techniques. Businesses operating in highly competitive markets may initiate frequent marketing campaigns and devote significant resources to generating brand awareness and sales.

Marketing campaigns can be designed with different goals in mind, including building a brand image, introducing a new product, increasing sales of a product already on the market, or even reducing the impact of negative news. Defining a campaign's goal usually dictates how much marketing is needed and what media are most effective.

 

This is the poster for our marketing campaign, they can be used well because posters provide a logical and cost-effective way of communicating to a particular target market. When placed correctly, attractive posters can lure nearby people into a specific event and alert them of an upcoming product or service. Posters have the ability to stick in viewers' minds and can be a great tool for small- to medium-sized businesses to use to increase brand awareness. Posters are cheaper than common forms of advertising such as print, radio and television.

The biggest advantage of using posters is that they can be put just about anywhere and seen by almost anyone. Posters can be strategically located to target a particular market sector. For example, take-out restaurants might prefer to situate posters near busy bus stops or train terminals to target hungry commuters.

Bloom Institution

This is Sam's Institution Logo called 'Bloom':


The logo will appear at the beginning of our film opening and tells the audience what the institution is for the film.
The logo is good because it has a unique style to it, it fades on and off screen and is made up of a clear bold font in the centre of the screen. The title 'Bloom' is in a bright pink colour and has an 'electric' glow/effect to it, in which the text is animated. This draws attention to the title as it shows it is a professional logo institution as it is a moving image and is in high quality whilst also looking original.

As well as the title in clear pink text, there are two circles surrounding the title, both of which also move in a natural, cool way. The inner circle is a lightning blue where as the outer circle is more of a smokey effect with a blood-orange glow. These circles add depth to the image and draw the viewers eye to the centre whilst also providing an aesthetically pleasing background.

This effect was created in After Effects entirely by scratch by Josh, he used multiple effects to create this final image.

Shooting Schedule

For our Film Opening Task we had to create a Shooting Schedule so we could organise the date, time and location of which we would be shooting the film opening. We also had to list the props, costume, sets, cast and credits we would be using. As well as this we gave a brief outline of timings throughout the day so we had a schedule of when we could shoot specific scenes, when to take breaks and when to check footage etc.


Link: Shooting Schedule


Overall, having a shooting schedule makes filming much easier as it outlines all of the props we need, and is a basis for timings and dates, it can also be handed out to the cast and crew so everyone has the same information. It was exceedingly beneficial particularly for our film genre which was an action/comedy, because we had numerous fight scenes which required certain levels of pre-planning.

Film Opening Storyboard Evaluation

For our storyboard we drew and wrote down what scenes we would need to record we at the location of filming. After recording these scenes we decided as a group to re-record the scenes in a different way. We did this by changing the plot. This was done by removing all the excess characters like enemy 1 or 2 for example. We did this because we felt like with all the fighting scenes it would take away form the final fight and make it less appealing to watch. it would of also made fitting the in the titles difficult as the scenes were shot or would only stay on one camera angle for a few seconds making the titles hard to read.

 

So we scrapped the old story plot and made a new one that would take less time to record, require less people and the final fight would be more satisfying to watch as the build up doesn't have constants fighting which ruins the final fight as the audience is then used to the fights taking place.

It would take less time to record as we didn't need other actors, so we didn't need to choreograph the fights which meant we saved a lot of time and that we could successfully over-record so that we would have plenty of scenes to choose from so that we can have different angles for each shot which can help create a more intense effect to the film opening.

 

In conclusion we decided to scrap the old story plot and make a new one as it allowed us to make a better quality film opening that would take less time to record, so that we could over record and give us opportunities to make better scenes due to the wide range of camera angles.