Title of the film: The Pursuer
The film title The Pursuer, has a simple font, very straightforward and in block letters. The implementation of the black background gives off a scent of mysteriousness, one other reason as to why the dark background is used is because just before the title fades in the main character (Aran) is shown wearing black colour clothes, this has the effect on creating a direct link between the main character and the film title. The colour of the letters are metallic grey/silver, this has been implemented to show differentiation, for example in the film Taken (2008), you see the film title in white and the background in a black colour, and by now this technique has been used by many film makers. One reason to avoid the same action movie title-cliche was to add a bit more to the title, a bit more solidity with the metallic colour, it also conveys to the audience that the main character is a hard-man-game-changer. The colour of the title and the emergence of the title, fading into the film shows added depth and suspense, giving off the feeling to the audience as if they had just witnessed a significant, brutal murder. As well as making the film title the metallic grey/silver colour, we also wanted to display a more modernized style, to show innovation as well as originality to a modern audience.
Setting/Location:
There were two locations used for filming the media assignment, the first one was underneath a brief tunnel in Waterfields, Leatherhead. The second location for filming the media assignment was on top of a bridge looking over the busy fast-moving M25 motorway. The minimal lighting in the very first beginning in the point-of-view perspective, shows that there seems to be no escape for the character, and causes the audience to feel closed and blind to what is larking around the corner. There is a brief spell hope when some of the darkness becomes consumed by some growing light, this helps give the audience a false sense of security. The graffiti also connotes the fact that it is not a nice place to end up in, especially if you are running away from some sort of danger, films such as Kidulthood and Adulthood show very similar elements to make the scenes an even more daunting place to be in, especially in the time of desperation.
The second location for the media assignment, which was the bridge over looking the fast-moving M25 motorway, could be considered to being unconventional to other urban/action films similar to assignment genre, but it is a way to show the intensity of the fast-paced, critical scenes within the film. We also decided to do this to actually make the audience feel it is an actual opening of a film, because most of the time in other cases there is a lot of action and then the assignment clip finishes, sending messages to the audience that it was only a trailer, hopefully and surely we have avoided this common mistake. Below are pictures of the first and second location used for filming:
First Location:
Second Location:
Costumes/Props:
As Aran was the main character we decided to keep him as close to the film theme as possible, when he is introduced into the first scene, with immediate impact going straight into fatal blows and brutal violence on the the 'target', he is seen wearing a black scarf, black hat, black jacket and black shoes as well as black trousers and not forgetting the black gloves. This is to convey to the audience that Aran is a secretive, concealed character, the black colour also helps to surround the character with negativity where on the other hand he is actually the main character. The scenery and film shooting was at the tie of evening/night, so this worked really well in blending the main character with mysteriousness making the audience continuously speculate as to who the main character belongs to or what his identity is.
Camera Work and Editing:
As I took charge of what type of music should be implemented where and when, I had also asked the group to do more research into more sound, because it would be more productive, as well as the group putting me in charge of producing the beats, editing the core parts of the film because I was so familiar with using the mixing software. We incorporated a wide array of shot types and some camera movement for greater effect of purpose for our chosen genre. We utilized shot types such as low-angle, ECU, two shot etc. We also used panning camera movement twice in the opening two minutes(of the knife shown below and overlooking the M25) to help widen use and effect of our filming ability, this had a great effect on the outcome of the film, which was positive, it also allowed the audience to view more through the eyes of the camera.
The use of camera shots were quite conventional compared to other urban/action genre films,as our use of camerawork has met common cliches of action/urban films to be fast-paced and highly tensed scenes, action/urban films like Dark Knight Rises(2012), Shank(2010), Taken (2008) etc. Have high use of camerawork/shot types in its opening to their films, by using these techniques and skills we were able to produce a good opening two minutes.
Story and How the Opening Sets up:
The story of the film is all about Aran(the main character) and him pursuing and finishing people down under bosses demands, as he is a contract killer who gets paid for pursuing and killing particular individuals, the opening suggests the the type of storyline of the film through Aran's use of dialogue, and the envelope containing a photo of Nadib with a price tag of 12million underneath the picture of Aran's target. This helps to slightly portray the storyline to the audience as it makes it speculatively clear to them about what the film is about, setting up the rest of the film for the audience to find out what will happen. We didn't want to reveal too much in the opening two minutes which is why we structured our opening two minutes the way it was. Another element of the opening two minutes as regards to the price tag on Nadib, shows it is a very high price tag (as shown below) and that maybe it is his last and final piece of work before finishing forever.
Genre and How the opening Suggests it:
As the genre of the film was urban/action, there had to be a fast-smooth-paced, intense fight scene, showing brutality and murder. This immediately show the audience that there is something serious going on, and why the murder happened, something which the audience will have to carry on watching to find out all the answers to their questions. he genre of my film is action/urban which inevitably led to us having to include a fight scene. Films of this film genre don't and do usually include fight scenes in the opening two minutes, but we decided to use one in the opening two minutes to help link to the films plot and portray the film as the film is based around Aran (main cahracter) being a contract killer targeting specfic people on assignments. But we also decided to use the fight scene to meet common action/urban film cliches like have high levels of suspense,thrill action etc. and all action films at some point feature fights and conflicts and high levels of drama so it helps make my opening two minutes conventional. Another element which we decided to out in was fear, by making Aran (main character) look menacing, and by blending him into the darkness we clamped down the emotion of fear within the audience's hearts.
Examples such as Taken (2008), Unrivalled (2011), Never Back Down (2008), films show that there is the urgency to show a fight scene to keep the pulsating heartbeats of the audience consistent and full of ecstasy.
This knife used in the film shows fear and danger
How Characters are introduced:
The pursuer (Aran) is shown way ahead of Tom (Target), this shows the encounter between the two. Te main character (Aran) is shown near total prevalence, with him being the one afflicting the pain, it becomes hard to guess who has the upper hand and dominant force in the scene itself. We've purposely utilized a lot of screen time towards the main character using various different camera shots like high low-angle shots,ECU, close up, long shots etc. in order to show that he's the dominant, main character in this film. He's first introduced during the opening fight scene in the film as shown above(0:11) in which he consequently kills his target, saying only a couple of words "job done". His introduction at the beginning of the film is the typical perception and concept of what his character is like in terms of personality and role he has for the synopsis and the film itself, another main factor in introducing the main character's role by showing him waiting for the victim conveys a strong but bitter message to the audience that there is no escape from death itself.
Special effects:
In the opening two minutes of our film, we used some great special effects.
We used special effects to emphasize on the damage and suffer and because we wanted to further effectively emphasize the significance of the attack to the audience and felt that it was needed to make the fight scene look slightly more complex.
We specifically used x-ray style special effects for the two shots shown below.
Firstly using it for the shot after Aran (main character) punched Tom(the victim) to show further impact of what the punch caused for the victim, and secondly used for the ECU shot of the knife after being used against Tom to help highlight the specific detail and state of the knife after the attack to show that it's of higher importance to the audience.
These effects could be but wouldn't be conventional of action/urban films of such, but would probably be more conventional to other film genres like psychological thrillers etc. One other reason as to why we implemented x-ray/flashing effects was to make the audience feel intense, and in a state of emergency.
Both of these screenshots from the film worked great, giving off some real spine-tingling sensations, making the audience feel captivated and weak, putting them in the position of the victim in a suffering state of decline.
No comments:
Post a Comment