Decoded (Final Edit)

 

Here is the final cut of our opening scene to Decoded.

Production Logo

We decided to call our production company Marl-Bennex Productions as we felt this was simple and just uses the names of my group. Our logo features a picture of a glass of cognac and a smoking cigar on a polished oak table, which connotes an air of professionalism and suave sophistication. I felt this makes our production company look like it has a good reputation which would put more of the audiences trust in the production company and therefore the film as well. I've also put the text in a gold colour and a smart-looking font to add to the production companies look of professionalism. Here is my finished production logo.

Finished Titles

The titles I have chosen keep in line with the simplistic style used by films such as The Bourne Legacy and Drive that I found in my titles research. My titles feature a plain font in a neon blue colour, which makes them stand out more and lets the audience know the film is exciting and action-packed. The titles should leave no room for confusing the genre of my film for anything other than action, even when the action is yet to start and the pace of my opening scene is slow. I also like that the font and colour makes the text stand out and allows the audience to read it easily. Here is a screenshot of a scene in my film, featuring an example of the titles I have used.

My films main title card has a slightly different, simpler font as I felt it looked more professional. The colour remains the same as the fonts to carry over the same style so the scene has some consistency. The font size is also bigger so that the title fills up the whole screen, so the audience know this is the name of the film. It is also set against a plain black background to make it stand out, following on from films like The Bourne Legacy and The A-Team that I found in my titles research. Here is a screenshot of my films main titles.

Final Music

A friend of ours is a music producer that has his own studio, and we managed to get him to make a soundtrack to our opening scene. We're really happy with how it has turned out as it has the exact tone and pace we are looking for, as well as being perfectly matched to the action on-screen. This is due to us taking our edited footage to the studio with us so he could see what happens on-screen and work out the timings of the track so the pace increased at the right moments. The only problems with the track is the length, being roughly 1 and a half minutes long and therefore not long enough to play over the whole scene. We need to try to work out a way of changing the track in our editing software so that it plays over the remainder of the scene. Another potential problem is the fact we couldn't completely finish editing the shots of our scene to the right length before the track was made, as there was only one short space of time that he had to make the track. This means once the shots are shortened or changed around there might be a few timing issues between the music and the action taking place on-screen, but hopefully we can maintain the effect of the musics pace matching the pace of the action.

Research and Planning Targets

You need to revisit research posts and explore further target audience, editing, mise en scene, locations, camera compostition, sound, light, use of titles, genre indicators, key moments. Comment on strengths of your script and storyboard. You need to evidence your music research and choices. Post on the history of your genre. Make sure you haven't posted something without commenting on it fully. 15/20

Soundtrack Research

For our production we are planning to get one of our friends to help create our soundtrack, as this way we can have control over the music in our film and tailor it to suit our needs. We can guide the composer to create music that matches the mood of the scene and what the audience is seeing onscreen. This will allow us to make it tense at the right moments. The soundtrack is important in making the film look as professional as possible, and a soundtrack that is unfitting to the action takes away the realism of the film. I have been looking at similar films to ours and researching what kind of music they used for their soundtrack, so we can guide our composer into what tone of music we intend on using. We don't want our background music to overpower the shots but support them so the music adds tone and atmosphere to the scene.

Our production is part of the action genre. It is conventional for action films to use an orchestral score or an electronic sounding score for their films. Big Hollywood blockbusters and most superhero films use an orchestral score such as the recent Man of Steel, whereas gritty and dark action films like Blitz with Jason Statham or Drive with Ryan Gosling use an electronic-sounding soundtrack. Orchestral music is good at building tension and anticipation within the audience. Electronic soundtracks are used to excite the audience either building up to, during, or just after an action sequence.

This is an example of an orchestral soundtrack, composed by Hans Zimmer for The Dark Knight.

My group may be using a soundtrack quite similar to this, as we want to let the audience know in the opening establishing shots of our main character that something exciting is being built up to. Without the background music to set the tone, the audience could mistake the opening of our production to be simply a man on his way back from work rather than a spy holding something important in his briefcase. 

This is an example of the more electronic and gritty sounding background music, used for the film Blitz.

The music used in the opening titles of Blitz is very fast paced to excite the audience and build anticipation. In the more fast paced moments of our opening scene where there is a brief chase between our 2 characters, we aim to use music with this sort of pace as well. We want this music to build to a sharp cut to black to end our opening scene when our main character is about to be killed.

Animatic Storyboard

This is my animatic storyboard. It should give a rough idea as to the planned pace of our shots and the shot types we plan on using. The background music used in this is not the same as what we'll be using in our finished opening scene, but instead it's purpose is to give you an idea of the kind of music we'll be using and when we want background music over the scene. Our films titles will appear at the end of our scene, but aren't in the storyboard. I'm happy with how my animatic storyboard has turned out and think it looks quite professional.