Evaluation - Audience Response

 

This is our audience response for our opening scene. We were happy that people picked up on certain choices we made such as not immediately showing our main character to show him as important and the focus of the scene. Other positives from audience feedback included the soundtrack used for the scene being fitting with the action on-screen and managing to leave enough information unknown at the end of the scene to create enigmas that would make the audience want to watch the rest of the film. Other praise centered on the titles we used for the scene which "made it feel like an opening 2 minutes," the wide variation of shots "especially the opening shot and the shot of the train," and the props such as the briefcase fitting well with the conventions of this genre.

 

Main criticisms were focused on the change in lighting towards the end of the scene, which was caused by time-restraints during production which unfortunately meant we had to continue filming even when the sun started to set. This made it harder to see what was going on, particularly characters expressions. Although we saw this as an unnavoidable mistake considering the circumstances during production, we would still endeavor to ensure this wouldn't happen for future productions by making sure we start filming at a time of year with plenty of sunlight, in a location without as much shade and at a time when there was plenty of time left in the day before the sunset. Another criticism was the soundtrack being too loud at the beginning of the scene, making dialogue hard to make out. We would change this in future by editing the sound of both the dialogue and music in post-production to make sure neither overpowers the other throughout the scene.

Shot Evaluation - Opening Shot

Our opening shot subverts normal opening shots for films of this genre, in that this opening shot shows the audience a full picture that reveals the type of setting the scene is based in. It is not uncommon for action films to start films with an out-of-focus shot or extreme close-up that keeps the audience wanting to see the whole picture for a while. Examples of this include the opening shots from The Bourne Identity and Jack Reacher, whose opening shots do not provide the audience with any information whatsoever and instead show things with seemingly little significance. Time restraints meant we couldn't use this method in our own scene. Our opening shot shows the scene is set in a mostly rural environment as opposed to a large city landscape. We felt it would be interesting to set the opening of an action film in this sort of setting as the audience does not expect it, with a conventional large set-piece set in London or in an exotic international location being the expected opening from our audience. We helped the audience to locate the setting as a mostly rural environment by lining up our shot to include as many trees and bushes as we could, with the colour green signifying the natural element to this location that would be noticeably absent from the grey concrete of the city.

This shot also helps to introduce our main character. We wanted to build audience anticipation by having the characters arrival be the focus of the beginning of the scene and letting the audience know the character is important. The audience know that the trains arrival is significant as we have purposely shown them the barriers closing in the opening shot, the train approaching the platform, and then the character stepping off the train. This works much better at letting the audience know which character is the focus of the scene than if we had have opened with an opening shot of the character just stepping off the train, which would have carried the risk of the character being mistaken as any random person by blending in with the extras in the shot. The horror film Saw that I analysed as part of my research provided inspiration for this technique, in the way that it builds audience anticipation for the reveal of its villain throughout the film, showing him piece by piece, although for our film we have applied the technique to our hero instead.

The only difficulties in achieving this shot were how we had to set up the camera on uneven ground which made it difficult to make the shot level, and how we had to wait for a long time to get the shot of the barriers closing as there was no way of knowing when they would start closing. We also were concerned that the camera could not pick up the sound of the barriers alarms going off, bu luckily in post-production we could increase the volume so the audience could hear it. We were also lucky in that the woman walking in shot on the far right of the screen was an unplanned but welcome addition to the shot, as we felt it added some substance to the scene. She is only ever shown on the least important third of the screen and she has trouble walking with a cane which makes her seem vulnerable and should make the audience feel sorry for her as she has to wait for the train to go past. A persons vulnerability is a theme that carries on to the end of the scene where our main character is wounded by the arrow.

The title font we used in our scene was Agency FB. The sharp neon blue was chosen to make the titles stand out against the background and make it easier to read. We also made certain words in each credit larger and others smaller to highlight the names and companies involved in making the film to the audience. In this shot, we placed the title right in the middle of the shot, firstly to make it more noticeable and secondly because it looked best in this position as it had the plain concrete as a background.

Shot Evaluation - Title Shot

This is a shot of our films main title: Decoded. We chose this title as it links with the espionage and spy thriller elements that are part of our opening scene. The word 'decoded' has connotations of secret codes and information that we feel are plot devices that would appeal to our target audience of male teenagers. The word 'decoded' also raises an enigma, as it should make our audience ask questions such as "What has been decoded? Why is it so important? Who tried to hide whatever was decoded?"

We chose a sharp neon blue as our titles colour as we felt this colour linked to the data, technology and secret hard drives that are part of our film. This is similar to how The Matrix used a sharp green to link in with its computer code in a now iconic main title style. We also opted for a simple and plain font to juxtapose the action from the film, taking inspiration from The Bourne Legacy's title that I found in my title research. The title also takes up the whole of the screen and is against a plain black background, so the audience know it is the title of the film as so much focus has been put on it.

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.