Pitch Presentation

Group43 Main Task

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This is our pitch presentation which contains the bulk of our research.

This Is England Part 1 Analysis

The film begins by showing a montage of typically 80s fads/crazes/phenomenons and well known figures (including the arcade video game "Space Invaders", the TV show "Knight Rider" and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher) spliced between its opening titles, while non-digetic reggae music plays simultaneously. The music continues as a moving shot of an old, run down British suburb is shown, while the film title is superimposed onto this. As the music continues, so does the montage of clips, which include school boys, 80s bands playing, exercise groups and major national events such as Princess Diana's marriage to Prince Charles, the race riots and the Falklands War.

The main plot itself begins in July 1983, on the last day of term, when 12 year old white British boy and protagonist Shaun wakes up in the morning and promptly makes his way to the newsagents to read a comic without buying it, which leads to a dispute between him and the Asian shopkeeper in which Shaun calls him a "mong" as his thrown out, which is slang, shorthand and racist for "mongoloid". Shaun then goes to school and gets into a fight with a bully who makes an offensive joke about Shaun's deceased father who died in the Falklands war. They are then both broken up by teachers and dragged to the Headmaster's office, and Shaun is made to wait outside while the bully is caned by the Headmaster (caning was a typical punishment for school pupils in the 80s until it was outlawed). Then, on the way home, Shaun runs into a group of skinheads in an underpass led by Woody, who Shaun later starts hanging out with before they accept him as part of the group.

Final Edit and Upload...

On Tuesday March 18th we completed our sound balancing to enhance the voice overs over the diegetic ambient sound and non-diegetic sound track, a collectively decided adjustment we decided we needed to make based on a peer-feedback session, and that the voice overs are a significant element of the sequence to carrying the story-line.

Following the completion of the final-cut, we exported and uploaded the sequence to youtube, writing a brief pitch to accompany it. We have so far garnered 103 views in the first 24 hours since posting.

We have prepared our commentary/evaluation, which we will record over our sequence tomorrow.

Stay Tuned...

Progess Thus Far

First draft of the script was completed in mid February.

Preliminary filming was started during the previous half term and completed during the half term holiday. Filming went more or less according to plan, however, we found that we were over ambitious in our original goal, as we filmed an excessive amount of footage (around 15 minutes, including retakes however).

Editing of footage into a two minute opening sequence has been completed,and visual effects, credits and a soundtrack have also been completed and applied. Even with the cuts that we were forced to make in order to fit it into the allocated running time, the film so far meets and in some ways surpasses my original vision. Our final sequence has surpassed our original predictions by four seconds, bring the total running time to 132 seconds. This meets the exact time limit of 2 minutes as well as the 10% extra allowance.

All that remains is to record and apply the voice track and then configure the entire film's sound balance properly. We are running slightly behind schedule, however this is due to the poor weather conditions earlier in February that forced the closure of college and thus denied us access to resources for two days (I understand an extra ten days were allocated to us because of this? - Ed).

Stay tuned...

Camera Shots and length

Today we decided what camera shots we would use. We chose a mixture of different shots that range from close ups to extreme long shots. We also counted how long each shot would take in seconds, then we added it all up and the whole sequence ended up lasting for 158 seconds, with the absolute maximum being 132 seconds. We cut out some of the flashbacks and shortened some of the shots and now our sequence is roughly estimated to be about 128 seconds long, and thats including the logos and blackouts.

We recently gained permission from The Corporation Of London to film our scenes on the Kenley Common, and Tandridge District Council to film in the Purley area, and so we can commence filming.

Recreating Shots

Today we were assigned the task of recreating some shots from the films 'Kidulthood' and La Haine, two famous films about gang and youth culture.

After having our shots evaluated, many of our compositions were well done, but constructive criticisms included:

-In the group shot of the three gangsters, it was advised that we should have made the shot tighter, instead of it being a medium long shot.

-In the shot featuring a lone Noel Clarke, it was advised that that figure should have been more centred on the x and y axis, as not enough space was left on the left side of the frame.

-In the group shot of the friends sitting at the table, we were advised that we shouldn't have cut out one of the characters too much. This could have been fixed by less angled positioning.

Many of the shots involved unique compositions which ranged from tight low and shots to wide long shots, and we worked together, with informed direction to achieve these.

Location Location Location

During our production, we had to decide on the locations to shoot in. We have come up with these places as the places we are going to film at.


Central Croydon

Purley

Kenley Common


We have decided to use Croydon and Purley as establishing shots, and we have decided to use Kenley Common for the main part of the production, it being where the majority of the shooting shall take place.

Distribution Windows

Like most films, we have decided to screen our movie at cinemas approximately six months before a DVD release. However the film will not be released in major multiplex cinemas. Although it will be shown in arthouses along with other low budget British movies. We will enter it in the Cannes Film Festival, and if the movie proves to be a sucess in the U.K, we will move it to an international market.

Marketing Strategies.

We've been looking at the ways in which low-budget film productions advertise their film to their target audience, particularly in relation to films which are of a similar concept and genre (Kidulthood, This Is England, Bullet Boy):

Social-Networking
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=229044227

Social Networking sites are a popular medium with young people, and so like the makers of Adulthood have done here for example, we could market our film through a wider range, also including facebook and bebo. It reaches the broad audiences which goes into the millions of users for each website, and the costs are low.

I-Tunes Video
The I-Pod is the most popular form of portable music player, a large proportion of its patrons young people. This is accompanied by I-Tunes and its wide array of services. It costs hundreds of thousands of pounds to buy slots to screen films on television, and I-Tunes offers trailers for free to its customers:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/

We thought it would also do justice to our budget to take advantage of this service to reach our audience, particularly because it will draw teenagers in based on the fact that they are free.

We also thought to use the Xbox Live MarketPlace, as Xbox is a very popular gaming console with the majority of players being 15+ years. Not only this, but using something as popular as this, is guarenteed to be recommended and watched by our target market as it is free to use.

Advertising our production

There are many opportunities on where we could advertise our movie.
Here are some ideas:

. Telephone booths

. Buses

. magazines

. itunes

.The Internet (Social Networking sites)

. Movie Trailors

. Xbox Live MarketPlace

Due to financial reasons, we won't be advertising on television.

Budgets

Many British films have a budget of over £1000,000. Here the budgets of the films we have been comparing with:

This is England: £1,500,000
Clockwork Orange: £1,100,000
BulletBoy: Not available
Kidulthood:£800,000

Our predicted budget is £1,500,000

Idea Development For Pitch

To further develop our idea into a prospective film idea, we need to work out who our film is to be aimed at, how much money we will need, our marketing strategy reflecting our audience and determining the genre.

We researched several films which encompassed a similar concept to ours, and noted the genre they came under.

www.pearlanddean.com

Kidulthood - Drama

Slumdog Millionaire - Romantic Drama

This Is England - Drama

Clockwork Orange - Drama

Bullet Boy - Drama

We've determined from this sample that our film will come under the 'Drama' genre.

Audience

Most of these films feature protagonists that are of a young or teenage age, and in troubled lifestyles: Trifes issues with gang culture and teenage pregnancy in 'Kidulthood'; and similarly with Shaun in 'This Is England' and Ricky in 'Bullet Boy'. In this, modern youths are able to relate to these character. Our script makes a similar connection, troubled youths looking for salvation, and so it would be logical to predict that our film will attract largely teenage audiences.

BulletBoy & Kidulthood Opening Sequence Analysis

Bullet Boy Part One - Analysis by Nathan Somovilla

BulletBoy opens up, with Curtis shining a torch in the boot of a car. This makes the audience think that perhaps he is hiding or has been kidnapped as the car is moving. He then shines the torch onto the camera which then does a white fade-in and the title Bulletboy appears. It then goes to Curtis's brother Ricky who we can see is in prison on his his release day. It shows him lying down through an etched on mirror with gang 'tags' on which suggests that Ricky is part of a gang. When he states his details, it gives the audience background information on his character, such as his full name. This scene also suggests that he has had an emotional time which suggest that he had trouble adapting to prison life. It then cuts to another man driving through the countryside trying to light a cigarette, unaware that Curtis is in the boot of his car, until Curtis starts to kick against the boot. The drivers reply suggests that he doesn't know that there is someone in the boot which indicates that Curtis has hidden there himself and has not been kidnapped. It becomes clear that the driver ( Wisdom) and Curtis know each other as Curtis states that he "wants to see his brother." We realise, that Wisdom is going to pick up his friend who is Ricky who is Curtis's brother. Due to Wisdoms anger he drives off leaving Curtis, to which he then drives back to him and they continue to the prison. Ricky is surprised to see Wisdom and more surprised to see Curtis who should be at school. They drive away from the prison at high speed and it then cuts to Wisdom stopping the car and going to the toilet, leaving Ricky and his brother alone.

Kidulthood Part One Analysis - By Robert Palmer

I have decided to analyse the opening sequence for Kidulthood, released through Revolver Entertainment, one of the possible independent film distributors that would be ideal for our production. The film also represents the quintessential british teen drama, which although we want to stray away from themes of excessive violence and gang culture, it would be ideal to analyse for the gritty atmosphere.

The opening titles take the a bubble writing style form, which is the first hint at carefree youths. This is then confirmed by the opening montage of shots which include playing football, and students in uniform. The first instance of dialogue is in teenage slang and the accent is an instant indicator of a London Background, and the soundtrack to the opening is a constant electronic, hip-hop theme, that carries an the tension between particular groups of the students. These elements build up the background of modern youth in an undesirable urban environment.

In the scene where Sam confronts Trife and his friends, the director has applied several series of brief consecutive shots of Sam beating Trife and his friends, to enchance the intimidation. This event interchanges between the gang of girls bullying another girl. This sets out the violent tone for the rest of the film.

The costumes used compliment the themes well; besides uniforms, being prodominantly track suits and jewellery (bling). Hoods are often worn up, creating a stronger sense of intimidation from character like Sam and his gang.

The final scene applies a clever technique to differentiate the stronger and weaker characters. When Sam knocks the bullied girl to the ground, her father pulls up in his car, so Sam picks her up, and a close up shot of Sams face and the girls face shrouded by her hair, shows Sam exploiting the girl by threatning her and then kissing her on the cheek.

We are inclined to stray away from the excessive violence that is apparent in this 10 minute sequence, but we can draw from the images of background, props and clever shot composition to enhance character status in our sequence, and possibly even generate our own ideas of techniques to carry other elements of our story in a unique way.

Synopsis

"Die Tonight, Live Forever: No More Heroes" (a working title) is a project currently in production by 22nd Century Rabbit studios.

The feature will follow the story of a highly depressed teenage college student's road to mental and physical recovery, after his failed suicide attempt. The opening sequence (approximately two minutes in length) will be structured differently from the rest of the film, as it will be comprised of a series of flashbacks (or the protagonist's out-of-body experiences within the flashbacks, to workaround the issue of a third-person camera perspective) in which the protagonist's narrates his retrospective and confused thoughts over.

The flashbacks in the opening sequence will show the various problems the protagonist faced in his life which led him to attempting suicide, which may or may not include issues such as: bullying; paranoia; empathy; family and friend problems; sympathy; drug abuse; crime racism;and social standing. The issues will be the themes of his interactions with people around him, icluding his friends, family and enemies.

At the end of the opening sequence, the protagonist will wake up in a bed in a hospital/rehabilitation centre/mental asylum, where he will be offered help to recover from is ordeal by either a caring doctor or one of his closest friends (potentially girlfriend). The protagonist's relationship with this person as they help him recover from. face and deal with all of his problems in his life will form the man part of the film's story until its conclusion.

Stay Tuned.

Ideas & Inspiration

22nd Century Rabbit Announces New Project

Production company "22nd Century Rabbit" today announced its first project "Die Tonight, Live Forever: No More Heroes." The title is currently a working title, but its creators have said "it may stick".

The group is comprised of Director Robert P, Writer Matt J, Editor Zia R, and Boom Operator Nathan S. Robert and Matt will both also serve as Executive Producers, and all team members will contribute in other areas too.

Matt J Has the main part, he plays the main character.

Zia R plays the friend of the main character.

Nathan S plays the bully. He is also the camera man throughout the production.

All people involved in the production shall feature in the film.
Stay tuned.