SWEDE1/Opening EG10 - Tyrannosaur

This is the final film opening I am looking at for my general research but also to prepare for my Tyrannosaur swede, the final practice exercise. 

Tyrannosaur

Paddy Considine (2011)

BBFC 18, MPAA unrated

Running time of the opening sequence: 2:57 mins 

Lead actors: Peter Mullan, 

                           Olivia Coleman, 

                           Eddie Marsan
Genre: Social realism

Budget: £750k
UK/US/World Box Office: £243k, $22k, £400k.

Production co's:  Warp X, Inflammable Films
Production financing:   Film4;UK Film Council; Screen Yorkshire; EM Media; Optimum Releasing.
UK, US theatrical distributors: StudioCanal, Strand.
 
LINKS: IMDB; RottenTomatoes (Users 83%, Critics 85%); BoxOfficeMojo; The-Numbers; Wiki; Official site/page; Facebook.

TRAILER 

CRITICAL KUDOS: (wiki)

Tyrannosaur received positive reviews and currently has a "certified Fresh" score of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3 out of 10. The critical consensus states: "Tyrannosaur is a brutal, frank, and ultimately rewarding story of violent men seeking far-off redemption."^[6] The film also has a score of 65 out of 100 based on 18 critics on Metacritic, indicating "Generally favourable reviews".^[7]Stuart McGurk of GQ magazine called Tyrannosaur "The best British film of the year", whilst Empire said it was "Riveting, uncompromising, brilliant" and gave it 4/5 stars, as did Total Film, The Guardian, Sunday Mirror, and Evening Standard. The Daily Star Sunday and LoveFilm gave the film 5/5 stars and The Sunday Telegraph dubbed it "One of the most powerful films of 2011."
The American film critic and blogger Jeffrey Wells was so taken by Tyrannosaur after seeing it at the Los Angeles Film Festival that he started 'Hollywood Elsewhere's Tyrannosaur fundraising campaign' with the idea of raising $2,000 to cover the rental of a screening room so that the film could be shown in Hollywood with the hope of gaining recognition. Wells claimed this was the first screening financed by a critic.^[8]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, calling Peter Mullan's performance muscular and unrelenting. He also remarked: "This isn't the kind of movie that even has hope enough to contain a message. There is no message, only the reality of these wounded personalities."^[9]Mark Kermode of BBC Radio 5 Live, hailed the film as one of the 11 Best Films of 2011.^[10] Kermode went on to award Olivia Colman Best Actress in his own Annual Kermode Awards. She tied with Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk About Kevin.
By 18 December 2011, the film had won 21 awards from 28 nominations worldwide.
When the BAFTA Award nominations were announced on 17 January 2012, the omission of Olivia Colman in the Best Actress category led to global trending of both Olivia Colman and Tyrannosaur on Twitter.^[11]

IDENTS:

N/A, no idents, just like with Le Donk & This Is England.

TITLES:

Are non-serif and white, lower-case apart from capital letters like names are usually spelt.

The roles are smaller and, unconventionally, upper-case in contrast to names in lower-case.

1. Film4 AND The UK Film Council IN ASSOCIATION WITH Screen Yorkshire,                              EM MEDIA AND OPTIMUM RELEASING PRESENT
2. A Warp X/Inflammable Films PRODUCTION
3. A FILM BY Paddy Considine

On action, as the music begins, switching between left and right near the screen edge.

1. Peter Mullan
2. Olivia Colman
3. Ned Dennehy
4. Samuel Bottomley
5. Paul Popplewell
6. Sally Carman
7. Sian Breckin

MISE-EN-SCÈNE:

Urban location, not glamorised, 

NARRATIVE, GENRE, EXPOSITION:

We are introduced to the main character, and we already have the binary opposition within his own character/personality shown.

The other protagonist of the story, is still to be introduced.

THE PROTAGONIST:

My teacher asked me as the vulgar swearing started whether we were going to feel sympathy for the protagonist. I said definitely not in the opening sequence. I as an audience member was proven wrong.

The music and close-ups of the dog's paws are used to create sympathy for the protagonist.

Opening EG7 - '71

'71

Yann Demange (2014)

BBFC 15 rating, MPAA R 

LEAD ACTORS: Jack O'Connell
GENRE: Historical action war thriller

PRODUCTION COMPANIES: Warp, Screen Yorkshire

TITLES:

Whether titles appear over the action or a blank screen varies, in this case after the idents, it is white on black screen. One can often connote the genre from the font and style, while it has some minimalistic serif attributes which often signifies comedy, it is a white writing on black screen, and it isn't bubbly. This connote a serious and non-comedic film, thereby signifying the genre drama.  The narrative has already started, as we can already hear the sound of boxing, fighting exasperated breaths and cheering. The information of who exactly has been fighting has been withheld from the audience, thereby creating narrative enigma, another common convention of a film opening.

...

SHOT 1

The narrative enigma is pursued further with a black screen

SHOT 2

A whip pan is being use to cut straight into  the action, we can see a green shirt

SHOT 3


While he has been already been on camera, the protagonist has now been introduced through a medium close-up. His journey throughout the whole film, one of brutality and bloodshed, is signified through the conflict. But the character he is fighting is not the antagonist, but the fact that he is fighting a member of the British army is a possible signifier of the revelation that the true enemy in this film turns out to be figures in the British army.


SHOT 4


Medium close-up of the protagonist, with other young males in the same clothes, who will remain throughout the film as minor characters.

SHOT 5

A slightly lower-angled medium longshot.








Throughout this scene the the protagonist does not speak, signifying his lack of change he can bring throughout the narrative.

Opening EG9/Teen EG1 Submarine

WHAT I ENDED UP APPLYING

• The voice-over which I saw in most teen films
• Signifiers of the Other with a similar coat, multiple photos of non-mainstream cultural figures, etc.
• Panning shots across the room
• Audio bridge before the opening shot of sounds from nearby, however with my coursework I did it already with the ident
• In retrospect I wish I had also included landscape shots

POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE

• The voice-overs

Submarine 

Richard Ayoede, 2010

GENRE: Teen romantic comedy, social realism

LEAD ACTORS: Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige

PRODUCTION COMPANIES: Warp, Film 4 

DISTRIBUTORS: Optimum Releasing, The Weinstein Company 

BOX OFFICE:

BUDGET: (worldwide)

BBFC: 15     MPPA: R

ROTTEN TOMATOES: 87%         IDMb: 7.6 out of 10

REVIEW QUOTES

TRAILER: 

traifeaturing a song by Belgian singer Jacques Brel, appropriately about the issue of (young) love, but not the kind of song a contemporary teenager will listen to, just like Toots & the Mayals with This Is England, unlike Jess Glynn's Hold My Hand used in the Bridget Jones's Baby trailer, which now has nearly 100m views, and debuted on No.1 on the UK charts and peaked at No.86 at the Billboard 100)



This features the incidental music from the Jordana section

The full film has been uploaded onto YouTube

SYPNOSIS:

A very quirky and unusual teen film with elements of romantic comedy, social realism, fantasy, with debut director having been influenced by French New Wave among other film styles.

Having the coming-of-age side of the teen film  the relationship, as well as his anxiety expressed in the very experimental film style.

IDENTS:

We only get a Film 4 ident, with their signature sound intact. 

TITLES:

They are cross-cut with white on blue and then the final title, the film, following the Rule of Thirds

NARRATIVE/EXPOSITION:
Oliver Tate is clearly anchored as the protagonist, we are introduced to him first and will follow, this also follows the  and hi status as The Other is also set up, 

GENRE:

Not your typical romantic comedy or teen film, which is reflected in the box office.

SOUND:

Their is an audio bridge of what appears to be diegetic sound, however that is debatable as he is not directly next to the sea, and due to the experimental and fantasy-like style it might be in his imagination, so in a way it is part of the world, the world he has created. That starts off a potential massive debate on if soundtrack is an expression of their thoughts and personality, which leads us on to the non-diegetic sound, it starts off by sounds to signify the very quit takes as we zoom in on the protagonist.

Then we have the first track by Alex Turner from his original soundtrack (OST) for the film. How far are the lyrics expressing/representing the protagonist's thoughts?

Only the first 30 seconds or so are used, the rest are cut off, the length limit of my coursework will also mean I will have to cut down music based on an existing track if I want to use that.

(Source: azlyircs)

SYNERGY

This is an example of synergy, just like with Le Donk. However, the audience gained by this is limited, as Warp don't have access to big names in the music industry like Ellie Goulding and Duffy (ironically Welsh, however she doesn't show her religional accent in her music like the Monkeys do. with their Yorkshire dialects "Sommit, settee").

The cameo of the Arctic Monkeys in Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee is a binary to the cameo of Ed Sheeran in Bridget Jones's Baby.

Alex Turner at the UK premiere, this has less views than videos featuring his songs:



Domino Recordings even did a trailer for the film:

*Include screenshots from Spotify and potentially other sites of the OST, might have been created by fans in the case of Spotify, would show it's an indie film*

Some UGC videos with the songs by Alex Turner, some viewing figures are in the millions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0YEVNacmtw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHDGYZvvwtc