Hello, this is my blog for my AS Media coursework, detailing the research + planning, production and evaluation process of creating a two-minute film opening
Medium longshot, immediate exposition of the protagonist, no narrative enigma (very brief the snow blocks some of her). Very little information is withheld, she's English, she's RP/middle-class connotations, she's a spinster. Sexuality not known yet, could be that she prefers women but highly unlikely. In background too couples. This creates a binary opposition, forever single/happy together. The whole plot of the film is to get her married to "Mr Right", and in the context of the whole.
SHOT 2
Disolving transition into an extreme longshot of the snowy landscape a
SHOT 3
Panning shot to reveal cottage-like home. To signify her feeling of discomfort, dreaded anticipation of returning home?
SHOT 4
A woman is answering the door. This is counter-hegemonic in terms of patriarchic. However they seem to soon break the Bechdel Test by talking about a man.
SHOT 5
This is both a high and a dutch (also known as canted) angle, we still see no father or other male figure near the door, can be read as non-normative and counter hegemonic. Wealth is signified, along with the RP-accent this anchors a middle class family.
I had a track covered by an independent musician that
was assigned to a record label owned by main company, so
just like with Duffy I had horizontal integration,
but very limited, more like the Arctic Monkeys in Warp's Le
Donk + Scor-Zay-Zee and Submarine. but arguably
even less so.
My film ended up being a 12 and PG-13, so I'm not
taking the same risk as an 18-rated film.
POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE:
As I've seen in Warp Films, the danger of my film being
rated 18 can even increase my limited commercial success along
with the major setback of an indie and no A-List stars, however even
without an A-Lister and an actor who has some recognition in the US
(I would eventually choose Rachel Weisz), if one has a genre
that can appeal to a certain audience it can be successful, as
the Krays are culturally recognisable in the UK, and the gangster genre
will be more appealing in the USA in, the violence and possible
blood having similar appeal to that of horror. This can increase
digital streaming interest for teens.
TITLE
Director, 2009
PRODUCTION COMPANIES:Working Title, UK Film Council, Aramid Entertainment
Notice how a lot of the praise is on the double performance of Tom Hardy.
TRAILERS:
...
The opening sequence after idents and titles and before we cut to the main title has been made available on YouTube by STUDIOCANAL Australia.
INST
the-numbers.com graph highlights the downside of working-class characters in a UK set film
One of the production companies is Amazon Instant Video. An example of convergence with the film cycle step exhibition being challenged. The distributors providers/exhibitors are now also becoming producers. This is can be seen as vertical integration
The opening sequence after idents and titles and before we cut to the main title has been made available on YouTube by STUDIOCANAL Australia.
SYNPNOSIS
A clear exposition of the setting, 1960s London, and the narrative, the Krays brothers. The two twins are introduced as a rising force in the criminal underworld, however their differences aren't anchored in the opening sequence, but by the time of the opening sequence it is shown who we are meant to follow as the protagonist.
IDENTS
20 seconds you get the Studiocanal. Universal is the distributor but we don't get their ident. A look at the Universal UK YouTube channel shows that the conglomerate owned by Comcast didn't show that much interest in this film, which its box office shows. However, Working Title had much more belief in it than for example The Program, a film which flopped both internationally and in the UK with only a UK box office of 500km, which was not on their YouTube channel along with Grimsby from their most recent films.
Working Title started with promoting their films on YouTube with behind the scenes footage in 2013 with the adaptation of the hit musical Les Miserables. The Program and Grimsby aren't shown here, signifies not their lower importance.
TITLES:
There are very few titles, the rest were shown at the end credits. These only include the distributing and production companies as separate white on black captions
STUDIOCANALPRESENTS
IN ASSOCIATION WITHANTON CAPITAL ENTERTAINMENT
&AMAZON PRIME INSTANT VIDEO
A WORKING TITLEPRODUCTION
LEGEND
MISE-EN-SCENE: There is use of CGI for the city. The car is
glamorised, it shines, it's not clear whether it has been
editing. . There are multiple people in the background.
REPRESENTATIONS: When a text today represents (it
can never truly show what the past was like, just like any media
representation) an historical time period, it can be difficult to judge whether
there has been
But nevertheless, the constant repetition of 'able-bodied',
caucasian, heterosexual etc. characters in the media creates a normative effect on society.
SEXUALITY: Through the line "My Reggie", the left
Kray is signified as heterosexual, and so is the narrator, immediately
showing that there are more heterosexual characters.
Ronnie's homosexuality is not signified. AGE: The classic image of the gangster is The
Godfather, age is status there.
SOCIAL CLASS: These are working
class lads who rose up in the crime world. Is this a somewhat different
representation of class than is typical for Working Title? REGIONAL IDENTITY: This is closely linked with class and status, and the expectation of
GENDER: Bechdel Test? Decision to
focus not just on symbols of male power but have it narrated by a female
character
NARRATIVE, GENRE, EXPOSITION: From this line we expect
The Krays aren't clearly morally anchored heroes as the film
will show, however we will see that Ronnie has a more sensitive side. So here
he is called: "Bloodthirsty" and the smoke like a fire breathing
dragon seems to anchor he is the more malicious twin, and then Reggie
is called different. So this sets up an apparent
THE CENTRAL PROTAGONIST?: As
we transition to the main film, we follow Reggie as he asserts his
authority, meets his love interest.
In this opening sequence this is signified by the narrative
This two-shot that could signify closeness is made to look cold
by them not looking at each other.
SOUND: We get an audio
bridge of the non-diegetic incidental music
from the Working Title ident to the opening shot. We then get
diegetic
The track of the closing credits is foreshadowed
by this line:
Believe me when I say, It took a lot of love for
me to hate him the way I do.
This track also intertextuality references a Led Zeppelin song of the time period, also called Whole Lotta Love.
*Screenshot of Spotify*
This track is an example of horizontal
integration, Duffy is contracted with
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.
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
Unlike subsidiaries of Big Six film studios, like Working Title, I do not have access to huge budgets, so I cannot afford an A-List star. I do not get a big budget because I have no films that have been a success, so the producing values and thereby the verisimilitude is extremely inferior to the likes
However, indie directors can rise to that level, like the director of Monsters who went on to do Godzilla and Rogue One (shows how the film industry works, when starting out as a low-budget, indie director he had an original idea, to make it big he worked on remakes and franchises.
Convergence brings down the price of filming equipment, and the complexity of production, this is shown in how it took Shane Meadows only 5 days to shoot Le Donk + Scor-Zay-Zee. If we could completely focus on our Media coursework on, due to this prosumer trend it wouldn't take us that long either
Medium longshot, immediate exposition of the protagonist, no narrative enigma (very brief the snow blocks some of her). Very little information is withheld, she's English, she's RP/middle-class connotations, she's a spinster. Sexuality not known yet, could be that she prefers women but highly unlikely. In background too couples. This creates a binary opposition, forever single/happy together. The whole plot of the film is to get her married to "Mr Right", and in the context of the whole.
Disolving transition into an extreme longshot of the snowy landscape a
Disolving transition into an extreme longshot of the snowy landscape a
Panning shot to reveal cottage-like home. To signify her feeling of discomfort, dreaded anticipation of returning home?
Panning shot to reveal cottage-like home. To signify her feeling of discomfort, dreaded anticipation of returning home?
A woman is answering the door. This is counter-hegemonic in terms of patriarchic. However they seem to soon break the Bechdel Test by talking about a man.
A woman is answering the door. This is counter-hegemonic in terms of patriarchic. However they seem to soon break the Bechdel Test by talking about a man.
This is both a high and a dutch (also known as canted) angle, we still see no father or other male figure near the door, can be read as non-normative and counter hegemonic. Wealth is signified, along with the RP-accent this anchors a middle class family.
This is both a high and a dutch (also known as canted) angle, we still see no father or other male figure near the door, can be read as non-normative and counter hegemonic. Wealth is signified, along with the RP-accent this anchors a middle class family. 
