In creating our film opening, we aimed to make something that possessed the tropes of a British crime thriller to establish a familiarity with the audience, yet at the same time subvert the audiences preconceptions to keep them interested. Film openings of the same genre as our film generally include conventions such as slow-paced, character based sequences showing gritty settings and a lot of verisimilitude in the mise-en-scéne such as clothing. While we include these things in our opening such as the slow pacing and the focus on the main character, the way we have dressed our characters intrigues the audience; our main character is dressed in a smart casual manner whilst the man he meets with who gives him the instructions for the hit is dressed in a suit. This has the audience thinking about the organisation of the crime here and how it is not just low level and reckless. The main character meanwhile seems out of place and subordinate to the man he meets prompting the audience to wonder if he owes something to the man in the suit or is just simply employed by him. We modelled our main character on Ryan Gosling’s character in Drive. We wanted him to appear ruthless when he needs to be and yet being in possession of a sensitive side that the audience can relate to. We wanted an actor who was reasonably attractive as well so as to set up a precedent of the audience having a twisted admiration for such a violent and ruthless character. For the character whom the protagonist meets under the bridge, we wanted him to be similar to Tom Cruise’s character in Collateral and/or the character of Gustavo Fring in TV’s Breaking Bad; involved in a dirty, criminal business yet bringing an organisation and style to it that makes it appear all the more serious and twisted.
 |
| Ryan Gosling as the unnamed protagonist of Drive |
 |
| Our protagonist |
 |
| Giancarlo Esposito as Gustavo Fring in Breaking Bad |
 |
| The man whom our protagonist meets, in the centre of the frame |
As is a popular convention of thrillers, we opted to include a chase/following scene in our opening as this can build excitement and tension in the audience. We chose to keep the camerawork composed rather than a more shaky, handheld effect which can be popular in low-budget thrillers. Furthermore, rather than jumping straight into the sub-genre of “gritty suburban thriller” (examples of which include Shifty, Kidulthood and Bullet Boy), we wanted to make something more urban like that of which we had seen in films such as ‘Drive’ and ‘Collateral’. Both these films involve a form of transport which give the audience the idea of things moving forward and we originally intended to film our opening on London’s DLR service. However, we experienced difficulty with gaining permission to shoot on public transport and also with very crowded carriages at the times at which we were able to film. Thus, we were forced to compromise by filming around London Bridge.
 |
| A still from the film Shifty showing the more suburban setting |
 |
| Our film's more urban setting |
In terms of title graphics, we went for a modern, urban-looking typeface that we thought matched the tone of the opening. We used a blur transition with the titles to create a subtle dynamism. They are a plain white and not very big so as not to be too in-your-face to the audience, just as we did not want our film to be too turgid to the audience. We considered initially going for something similar to the titles for David Fincher's Panic Room by having a more architectural, urban, gothic-esque font. In Panic Room, the titles float around and seem embedded within the frame which was an effect we found would be time-consuming to create and wouldn't be appropriate for the tone of our film as it would be a little too flashy.
 |
| Panic Room Titles |
 |
| Our titles |
We also considered how our sound relates to conventions and forms. We wanted to maintain the convention of short, sharp dialogue between characters in high-pressure situations. However at the same time we wanted to build a relationship between the main character and the audience in which we see him as not just a ruthless criminal and someone more thoughtful and relatable. Therefore we used a lot of silence in shots of the protagonist in which he looks more pensive. Again, this is a technique used in Drive, a film with very little dialogue, and through this we hoped to challenge the audience's preconception of assassins being ruthless and somewhat inhuman and give our protagonist a soft centre despite his rough edges.
 |
| The protagonist of our film looking pensive |
No comments:
Post a Comment