Treatment

Treatment

Our treatment is a descriptive version of our shot list which tells us everything we need to know about our storyline. The purpose of the treatment is to ensure we have full knowledge and understanding of our plot for the opening sequence. It states each shot in description of what is happening and tells us what sound is occurring in the opening sequence, whether this be diegetic, or non diegetic.

compare what titles are used in our genre.

For a homework task, we were asked to produce a timeline, for a film of our genre and add in the titles that come up in the opening sequence, and also include the time in which they appear. I decided to do mine on the film adulthood, which also associated with drugs and all of the situations occurring in our film.

The timeline above indicated the specific timings in which each title appears on the screen in a chosen film of our genre. I noticed that the titles were very quick in speed to appear and did not stay on the screen for a long period of time. The first titles that appeared on the screen were the names of the production and distribution company. There were no cast names that appeared in the opening sequence, and the very first title that appeared was the release supported by the UK film council. This very rarely happens in big Hollywood films, but as Adulthood is a low budget British film we need to be aware this is how they like to open their film. The last two titles had a long gap between them with the very last title indicating and setting the storyline off. It states 8 years later...

In class we needed to compare our time lines, and they were a huge contract from one another. My timeline consisted of quick titles being included with only a couple of seconds after each other. Zoe on the other hand had titles coming in with about a minutes difference which made it hard to decide when and where we would include our titles. Below is an example of one of adulthood's titles.

As we can see, the titles for Adulthood are not superimposed (titles over the action in the film), they are fading in sharply over a clack background.

In my timeline shown above, gives you the time in which the titles appeared on screen for.

The above treatment was our first treatment, some changes needed to take place, through the help of our teacher. we were told that we had too many characters included in our opening sequence, and to try, if possible to cut it down, and take out some of the cast, and shots. We decided to take out the tracking shot of the crowd, which would narrow down our characters, and now we only have significant main characters, which are more important rather then too many people.

As the crowd tracking shot was the ending of our opening sequence, we then needed to come to a decision of how we would end it, we decided rather then complicating our self creating a whole different scene for the ending, we would just use the last shot of gaz running down the canal, and he would be removing his ear phones from his ear.

The other changes on our treatment is the titles we need to include. We will be including main titles at the beginning, such as our production and distribution names. As a group we have decided what and where we will include the titles, hopefully meaning our treatment will be completed.

Our first attempt at the treatment was not correct, due to the error's in our shot list. We had feedback from our teacher telling us to re do bits, for example putting scenes together, and the fact that this piece of work did not match the shot list. It took a long time for us to get it right but in the end it worked out and now we have a well structured shot list and treatment.

Qestionnaire to target audience and evaluation of results

questionnaire
The questionnaire is for us to get the chance to see what films interest our audience and why. We thought it would be a good idea, as it would help us decide our genre of our film and to see if it would interest them. We had a wide range of results which varies from horror, to chick flick in choice.
some questions in which we asked them was, what is your favourite film, what genre of film do you like best, do you prefer going to the cinema or waiting for the film to come out on DVD, and many more questions. After the feedback, we decided our genre would be gangster/crime.

Textual analysis of opening sequences from the crime/drama genre

Micro and macro elements of opening sequence from our genre, crime drama.

Micro elements are basically pulling apart what makes up the film. This means the camera, sound and lighting and editing (special effects) elements. It also consists of the Mese-en-scene. (Set design/location, costume, hair and makeup, props and character movement.

Adulthood
The opening of adulthood consists of a complete black screen with fading in white titles, of the film company and its associations. After this event we now have short close up shots of each main character. The short clips are focused on each character for a couple of seconds then it gradually becomes faster, building more tension/interest for the audience. The mese en scene elements clearly show that this film is immediately to do with crime violence and drama. Their clothing show that they are from a rough neighbourhood, with hoods up and we immediately know this film is violent. There are now clips of someone getting stabbed, and fighting is now starting to occur. The camera shows focus on which character they want to audience to pay attention too, and often zoom is used for the audience to gain knowledge and gradually understand the plot for the whole film and each character. The camera shows several shots of the antagonist (who has committed the crime) using dark colours surrounding him. The camera now focuses in on a worried girl, who is then faded out by police lights. Writing saying “six years later” now fades in with dark background and white writing, so the audience has a vague idea of what has happened previously.

The representation of characters in the opening sequence of Adulthood is immediately negative. The characters are represented linked to the genre of the film. They are portrayed as “hoodies” who are up to no good. The characters are presented cleverly in this opening sequence and immediately will gain a certain response from the audience. We also notice that the location and events that are happening are negative. The events that are taking place we immediately establish as we see a boy picking up a bat, knowing what will happen next. The location looks as though it is in rougher and poorer areas of London, which is usually filled with crime and trouble. The negative events that are occurring in the film are often shown at night time, in the dark where normally crime usually occurs.

The macro elements are building up meanings from the information portrayed at the micro level. It basically means the representation of person/character, the event, location and place.

http://www.adulthoodthemovie.co.uk/

above is the url of the adulthood website.

History of urban crime dramas

Urban Drama
Some people feel that when you attach the word urban to an independent film the story will be based on slices of life that unfold in housing projects or the barrier. Which do provide rich and colorful backdrops that reflect a slice of Americans. On the flip side urban culture has moved beyond the housing projects and barrios. Taking those attitudes and feelings into new environments. This opens up new backdrops for you to shoot urban films. You no longer are forced to only shoot in the inner city to produce urban films. A few other hits urban movies take is that the production quality will be less than an art house film made on a similar budget. That urban movies don't have well written scripts and they all look the same style wise.Many innovated filmmakers that love the urban genre are changing the way people think about that. They are putting out high quality urban movies made on indie budgets that are freshly entertaining. The diversity of the urban genre continues to grow because the story lines are connecting with a larger audience by going beyond what you would expect to see in an urban movie. The elements you can fold into an urban drama are becoming more complex earning these films more respect.
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Kidulthood
Based on the lives of teenagers. Showing many different traces of their life. There are many different social and ethnic races of life that are established throughout the film, which links into the production of our opening sequence.
Crime and gangster dramas
Crime and gangster film’s are developed around the sinister actions of criminals or gangsters, particularly bank robbers, underworld figures, or ruthless hoodlums who operate outside the law, stealing and violently murdering their way through life. In the 1940s, a new type of crime thriller emerged, more dark and cynical. Criminal and gangster films are often categorized as post-war film nor or detective-mystery films - because of underlying similarities between these cinematic forms.
Although in crime dramas, the criminals may be consumed with worry about the consequences of their actions and the criminologists usually fret over the outcome of each minute detail, the detective has no such preoccupation. He merely uses logic and reason to solve the puzzle. Unless he’s Dirty Harry (1973), he works entirely on figuring out the crime and leaves the punishment to the courts.

The budget for urban crime dramas are usually round the price range of £800000.
No major Hollywood stars are usually included in the urban category of films. As stars are mainly included in the high budget action films, also they are included in romance genre.

Group Meeting 1

Group discussion 1

Our first group meeting was a basic introduction of our main task. We were put into groups of about four and was told we were going to be producing the first two minutes of an opening sequence from a genre of our choice.

The first task was to think about what sort of genre we would want to do, and we needed to think carefully about if we could produce a good quality opening sequence. We decided what we would want our opening sequence to contain a message for viewers, and have real life scenario's that are happening in our society today. Emma also had the idea that she wanted it to be like the opening of skins, and have clear close up of body parts and clothing. The music we decided would be non diegetic, with no band just a soundtrack. We also needed to produce a plot for our opening sequence which would describe what would be happening in the first two minutes, ie: characters and what would be occurring in the first two minutes. After this was completed we then needed to prodyuce a plot outline for the whole film, of what was going to happen throughout the whole of the film, and think about the narrative enigma.

The next thing our group needed to think about was our location,(where we was going to film). Initially Emma wanted to film the whole opening sequence in London, in the end we all agreed that parts would be located in London, and the rest would be somewhere local which would be easier to film. We would then need to think about what sort of characters we would want to be in our film, and have a clear idea about the main character/characters, antagonists and protagonists.

Conventions of an opening sequence

Conventions
Conventions are used to analyse the atmosphere in the film. They are things we expect to see in the opening sequence of a film or television programme. An example of this would be key productions, opening credits, titles and actors names.

Conventions of an opening sequence
Conventions of most opening sequences are usually used to catch the eye of the audience to gain an idea by sound and visual effects of what the overall plot. Most conventions in opening sequences are non digetic sounds. Non digetic sound means where the Actors/Actresses in the film can not hear the music, and can not hear where the musical sound is coming from. There are often voice overs too, maybe to set the scene or if it is a sequel/follow on film the voice overs can often fill the audience in on what has already happened.
There are often credits over the action of the opening sequence, they explain to the audience who the actors/actresses, producers, directors, editors are.
An opening sequence is also used to establish the overall plot and and the main characters (protagonist, antagonist) roles.
However, there are some expectations when looking at the conventions of an opening sequence. For example when we looked at 'The Italian Job' we visualised no characters and we were only shown snippets of the destination, and key objects and attractions that are well known in that area. For example: The Italian Job was set in Venice and shots were shown of Gondoliers, architecture, maps and rivers were shown for the audience to establish the location. We needed to be aware that this was the remake of a film and directors thought that there was need for it because most people who have previously seen the film would have already known the plot and the main characters that are established in 'The Italian Job'

Conventions of an opening sequence, from a film of our genre
From watching the opening few minutes of a number of different films or drama, we can identify conventional codes that you would expect to see in a given text for an opening sequence.

When watching the opening sequence from the film the state within, we established the following about the film, location, plot, characters and cast and crew, narrative enigma titles.

We could establish the location easily by visual monuments. There were also flags in which helped us gather further information for us to be able to establish the location. The flags that were on show were the Union Jack and the American Flag, road signs were also significant as well as props which link into our mese-en-scene, which consisted of yellow cabs and so on.

We could further our understanding of the plot through the opening. There was the making of a bomb, which could make us think there is a certain target to be sustained throughout the film. There was also a secret handover, which could mean they were undercover or even criminals, leaving to a challenge to be overcome.

One character was established, the protagonist and the title of the film was put on a separate shot on its own, whereas the crew and cast titles were put at the bottom of the screen over the action.