During the course, I have created a 2 minute opening sequence as my project in a group. The group included Aimee Hilton, Jurguen Munch, Steven Culshaw and myself. Each of us contributed equally and uniquely, we all researched the different stereotypes for specific genre’s including horror, gangster, comedy and thriller. We viewed the specific representations of the people in each genre and applied them to our chosen genre which was a gangster/revenge type film. We found that in gangster films, the main characters are usually young and have a specific way of talking and accent, such as the “hard-man” London accent, which we found to be used in a lot of British gangster movies such as “Kidulthood” and “Fallout”.
Once we had identified the genre that we wanted, we assigned ourselves different codes and conventions to research including editing, representations of age, stereotypes, settings, genre, props and target audience. By using the internet and films in general we were able to analyse the codes and conventions of our genre and apply them to the project we were making.
We all played roles in filming the sequence and we equally distributed the filming, directing and editing in the group. Jurguen Munch was our actor for the main character as well as being involved in some filming and editing as we see some handheld shots in our sequence. The “thugs” in our sequence were friends of ours who took part in helping to make our sequence complete.
Our film is based on the gangster genre of British teenagers and the gangsters of today. In the majority of gangster films the gangster can be portrayed as ruthless, ill mannered and abusive rather like a bully, however, in other films they can be portrayed as kind and helpful but have a hidden passion for crime. Either way gangsters in films are stereotyped as criminals or thuggish, and usually considered to be young teenagers. We have applied this to our sequence where our main character is a teenager and is constantly in violent actions, he also has a thuggish “strut” as he walks and fulfils the outfit that gangsters wear which is usually baggy or stylish clothing, hoodies or anything to make themselves look more dominant and bigger to their opposition, therefore, trying to ensure that no one “messes” with them. If we did not apply this stereotypical role to the main character he would not fit the genre, for example if he wore a tutu or a superhero outfit the genre would change entirely, even normal clothes would change the genre, once the audience see’s hooded figures who have a swagger when they walk they instantly realise that they shouldn’t mess with this person because he is a thug and is threatening.
When doing something new to a genre you give it a more meaningful and exciting world, so the audience will be more interested and see a new face to the genre, therefore, creating a new genre but similar. This is how new genre’s are created or even promotes the genre even better making people want to watch it.
By using codes and conventions of typical gangster genres, our production proved successful in portraying the typical gangster stereotype. The clothing type we used was similar to a stereotypical gangster such as a “hoody” or hooded jumper with the hood up to make them look mysterious and threatening because you can’t see there face properly and you don’t know what they will do next; baggy trousers, in our production we see two different gangsters but with similar clothing on, although one may be brighter than the other, this sticks to the stereotype of the gangster. A “hard mans strut” helps to make him look more dominant and hard as he slowly walks past. He is constantly in fights on his journey to the gym to work out, gangsters are often in fights, however, guns and lethal weapons are used in these fights but often a fist fight is experienced when two clans/rivals come into contact because one has “invaded” the other clans area, therefore, the “home” clan will try to get the outsider out of the area with all they have.
Although there is not speech in our production, by watching the actors’ mouths you can sometimes tell what they are saying. Gangsters often have a noticeable accent which sounds over exaggerate and like they are a hard man/woman and usually use a swear word or say something insulting in there sentence every 1-5 sentences. When watching closely in the first fight scene you can see the main character move his lips in a swearing motion like he’s saying the F you word. This portrays what a gangster’s attitude is like especially when attacked; it is much different to when a normal person is attacked such as a middle class adult. Throughout the whole of our production we used natural lighting as a means to bring realism to the sequence so the audience can relate to it and feel like it’s an everyday situation. Our choice of music is the backing track of a possible rap song that gangsters may listen to because firstly, it contains a heavy kick drum line which most rap and hip hop songs consist of, secondly, a gun shot is heard throughout the track signalling violence or crime which can point to the stereotypical gangster. It fit the video very well as it is only a soundtrack rather than a track with vocals in, we wanted the audience to concentrate on the images being created rather than the music, and therefore, we used a song without lyrics by looping the introduction line.
With the gangster market growing, especially in London in Britain, gangster films can be enjoyed by the main audience members that have money to spend without being taxed, teenager. We would not expect elder people to watch out product as gangster life appeals more to young adults and teenagers especially. Although violence is not wanted, it is a good way to show what happens when violence does happen and that it doesn’t always end well even for the “good guy” of the movie. This product is portrayed in the action/gangster/revenge genre, therefore, it will appeal more to certain people, and by adding more genre’s people who like any of these genre’s may consider viewing it. Gangster films are one of the most popular genre’s in the media today with hit films such as “The Godfather”, “Scarface”, “Goodfellas”, and “Casino”. In public surveys and questions these four films are always considered in at least the top 10 of films to date, this is the viewer’s choice and they often have the same trend.
When targeting an audience you need to make you that you make something that appeals to them that’s why we feature more than one genre in our production, this will entice more audience members to watch the movie. Also fans of music and hip hop/rap will possibly watch this movie because of their pure love of music, even more so, members of gangs may watch this to see how it portrays there lifestyle and makes them look, they will either enjoy it or dislike it but results of our survey says that 80% liked our sequence. The participants of our survey were teenagers and one adult, the adult enjoyed the sequence and gave good comments such as “good use of camera angle’s to show the dominant and none dominant people, also good pace when the fight scene takes place as it gives a rush of adrenaline as the sequence flows through, the music fits well, and use of slow motion makes the main character look “scary” also good work in establishing time, place, people and actions.” The teenagers gave similar remarks “very good in effects and music choice”; we took into account all their comments and found that we had fulfilled the stereotype with 100% of them saying that we had done.
Our sequence created many enigmas such as why is he being followed? Why are they fighting with him? And what will happen next? Because towards the end of our sequence it fades out not revealing what happens to the main character, it also makes them want to keep watching because they want these questions to be answered and the only way they can be answered are if they watch the movie.
We contrasted the scenes dramatically; it went from a calm walk in the street to walking near a field as the character makes his way to the gym. The scenes change in place, setting and actions. The actor is walking through town calmly in the first couple of scenes then he is attacked from behind near a field giving contrast to each scene showing that violence in gangster life happens within the blink of an eye.
In the filming of the sequence, we had all kinds of shots such as high angled shots to make particular characters seem less dominant than others such as when he’s walking and when he’s in the gym, we also did an over the shoulder shot of him walking through the bus station letting us see what he could see. We opened the sequence with a high angle shot on the ground which is also a handheld shot to see what the main character can see. It slowly lifts up to reveal where he is walking through and what he can see, in different areas of the screen we spread out the credits starting with “…Presents”, therefore, making it look more like a movie. The use of long shots in our sequence allowed the audience and ourselves to see what was happening around him, we could see it was a natural setting where everyone was being normal only to change when he reached the field and gym. We can establish what is happening especially when easing another character into the scene such as when Munch was walking towards to camera near the field and the rival gangster came into shot following him which was unexpected to the audience. Accidently in the sequence we see that red features a lot in it signalling danger, although this was an unplanned event it helps contribute because it means danger and blood, giving the audience subliminal messages that something bad will happen.
“Youtube” and other sources of films such as DVD’s helped us to create our sequence as we watched opening sequences of similar genre’s to ours and they all gave us a vivid idea of what to include in ours, “Youtube” was the most useful as it was quick and simple to get the clips that we wanted on, but DVDs gave us the quality we needed. The internet also helped in our research of the typical stereotypes and genre’s as poll websites helped us find the best films in a specific genre and also other websites helped us find numbers and data to help us know where gangster movies ranked in a genre chart, this was based on the amount of views a movie got. “imovies” helped us to create our sequence as this was our base program to use but “Photoshop” also helped to enhance the pictures that Aimee took, which were not used in the end. I found that “imovies” was easy to use as I had used it previously in GCSE in high school; therefore, our group had no problem with editing and enhancing our sequence. The pendrives helped us transfer data from one place to our imac, enabling us the best possible outcome for our sequence, even though it was filmed in a very short amount of time, I edited to the best of my ability and made the little bits that didn’t fit together properly, because they jumped, fit together and finished the sequence with the help of the group.
A limitation to “imovies” is that not all the transitions were what we wanted and therefore could not fulfil some of the transitions and editing we wanted, but overall it enabled us to edit our sequence by letting us chop pieces of movies up and when you imported the clips you recorded it separated most of the clips to make it easier to find.
Technology played a big part in our production from the camera’s we used to enable us to record our sequence to “imovies” and “Photoshop” also the technology that allows me to write my evaluation up, without technology creating a movie would be extremely difficult, therefore, technology played one of the biggest roles in our production.
Compared to our preliminary task, this sequence is much better as it contains more angles, more suitable music and more length. We were able to learn new skills in the production of the sequence and were able to make it more exciting compared to our preliminary task. We found the prelim task to be more of a fun activity, therefore, less effort was put into it, the opening sequence was much more hard work and enabled us to experience filming techniques and as well as have fun, work hard to get the task done properly.
In conclusion, compared to our prelim task, the sequence definitely contains more angles, shots and action involved, therefore, it makes me feel happy that it was a success, but a lot of hard work was put into something that was just two minutes long, technology played a huge part in helping this happen. The transitions were better because we used more transitions and didn’t stick to just invisible cuts, we had fades in and outs and flashes which made it more exciting, also we had more room to film the sequence as well as try different shots such as the panning shots, views such as point of view and mid view and also the angels to show dominance. In the prelim task we couldn’t really make anyone look more or less dominant, therefore, the opening sequence shows more realism and excitement.
I feel that our sequence was a successful portrayal of the stereotypical gangster and the gangster genre, the definite strengths of our sequence was the camera angle and portrayal of setting and action shots, especially the fight scene. Also another strength is that the shots are not too long or too short, it’s long enough to get an overall grasp of what is happening in each shot. The natural lighting gives a sense of realism so our sequence looks more realistic and natural.
A limitation is the video quality, although the camera’s were of a high quality, the quality was not as good when filming in slightly darker place such as on the bus, therefore, the quality needed to be a bit better to ensure that the “fuzziness” effect wasn’t shown on the bus scene.
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