Film location Disaster !!!

  I am a few days away from filming when my original place were i would be shooting my opening is no longer available so now i am against the clock to find a new location for filming.  the problem is because i am using fake BB guns as props i need it to be somewhere out of the way and i need the setting to be a small old abandoned looking building with a window. This is a problem as settings like these are hard to come by and especially all in one place. I did some research and found that film companies also have the very same problem and over come this by filming in multiple places, Lord of the rings in a good example of this, they made the set for the hobbit village in a small area in new Zealand as there were no such places that existed they also shot other parts of the films such as The Mount doom scene at a volcano in new Zealand miles away from the hobit set. also such places in the film such as mordor were Computer animated but the setting such as the cliff was shot in real life. Lord of the rings was shot all over New Zealand to create the films as they couldn't find the set all in one reasonable location. So from that knowledge i have managed to decide i will shoot in few different locations.
1. A old abandoned room with a window
2. Edge of a Forrest
Hopefully i will find all three in reasonable distance of each other and i have managed to find the room with a window which is my main set for my opening.
My original location for my room was a barn that had been converted with a top floor level with a window that was idea but the owner need it as of that date without any forewarning.

My Preliminary Film "The Document"

Analysis of Preliminary film
      This is my preliminary film that I made to practise my camera skills and editing on. it is basically a small spy film that involves to exchange of top secret information. Please note that whilst filming you may notice a bit of camera shake in places this wasn't intentional as the camera tripod was broken at the time so I had to support it on my shoulder. After filming this I uploaded it on to An Apple Mac computer and edited it in a peace of software called "FINAL CUT PRO 7" I found it a easy and quick piece of software to Extract bits of footage and put it together to form a film. I also used another piece of Apple software called "GARAGE BAND" to make the soundtrack and the non diagetic sound. this software I used was top quality and easy to use and produce a professional production at the end of it. I am happy with my skills of camera use and rules such as match on action and Point of view shots to provide more detail for a viewing audience.
  over all I am happy with my preliminary and feel that I used my resources effectively and knowledge of camera movement and rules correctly. I am also happy with my editing skills and my ability of producing music sound tracks for my footage to create a suitable pace for the film. If I had to do this again I would be more prepared and make a script for this as this preliminary was made from an on the spot idea.

Institutional Information "Logo"

In my opening I will have about 20 seconds of institutional information and therefore have attempted to create my own institute logo.
 I did some research into logos of existing logo's such as "20th century fox & Columbia" that both use a video animation style logo for theres. They both use sound and picture to grab the audiences attention.

 I also looked at others like "Youtube pwnisher" that are low budget and not as impressive to see what detail they use to fit in with there film. I also saw how Warner brothers use there logo and edit it for each individual film e.g. in harry potter the logo appears in the clouds and is made to look like a object in the film and not a 2D picture.

So after looking at others I began to come up with some catchy names and fancy fonts for my logo and I came up with these two above, "Bad Monkey" came from an id i had after looking at one company called Bad Robot that had a catchy name and audio to it and is none that I found interesting so I took the name and changed it to bad monkey as it sounded cooler and funnier which will help an audience remember the name

this logo was originally constructed with a picture to make it more recognisable but because of copyright issues I couldent use it so I set about creating my own image but it just dident look proffesional enough so i decided to leave it as just text.

This is my original logo for my Bad Monkey but i had to remove the image as it was copyrighted to a art studio somewere in America so i went with just the text.  

Rebel films was a sort of Backstreet urban name I was thinking of, I wanted a title that had a sort of gangster/graffiti style to it so I called it rebel films and gave the font a sort of gang type graffiti style to match and I am happy with the outcome. This logo also has a video affect as it slides across the page from being invisible to fully visible which gives it a eye catching capability for audiences to remember it.

My storyboard plus old storyboard

Here are the breath screen shots of key scenes in my opening 2 minutes for each scene.

  The film with institutional information and a sound track over top the institutional information will then be followed by a prologue "a small summary of the story so far" which will create the scene for the audience then it will fade out to a white screen then open with the motoin picture. it will start with the hostage tied up to a chair and waking up from unconsciousness then it will change to a POV shot of the hostage with a blurred view of his captors arguing in Russian. this shot will contain effects to give the impression that the hostage is derazed and confused once he has woken up the audio will be altered to create a deaf tone to it and subtitles will be added to notify the audience on what the Captors are on about. One of the captors phone will ring and will answer it, he will then have a conversation discussing the ransom for the hostage. the shot then jumps to a close up of the captor yelling down the phone and then the door being banged loudly. another captor then enters the room yelling at the Man on the phone in a Russian styled voice. this scene will be in English over the phone but Russian with English subtitles when the argument starts.

   The camera then jumps back to the POV shot of the hostage as he just gathers consciousness. the hostage that had come into the room then notices he has awoken and walks up to him and hits him. there will be more English subtitles in this scene to give the audience a better understanding of the situation. when the hostage is hit it fades out into a black screen to create an unconscious state of the hostage.and a heart beat will be heard in the time the captor walks up to the hostage to give it a more dramatic effect as if you were the hostage.

the shot will then be a black screen for a few seconds then the heart beat will slow down.

 The shot then reopens with the hostage reawakening in a near dead state and looking out of the window and then jump cut to a sniper scope view of the hostage staring out the window and then a shot of the sniper in the grass then it will go black and the film title will appear....END OF OPENING

But this is my new version of my storyboard as my previous one was a bit longer but because of my topic criteria and restrictions I carnt do the other part of my opening so I cut it shorter and ended it on a cliff hanger sort of moment

Here is my "Full" original storyboard

As you may have noticed the first part is the same as my shorter version and it ends with the sniper scene this contains an actual rescue attempt but it was to much for an opening and too much to fit in 2 minutes so that is why I had to cut it shorter.

S.W.A.T opening scene

S.W.A.T is a film made in the late 90's and opens with a similar set up to how I want to open my film with an instant action scene. mine will not be as high paced as this but follows a similar set up of a hostage scene were there are armed men holding a hostage and another group of armed men rescue him. from this opening I see the sort of tactics that they use in real life so I try and make mine as real as possible. Also another thing is its use of institutional information at the start and then the title of the film I like the use of diagetic sound used over it to simulate police radio chatter I want to use a slightly shorter sort of scene were my institutional information uses actors voices over it to simulate that you are hearing what the hostage is hearing.

This is the link to the hostage scene of the film with the institutional info added

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKW_zMINDBY

Script

Extraction script    

 

Film opens

  Moaning by hostage with RRussian voices over top

 Terrorist 1: arguing with terrorist 2

 Terrorist 2: arguing with terrorist 1

( the argument is fuzzy as hostage is regaining consciousness)

Phone of terrorist 1 rings

Terrorist 2 walks off screen

Terrorist 1: "answers phone" 

AH hello Ive been expecting you... i have your friend here right now....and we want alot of money for this person so what have you got....NO we want 10 million dollars 

(Door banging)

Terrorist 1: we will finish this later

Terrorist 1 opens door to let in terrorist 3 which argues and pushes terrorist 1 into a corner

Terrorist 3 notices that the hostage is awake and walks up to him

 Hostage: moaning in fear

Terrorist 3: slaps hostage and yells at him in Russian

AFTER HOSTAGE WALKS UP AGAIN!!!!

Hostage: grumbles and looks out of window

sniper scope shot then shot of sniper

END OF OPENING

Storyboard and script

I have now made both my story board and script for my opening and will up load them tonight when they are converted to a computer file !!

My Film Title

After looking at results from my survey I have decided that my film will be called "Extraction" as it suits the opening scene and also sounds catchy as for a viewing audience would want to see it with a catchy name.

Also I want the title to have its own font and to look eye catching so I have designed my title below...

Here is may film title with its specially designed font and style.
its is ideal for my film as it is a Block Military style font with fading in places to represent old weathered text.

My 2 Minute Opening (Basic idea)

After looking at my survey results and spending alot of my weekend watching Action films such as S.W.A.T Die Hard 1 & 2 and other hostage film openings I have create my own film opening scene now.

 My opening will have start with Institutional information for around 15-40 (at most) seconds to give it a real film feel and then open into the main feature. the opening will start with a man tied to a chair (like a hostage) then a few shots of terrorists/capters. my plan for this scene is to have a small room with a window that the hostage can be seen through. if possible I want the room to be dark and have very little in it.

 IOnce I have created an image of a hostage situation I will have a shot of the hostage looking out the window then a jump cut to the camera looking through the window (this will be edited to look like a sniper scope. this shot will then change to the sniper and then show a shot of the sniper and then cut to a black screen and show the film title and end the opening 2 minutes

Results from my own survey

After making my own survey with the aid of "survey monkey.com" I manage to portray a picture on what a view audience wants to see in my opening scene.

 In my survey I asked a couple of important questions that are relevant to my Market Research. My first was on genres of film that the public like such as horror or comedy just to obtain a general idea of what the majority of the British public are into.

As you can see the majority out of the 36 people that took my survey over the 3 day period want to see either a comedy or an action film , my film is an action film so I know have knowledge that there is a potential audience out there for that genre so if it was a full movie in the box office this would be good research. also it provides evidence that there is a general interest in sci-fi, drama's and thriller's aswell if I wanted to combine some genres together to increase my audience e.g. an action sci-fi  like Star Wars.

  Another question which follows on from that is a particular film that people like within that genre to get a rough idea what certain people like..

This is a shot of the top 6 out of 36 results in the survey and generally produced a variety of film titles mainly comedy's but I am paying more attention to action films so the ones that cropped up the most in the action genre was "The Expendables & Transformers" these two films are major box office hits but I will focus more on the expendables as it is more related to my film I will be producing. the expendables is a film on a small group of mercenaries that kick butt and over throw a foreign dictator and uses alot of interesting camera angles and props such as explosions and weapons and the story line as well is very intense.


A third most important question I asked in my survey was the possible name for my film this is important as a name can have a deep impact on audience expectation of the film.

 I picked a few names that I wanted for my title and  from my survey people like the name "Extraction and Resistance" which both can work for my story and both were my preferred names but I wont decide till closer to the end of my project

 These are the important questions that I asked in my survey that mean alot to my film as I have a general idea know of how many may view my film and what they may be looking for in my film.

My Survey

The page link does not work I'm afraid but if you copy and paste it into your browser it still does work if you can please answer my survey



<div id="surveyMonkeyInfo"><div><script src="http://www.surveymonkey.com/jsEmbed.aspx?sm=Wzj0dnQfvgcEWzH_2fxjDXfg_3d_3d"> </script></div>Create your <a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/">free online surveys</a> with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.</div>

This survey asks a variety of multiple choose questions and asks what the public want to see out of a film like mine, e.g. do you like the film title Extraction ??

Market research On Faviorate Genre

This Graph is the results of an internet survey that has asked over 200 people on there

faviorate film gnere. It is based on a variety of questions such as what sort of romance film

"do you like watching example 1 example 2 or none of the above"

these sort of questions help create a vision of the sort of type of film and cast that the public want to see.
i am going to conduct my own survey and post the results when it is finished.