Street Justice - opening sequence

This is the final product of our opening sequence.

Evaluation

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product

We chose to come up with an original idea for production company and we went with the name 'Yellow Street Productions' we also went and made our own studios, 'SOUTH STUDIOS' and 'STREET

PICTURES' to show creativity and originality. These names suited our style and genre of film we went for and thought they reflected the movie quite well.

Being an independent film we would obviously need to gain help from the British Distributor in order to get the budget for our film and to gain cinema attention. We are aiming for national and regional success as it involves only British lifestyles so global success is not a target. 

Our film will at first be distributed in cinemas and then at a later stage be out on DVD in most film stores and also available online with Netflix and Love Film.  

There are many technical factors i took in when using the CANON XF300 camera as i was the main camera man. I learnt how to create an depth of filed shot with the cameras ring function to control the blur I also learnt how to hold the camera in different position to get the perfect shot(s).

The editing program used was Sony Vegas 12 Pro. I was already familiar with this program however still had to look up many techniques that i learnt. I learnt how to make a dramatic intro to a movie using Sony Vegas.
I created my own color correction set for my movie giving it an excellent effect to the movie and making it look studio made.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product as a whole represents many particular social groups. These social groups include ethnicity, class and status, age, regional identity and gender.

The establishing shots we used in the beginning and the end of the opening sequence represent ethnicity, class and status and regional identity. Black people that don't stay in the upper class parts of London are normally referred to as being poor and living in the ghetto and the shot of the block of flats indicates that.

The opening sequence of our media product shows many examples of how we showed representation of these social groups with the camera shots and mise en scene used.

The costume that the characters wore in the opening sequence are associated with what black male teenagers will normally wear e.g hoody, jeans, trainers. The scene also showed violence with one of the characters stabbing the other character and crime and violence is the stereotype that black male teenagers are associated with.

The representation of social groups in the media product perfectly compliments the genre of a British crime drama as there are plenty of different oppositions you could use with this genre and the social groups represented in this media product such as good vs bad, right vs wrong, criminals vs the police, hero vs villain, sane vs insane and many more.

Our script also establishes the representation of regional identity as the majority of the dialogue used is slang something that the ghetto parts of London are known for speaking. Also there is a lot of UK grime and hip hop soundtracks used in the media product something that black teenagers that are from the London Ghetto are known for listening to.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do I feel I have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I have learnt many things looking back at the preliminary task. I have learnt a range of different camera shots and how to execute them properly and how to make them match in a movie. 
I also have learnt many new editing techniques to make the best edit possible to the final product compared to the preliminary task the final product has much more editing in it for example colour correctors etc.

Who would be the audience for your media product? How did you attract/address your audience?

Crime drama target audience are usually aimed at both females and males.

The males interest the females as males stereotypically are involved in the crime and the female actresses attract the males as they find  the females attractive therefore stereotypically they would watch the film.

The certificate is usually 15 therefore that is that is where the target audience age range begins from. Both females and males find crime dramas interesting as well aged around the age 40.

The audience should be both female and male. The females could be attracted due to male characters and the males could be attracted by the content(action).

For this film I decided to have 15-30 year olds as the target audience as this range is quite wide however I have took into consideration the target audience for Thriller and Crime films.

Stereotypically people who like crime films, also like thrillers.

In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The majority of the whole film and the whole of the opening sequence uses forms and conventions of gritty urban British crime dramas. From the typical postcode location to the typical characters portrayed and used in the film and the opening sequence. Their is plenty of violence in our film and our opening sequence and that is the case in many crime dramas that I researched.They always usually start with a deal that has gone wrong that ends up in violence like in Heat for example and we felt that was one of the best ways to start the film as it will make the audience more interested in the storyline.

However their is one thing we have done where we have challenged a form and convention of a typical urban British crime drama storyline and that is a criminal and a policeman working together. This is a very rare storyline and you often find that the criminal and policeman are enemies and against each other in crime dramas. However that is not the case for our storyline and we felt it would be good for us to have a unique storyline something that is a bit different from all the other usual crime dramas.

Filming Day Review

We had a great session of filming all went to plan even though we had to make changes to the storyboard and screen play. One of our characters dropped out ill and we found a replacement who was a fellow classmate Lesley.

We managed to get all shots done the way we wanted and was happy with the results. We had issues with filming before such as weather problems and actors but at our final day of filming everything went to plan and all was well.

Transferring equipment to the site was no problem we also used Zaks car as a bonus to the movie and opening sequence.

Location Scouting

We wanted the movie to have a street feeling to it so we wanted our filming location to be an council looking estate. We had many locations within tooting to choose from.

Tooting Bec Estate Court

Film Classification

According to our research towards similar films such as adulthood our film classification would be defined to that of that genre and field. We chose to rate the movie 15+ as these types of movies are popular to those starting with this age range.

There are a couple of graphic scenes that will be implemented in this movie that we felt will not be appropriate for children under 15 even with parental guidance.
We also think this age rating is suitable as the movie is based on the lives of the youth and and street violence and we feel the movie would give a positive view and message to the younger generation and to see solutions for them in our movie.

Props/Costumes/Make-Up

When choosing which props we might need we put into consideration on the locatiobn of filming and the amount of actors we would have and which roles were given to each actor(s). We needed to make sure there was a car park within the estate so that the use of an vauxhall astra could take place as a undercover police car. Also we had to consider an area or passage way were the public or residents do not pass so often so we could make a crime scene with fake blood and knife.

When choosing costumes in depended opn the role of the characters . Detective Meridian will wear a police vest on top of casual clothes. The victim will wear casual clothes with the suspect wearing a hoody and street like clothing looking intimidating.

Storyboard

This the final version of our storyboard we had many changes from the original board.

Shot List

1	1.1	DOF	Depth of field shot of undercover police watch and showing the drug transaction
1	1.2	TS	Two shot of drug transaction
1	1.3	OS	Over shoulder of victim and suspect arguing
1	1.4	POV	POV shot of police looking at argument
1	1.5	MS	Medium shot of detective looking towards argument
1	1.6	OS	over shoulder(s) of argument heating up
1	1.7	POV	Pov of detective seeing victim getting stabbed
1	1.8	MS	Medium shot of detective exiting the car
1	1.9	LS	Long shot of detective chasing suspect
1	1.10	MS	Medium shot of suspect noticing detective then dropping weapon and running off.
1	1.11	LS	Long shot of detective chasing suspect.
2	2.1	LS	Long shot of detective returning to stabbed victim
2	2.2	OS	Over shoulder shot of detective in convo With victim
2	2.3	POV	Pov of victim slowly loosing conciousnes

SP

Screenplay

1. EXT. TOOTING BEC BLOCKS- DAY (COLOUR SEQUENCE)

dialogue with NON-DIEGETIC SOUND and SOUNDTRACK playing in background throughout whole scene.

DEPTH OF FIELD SHOT of Detective Meridians (30's, undercover cop)  watch, CLOSE UP focus shifts to Background where there is a meeting between two black male teenagers.

TWO SHOT OF CHARACTERS ARGUING. OVER THE SHOULDER SHOTS ALSO TAKE PLACE DURING ARGUMENT

POV SHOT of Detective Meridian watching the on goings while both characters continue arguing in background.

HANDHELD SHOT of Detective Meridian chasing one of the characters.

 

CUT TO:

 



2. CLOSE UP of other wounded character speaking to Detective Meridian. SAD NON-DIEGETICMUSIC PLAYING IN BACKGROUND.

LOW ANGLE SHOT of Detective Meridian calling emergency service. SAD NON-DIEGETIC SOUND playing in background.

CUT TO:

 

3. SCREEN  AND DIALOGUE of Detective Meridian FADES AWAY Street Justice title text comes up. SAD NON-DIEGETIC SOUND plays in background

Pitch Feedback

At first the idea and concept was explained by our group. We mentioned details of the storyline to give the audience a better insight of our movie and ideas. The theme of the movie was also explained to show the message we were trying to put across.

Thereafter we moved on about things that would affect the movie. We reasoned why we chose the target audience we went for and why it was important to this certain type of movie. We further explained how the representation of the characters link and can relate to our target audience chosen.

To end off we showed some of our research that helped develop our ideas of our movie. We gave examples of influences that help us construct our ideas for our certain genre of our movie.

Film Idea

Title: Street Justice

Location/Props: South London Estate - Bike,urban street clothing 

Characters: Detective Manson, treach and john wayden

Audience: The target audience will be 16-30 yr olds and those stereotypically that are into crime drama and crime thrillers.

Genre: Crime Drama/Crime Thriller

Plot: The scene will open with Detective mason entering an estate to investigate a leading case which he has taken of the murdering of john wayden. On his way to the crime scene he notices suspicous suspects at the crime scene 'snooping' around. Detective mason reaches and places his hand on his holstered pistol and walks towards them. Detective Mason shouts towards them asking them what they are doing at a restricted area then they flee.