Film Institution Research

There are a few film Institutions that would be well equipped and suitable for the production of our film.

Institutions such as :

20th century fox
Universal
Paramount
Pathé
Warner Bros




However we have decided to choose Working Title as it supports British Films being a British company itself and helps support the British film industry. Working title has produced other British films such as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

After more research on Working title we decided that if we had the choice, it would be the institution to produce our film. This is because of many reasons, however the main one is the experiences with the British film industry. 

Certificate Research on crime films.

We have decided to certificate our film as an 15-18 due to the violence, violence and some upsetting scenes that would not be suitable for anyone under the age of 15. 

Pulp Fiction = 18

The Godfather = 15

The Godfather Part 2 = 15

Goodfellas = 18

The Usual Suspects = 18

Get Rich or Die Tryin' = 15

After looking at other crime films and their certificate rating we decided that 18 would be more appropriate. This is mostly because of the violence and upsetting nature of some films. 

The characters.

We have decided who are going to be the characters in our opening.

Mitch = The Don
Matt/Me = Henchman/Mobster
Kieran = Henchman/Mobster
Harry Kent(drama student) = Mysterious Stranger

Kieran will upload pictures of the characters after we have met outside of school.

Media planning

Today in lesson we gathered together our ideas for our opening and we will start storyboarding in the next lesson or when we have free periods together.

• Credits
• Character getting ready in morning ( process sped up eg. Kettle boiling, eating breakfast etc) – possibly link these two ideas together.
• Flashback when don exits house eyes looking straight to camera shot filled just by his eyes. Then fades to flashback in Pleasantville effect
• Flashback shows the two henchman/gangsters running possibly away from something. Run to a hedge and pull out a suitcase they open it to see documents, money and gun in it. They then carry on running away, get to an alley and get halfway down it and a silhouette of a mysterious man appears at the end of the alley as the characters get close to him he has a weapon and manages to injure the characters and take the case and walks calmly off. 

• Fades in from flashback and colours slowly seep back into next scene. Characters walking down the street joining paths from side streets looking suave and cool. (Don possibly falls over)

• Shows title of movie and then fades to black

Pleasant view effect

After looking at the video previously posted we thought it would be very useful to us it in our video. We said that it would be very good when we put in the flashback of the day before. The plseasant view affect as a very good affect on the colour and lighting which would make our flashback seem very important and noticable.

Pleasantville Effect w/ Rubik's Cube (After Effects) [Film 02]

Other ideas

An idea that we will be using in our film is the narration from one of the main characters in the flashback explaining what went wrong. It will also show how it is going to effect the characters and have this effect used again towards the end of the opening to engage the audience and keep them wanting to watch more.

Locations ?

Again myself and kieran thought off some ideas but this time on locations.


I said that we should use my house as we could fast forward technique a start of a new day (making tea etc.). Editing the speed of clips and emphasise the sound to give an interesting effect.

Me and Kieran also said that we should find a small road where we could do the introduction of all the characters with was previously discussed in other posts.

We will also look to use places that are get off from most civilisation and considered dangerous, where accidents happen. Which could be used as a key point in the film. Once found and we have a good idea about locations Kieran will be taking pictures and we will all upload then to our bloggs and talk about why it would be good.

We will looking for more locations soon and discuss more when mitch returns.

More opening ideas

Myself and Kieran carried on thinking up ideas after pur lesson during our free lessons. We said that we could get some of our friends to play extra characters in our opening, they could play characters like the ex-mob boss.


We also thought of ideas to introduce the characters as individuals, by having the camera moving slowly down a road infront of myself and looking at me and then Mitch enters from the side and then Kieran enters after mitch from the other sides and we are wearing suits and we all put our shades in a very slo-mo walk for good effect.

Opening ideas and planning

Today in lesson Me and Kieran were thinking up ideas for our opening as Mitch wasn't in lesson. We thought the opening will show the main people just waking up, after a previous busy night.


They would then start they're day as normal but would would speed it up e.g just  having breakfast and a cup of tea. There would then be a flash back from a previous job that night. It would show then doing one last job for their boss and sadly failing.


This would then have to be straightened up and lead to a quite frantic 24 hours.

Analysis of another media studies crime film- mise-en-scene

In this media studies video they have done the whole thing very well. They have an increasingly wide range of camera angles which are used to get there full affect. They also use mise-en-scene very well, they have thought about the clothing, setting, lighting and props very well. They use things that are very stereotypical in a crime film, like the character wearing gloves when using the gun, and when they want to 'do the job' they go to a very low populated are so there are no distractions or interferences.

Analysis of another A level film

This opening is very good as it uses some of the main crime film cliches. It has some every good editing throughout the opening sequence. It keeps very good continuity in very cut and all looks very smooth when put together. In the first opening part we never see the main persons face. This adds different affects to the audience, it makes this person very mysterious and makes us all get the idea that the person doesnt want thier identity to be reveled. We said that we could inlude this into our real thing.

A-level Media Coursework -The Re-Up- Crime Drama

More crime film cliches

For a crime film to work, there must be a wizened , cynical cop who is closed to retirement and has seen it all. There must be a young cop who just got married, and who will almost certainly die. There must be a full-dress funeral service, preferably in the rain.



Finally, gangster movies would not be gangster movies without the crucial scene in the hospital where a good-looking young cop comes on duty relace the cop who is guarding an important witness, then turns out to be a hit man.

Crime cliches

There are many different crime cliches that have been in all good crime films in the past. There are things like the unwritten gangster code, even though the code appears to be pointless it must not be violated.
Crime films most often than not involve a rat, who would be a undercover cop or a member of the gang : the gangsters have a hard time identifying the rat in the crew, even though the rat is always the newest and best-looking member of the gang, and never seems to belong to the same ethnic group as everyone else.

Another thing that often appears in crime films would be a scene in a restaurant or club, where someone says something to one of the gang members not knowing who he is or his envlovement with the gang. He then later regrets it.


Most of the gangsters in each crime films would be incredibly crooked, doing anything there told by their boss. It would appear the wouldnt ever question the decisions or feel any guilt about what they have just done. However there is usually one ' straight arrow ' in the group whom is respected by everyone because he's not completely crooked.

After we looked to at many pictures to get ideas for costumes and other aspects of mise-en-scene, we all agreed we should all look at same as the sterotypical gangstar in crime films. As in this picture we should all look reletivilty smart. Also the setting in the background looks like someone that has quite alot of money and cares about there apparence. This could help us when it comes to filming when we think about mise-en-scence.

The Usual Suspects - Opening Scene Analysis

We had a choice of what film genre we where goin to use, Kieran, Mitch and myself all decided to do a crime film intro.

This video is the opening film to The Usual Suspects. As soon as the clip begins we could see that it is very dark lighting. However certain things stand out of points of intrest, like the lighter.
Also it seems that the main gangster in the film is a very mysterious smooth talking character. You never see the man with the guns face. You hear him say a few lines of speech in his smooth monotoned voice. He also seems very clam about the whole expirence as if he has done this many times before. He is not unsettled by anything and seems he would just get the job done. Your also lead to believe that he is the one that creates the explosion at the end. That shows he feels so guilt towards what he does or anything he will be doing in the future.

Media Preliminary Task and Evaluation

Overall we all believed our preliminary task came together very well. After only a few lessons with the equipment we felt as if we got to grips with the equipment very well.


When filming we always remembered to put in key aspects such as a variety in shots, which we did very well. We also had to think a lot about the 180 degree rule. We followed this very well, and we needed to do so or our tasks continuity would be very poor.

We had some good raw footage which was very helpful when it came to editing. Also as part of the editing we changed shots very quickly which made the task look very smooth and professional.

The few things we could improve on would be the dialogue. It could be improved with a good professional microphone which we didn't have at our disposal. The zoom on the folder which we originally though would look well and fit the scene. After looking at it time and time again it looked good, but it didn't fit the scene very well because it disrupted the flow of the dialogue.

The editing task for prelimanary

I was ill for the first editing lesson, however i was still confident Mitch and Kieran would get the job started beacuse they both had some expirence. The next lesson the whole group where back together as we watch the task that Kieran had uploaded onto youtube, we could all see the finished task looked great. There a where a range of different carmer shots and effects, we kept to the 180 rule and the whole piece looked great and had high continuality.

Starting to Film prelimanary task

At the start we got into our groups, I was with Mitch and Kieran. We got a sheet discribing our prelimanary task which was to film and edit a character opening a door, then crossing the room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom he then exchanges a few of lines of dialogue.
We first found an empty classroom where we became farmiliar with the camera. We chose to film a parent teacher meeting. Before and during filming we had many things to take in consideration. We made sure that it would all have a high level of continuality and we thought alot about the 180 rule. The 180° rule is a guideline in film making that states that two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary it should be shown by the camera moving. We also made sure we where in the some clothes to make sure it had full effect.

Kidulthood analysis

After doing work on carmera angles we got ready to use them in a analysis.
We first watched a short start to a film called ' kidulthood '. After watch the film opening a few times we began the analysis. We commented on the many different camera angles used, like high and low angle shots and what there used for. Low angle shots would  be used to make the person its showing look very powerful and in control of the situation. Where as high angle shots would be used for the opposite, they would make a person look very weak and open to attack.
Also many point of view shots, these helped the audience feel as the person does. Like in the scene where a girl is being attacked and it a point of view shot it would create alot of sympathy.

This lesson helped alot it allowed us to come alot farmilier with the key terms and allow us to use them. It also helped us out line the use of different camera angles.

Mise-en-scence

Mise-en-scence "putting into the scence" this is everything that would be in a scence. Like lighting, costumes and make up. This would show all the different aspects of the scence. It also show all the hard work that has been put into the scence

Carmera angles

Point of view: show the carmera from their point of view.
high and low angle shots: It would a angle from either a hight position or a low one, thus giving different.
Close up: Used often to show a facial expression on a chararcter.
Extreme close up: Often used to show a certain object of importance.
Two shot: This is used to show a conversation between the two people.
Master shot: This is always used to set the scene and show the place of importance.

first lesson

Quick introduction to the subject. Learnt about the average shots and how long a different type of scence would be.
for example action shots, establishing shots, shot reverse shot and more.
We then quickly moverd on to film key terms and analysed a short clip from the film adulthood. This was very helpful for gaining a better understanding of mise en scene which is everything to acting to setting and props. This made the concept of mise en scene alot easier to understand and explain.
This also explained and made the key film terms easier to understand and use in a description of work