Stunt Practice

Updated Shot List

After the feedback we received from Ms Blackborow, Ms Dymioti and Mr Bayliss (Chris), we changed the overall sequence of events in our opening, and changed the shot list almost entirely:

Summary:

The beginning is more drawn out, so to build suspense. This also focuses more on one character, therefore establishing that she is the protagonist, and does not overload the audience with information. Furthermore, there is more dialogue between the minor character and the protagonist. Our teachers thought that this would add some depth to the character himself as well ass emphasising the location i.e. the high security building.

Finalised Script Draft

Order of Titles in Our Opening

1. Screen Gems Presents
2. A Cornucopia Films Production
3. Mila Hrisimova
4. Anjana Stephens
5. Shobnam Islam
6. Francis Gillen
7. Dylan Redmayne
8. Casting By - Neil Jackman
9. Music By - Emily Lawson
10. Costume Designer - Sharlene Gandhi
11. Edited By - Cass O'Brien
12. Production Designer - Anna Rawe
13. Director of Photography - Ryan Irons
14. Executive Producers - Alex Ray and James Craig
15. Produced By - Shobnam Islam
16. Written By - Anjana Stephens
17. 26
18. Directed By - Mila Hrisimova

Location 1

1 of the locations we plan on using for our film opening.

Storyboard

This is the storyboard for our opening sequence; each colour represents a different shot type.

Key: 

Bright blue - Medium close up

Light blue - Close up

Pink - Mid shot

Green - Long shot

Orange - Very long shot (Wide shot)

The storyboard was our main source of information making the animatic. It took multiple re-draws and shuffling to finally match it to the shot list, however we can now visualise the sequence. This will be helpful in setting up the shoots, in terms of framing and order.

Original Script Draft

INT. SEWARD STUDIO - EVENING

Delta is limping across a corridor, covered in blood and

gets onto an elevator. A guard watches her on CCTV as she

collapses out of the elevator.

He marches down the stairs and goes to her, determined to

find out what is wrong.

GUARD

You there! What’s happened?

DELTA

(gasping)

Please sir, help me... I’ve been

shot!

Cutaway to blood. Guard looks concerned.

GUARD

It’s alright, I’ll get help.

He puts his gun down against the wall and reaches for his

walkie-talkie.

Out of nowhere, Sierra tackles him to the ground and holds a

gun against his temple. He struggles but can’t break free.

Echo appears and walks over to the Guard.

ECHO

Nice work, Delta.

Delta whips her wig off and grins. Guard struggles.

ECHO

Oh come on, Sierra. Don’t you think

you’re being a bit rough?

DELTA

Save it for Victor-

Pause.

DELTA

(smirking)

He likes it rough.

Guard keeps struggling and Sierra digs gun into temple.

ECHO

Where’s Victor?

GUARD

(breathless then shouting)

You’re wasting your time. I’ll

never tell you where he is!

He looks away to access card and door.

DELTA

(grinning)

You just did.

She looks at Echo and nods. Gunshot. Sierra looks shocked.

DELTA

(gestures)

Access card.

The girls all walk up to the door. Delta opens the door with

the access card and pushes it open.

SIERRA

Oh shi-

CUT TO BLACK

Behind The Scenes - Writing The Shot List

During our group meetings, we revised and rewrote the shot list repeatedly, acting on the feedback from  our teachers as well as any mistakes we'd spotted ourselves. Here is a snap behind the scenes of one of our group sessions.

Mila and Anjana discussing the shots - Photography by Shobnam

Costumes

A first glance at our costumes!

Mila and Anjana a.k.a Delta + Sierra

Anjana and Shobnam a.k.e Sierra + Echo

List of Costumes, Props, Hair and Makeup

Here we created a list of things that we need for our shoot, in order to organise the small details in advance and to make sure that we are completely prepared on the day of the actual shoot.

Presentation Handout 2

Presentation Handout 1

Presentation

MAS Decadence Presentation from latymermedia

Opening Sequence Titles Count

Titles are a legal requirement in films, however some appear more often than others, as well as appearing in a specific order. Below are some of the opening sequences we looked at as examples:

Zombieland:

1.       Columbia Pictures presents

2.       In association with Relativity Media

3.       A Pariah Production

4.       Woody Harrelson

5.       Jesse Eisenberg

6.       Emma Stone

7.       And Abigail Breslin

8.       Zombieland

9.       Casting by

10.   Costume designer

11.   Music By

12.   Edited by

13.   Production Designer

14.   Director of Photography

15.   Executive Producers

16.   Produced by

17.   Written by

18.   Directed by

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo:

1.       Columbia Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Presents

2.       Production company

3.       A David Fincher film

4.       Daniel Craig

5.       Rooney Mara

6.       The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

7.       Christopher Plummer

8.       Stellan Skarsgard

9.       Steven Berkoff

10.   Robin Wright

11.   Yorick Van Wageningen

12.   Joely Richardson

13.   Geraldine James

14.   Goran Visnjic

15.   Donald Sumpter

16.   Ulf Friberg

17.   Casting By

18.   Costume Designer

19.   Co-Producers

20.   Sound Design By

21.   Music By

22.   Editors

23.   Production Designer

24.   Director of Photography

25.   Executive Producers

26.   Produced By

27.   Based On The Book By – Originally Published By

28.   Screenplay By

29.   Directed By

Sin City:

1.       Sin City

2.       Jessica Alba

3.       Devon Aoki

4.       Alexis Bledel

5.       Powers Boothe

6.       Rosario Dawson

7.       Benicio del Toro

8.       Michael Clarke Duncan

9.       Carla Gugino

10.   Josh Hartnett

11.   Rutger Hauer

12.   Jaime King

13.   Michael Madsen

14.   Brittany Murphy

15.   Clive Owen

16.   Mickey Rourke

17.   Nick Stahl

18.   Bruce Willis

19.   Elijah Wood

20.   Based on the Sin City Graphic Novels

21.   Casting Director

22.   Line Producer

23.   Shot and Cut by

24.   Music

25.   Executive Producer

26.   Produced By

27.   Special Guest Director

28.   Directed By

Charlie's Angels:

1. Columbia pictures presents...

2. In association with...

3. In association with (2nd company)

4.   A film by...

5. Cameron Diaz

6. Drew Barrymore

7. Lucy Liu

8. Bernie Mac

9. Justin Theroux

10. Robert Patrick

11. Demi Moore

12. Other cast members (2nd billing)

13. Casting by...

14. Visual effects

15. Costume designer

16. Music supervision

17. Music by

18. Edited by

19. Produvction designer

20. Director of photography

21. Executive producers

22. Producer

23. Story by

24. Scrrenplay by

25. Director

26. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

We see from all the above that the production and distibution companies came first, followed by cast, then all other crew, and finally producer and directors. Using this basic order, we were able to finalise our own.

Profile of Typical Target Audience Member(s)

Core Audience

­­­­­­Age: 17

Gender: Female

Favourite Film Genres: Espionage, Fantasy, Crime

Favourite Films: Salt, Rush Hour, The Avengers

Favourite TV Shows: Misfits, Fringe, Heroes

Goes to cinema: Once a week

Which cinema: Vue, Cineworld

Favourite Female Characters: Olivia Dunham (Fringe), Kelly (Misfits), Niki Sanders and Claire Bennet (Heroes), Black Widow (Avengers)

Hobbies: Swimming, Shopping, Watching Films, Photography

Media Consumption: Rock/ Punk Music, Kerrang Magazine, E! Online, Twitter

How we will target this specific audience:

• Our main characters are strong, independent, young and female - they are also aspirational, as they are physically fit and mentally stable, despite the stressful situations which they often find themselves in
• The three girls aren't heroes, they each have flaws and therefore the audience can relate to them - they have each had difficult pasts and therefore represent the global theme of Family Drama
• We understand that some young females may not be likely to watch films with too much violence, therefore we have decided to use techniques similar to those used on the Hit TV Show "Prison Break" and show the build up to the violence and then cutaway from the violence and then cut back to the aftermath of the violence (For example, when T-Bag attacks Abruzzi)
• The fact that our characters are quite extreme and exaggerated in their skills (Super-strength, Extreme Ruthlessness and Sherlock-Style Intelligence) will also appeal to fans of the popular "Underworld" and "Resident Evil" film franchises, which include incredibly resilient and survivalist female characters

Secondary Audience

Age: 18

Gender: Male

Favourite Film Genres: Action/Adventure, Thriller, Comedy

Favourite Films: Psycho, Indiana Jones, Iron Man

Favourite TV Shows: Prison Break, Sherlock, Breaking Bad, Homeland

Goes to cinema: Once a week

Which cinema: Odeon

Favourite Female Characters: Black Widow (Iron Man), Irene Adler (Sherlock), Wichita (Zombieland)

Hobbies: Ice-skating, Rugby, Listening to Music, Rock-Climbing

Media Consumption: Rap Music, Facebook, BBC Radio 1, X-Box Games such as "Call of Duty" and "Halo"

How we will target this specific audience:

• A cast of visually appealing females which might encourage young males to watch the film
• A lot of "Call Of Duty"-esque violence, but as I mentioned before, it will be done tastefully so that the core audience isn't put off
• Some scenes of a mild sexual nature, in order to give the hormonally charged teenagers what they want
• The inclusion of witty, dark humour; both male and female audiences like wit, but not necessarily all females like dark humour, so this may be appealing to the male audience who are more comfortable with this type of humour

Cornucopia Films (Our Production Company)

• Founded in 1994 in London, by Dylan Gaskarth, Eddie Hudson and Jenna Pope (names we made up).
• Formed a partnership with Screen Gems in 2008 to distribute British films in the US (real distributor, fake partnership).
• In association with ‘Almost Human’ since 2009, creating make-up and visual special effects (real special FX company, did the make-up and prosthetics for Teen Wolf and Grimm, fake partnership).
• Headquarters in Soho, London (most big British institutions are based here).
• Produces motion pictures – such as Resist (2009) (fake film), Saviour (2011)(also a fake film) and Outpost (2008) (co-production with Newmarket films)(real film, fake co-production).

Film Rating

One of the points that was mentioned in our feedback from Ms Blackborow, was that we hadn't thought about our film rating enough and so here is some research into movie certifications.

_________________________________________________________________________

BBFC 15 Classification Guidelines

Discrimination

The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour.

Drugs

Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.

Horror

Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.

Imitable behaviour

Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be

copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised.

Language

There may be frequent use of strong language (for example, ‘f*ck’). The strongest terms (for example, ‘c*nt’) may be acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Nudity

Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context.

Sex

Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.

Theme

No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds.

Violence

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification.
_________________________________________________________________________

We have decided to apply these guidelines to our film, in order for us to be suitable for the '15' rating, and therefore reach our target audience.

Film Idea

Title:

DECADENCE

Genre: 
Action-Adventure, Espionage

Sub-genre:
Girls With Guns, Sci-Fi

Synopsis: 
After realising that the government plans to redesign society, 3 special agents break off from a top-secret government programme in the hopes of preventing social segregation. Once they understand that they cannot perform this task alone, they try to appeal to their former comrades, giving them only one choice:

Kill or be killed.

Logline: 

3 rogue female ex-government agents embark on a vengeful journey, but will they be able to handle the consequences?

Gender Representation

A lot of female protagonists in action films are quite sexualised, like in Sucker Punch (2011), Resident Evil (2002) and Salt (2010).

For example, the costumes in Sucker Punch are quite revealing and seem impractical for their mission:

In Resident Evil, the posters show the main character Alice wearing a small red dress (which again, seems impractical for combat) and posing seductively with a gun:

We wanted to go against these conventions and not have stereotypical female protagonists, so we decided to have our characters:

• With a variety of personalities and strengths 
• Each one excels in their own field of expertise
• Not Damsels-in-Distress
• Can take care of themselves
• Feminine but doesn't deduct from their strength and dominance
• They do what needs to be done - not cowardly