Abroad

Since I had to rush abroad for a family emergency, I decided to use the films available on the plane to my advantage. I watched two films; one a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston "The Switch" and a drama named "The Social Network".

The Switch was about an unmarried 40 year-old woman who turns to a turkey baster in order to become pregnant through a sperm donor. Seven years later she reunites with her best friend, who has been living with a secret, he replaced her preferred sperm sample with his own.

The overall mood of the film has a very light atmosphere, and the opening of the film has a starting very similar to "Love Actually" as Jason Bateman's character narrates a busy urban street of people rushing around, getting on with their day-to-day lives. In Love Actually, Hugh Grant narrates with a philosophical speech about "love" as different people embrace at an airport. In The Switch, Jason Bateman has a similar philosophical speech about the human race.




The second film I watched, The Social Network, has received a lot of a recognition, gaining an award for Best Motion Picture - Drama at the 68th Golden Globe Awards, and also won awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score. It has also been nominated 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

The film is a chronicle of the founding of Facebook, the social-networking website. Although the film doesn't exactly fit into the genre that we are doing for our film opening, I feel that certain elements of drama can be appropriate for our film as there are serious aspects in our film as well. The opening of The Social Network is very different to The Switch, as it jumps straight to a conversation between two characters. The lighting is dark and all the focus is on the two characters.

There is no setting of the scene and it is very straight to the point, even though the setting is very important in this film, which is Harvard; where Facebook was originated by Mark Zuckerberg. After approximately 5 minutes of heated conversation between the two characters, the character of Mark Zuckerberg leaves and it shows a long shot of the pub the characters were sitting in and the opening credits begin to kick in. Then the camera starts to focus on shots of the Harvard campus afterward. The title of the film is shown in the "Facebook font" style, to give recognition to what the film is about. After the title of the film, the credits then begins to introduce the actors involved in the film such as Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake. After panning over the Harvard campus, the camera cuts back to Zuckerberg's character running through campus until he reaches his dorm room and sits in front of his laptop. Everything in the first 10 minutes of the film is highly unpredictable and remains throughout. I think this is an important factor in the film.

However, it is important that certain elements of my chosen genre should be represented so the audience are not too confused.



Will post more later.

Research Timeline of Film Opening: Sliding Doors

Research & planning

1, What genre have you chosen to use and why ?
Our film is a bridge between the drama genre and romance. We have decided to go for this route for our film because it is different concept that we have not ventured before. This enables us to learn new techniques of the drama/romance genre and we have come up with a range of interesting ideas.

2, What films have you looked at in your research?

The main film we have looked at for research was Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow. We liked the idea of a film with a philosophical message, and we felt that Sliding Doors had successfully achieved this. The opening credits used iconography, showing an establishing shot of the River Thames showing that the film is set in London. We wanted an "urban" theme very obviously in our film so we thought the shots in the opening scene of the film were vital for our research.

3, What conventions have you noticed in terms of:

Narrative: there was no narrative involved in the opening of Sliding Doors, letting us focus more on what we can see on the screen. We notice things like where the film is set and the characters involved rather than having to focus on what the narrative voice is saying.

Music: Sliding Doors starts with upbeat piano music as it pans over London and then kicks off into funky jazz music as we get introduced to the main character of the film.

Character: the protagonist in Sliding Doors, which is Gwyneth Paltrow's character, is presented as clumsy, as the first thing she does is knock her tea mug. Her work clothes, (formal) and hair is simple and she has little make-up on her face but she can still pass off as a pretty character. She is not ridiculously gorgeous. She walks hurriedly and awkwardly when we see her rushing to work. This could show that she is a very busy woman but perhaps might not fit entirely into her workplace.

Mood: With the help of music, the opening is quite upbeat and the help of setting and the character's body language shows elements of comedy.

Theme: The theme is very urban as it is shown in a major city (London). The pace of the opening is fast, reflecting the urban atmosphere.

Setting: Setting is very obvious in the opening, showing London Underground, the River Thames, black cabs and old British buildings. This reinforces the idea of an urban theme.

Music/Sound

When we went to the British Film Institute in December, during the lecture we were told how important sound is for our film opening.

Music in a film can tell a lot about it: it's genre, the atmosphere in the scene... is it happy or sad?

Recently I've been looking into a lot of music for film opening. Of course, our genre is a "drama" and branching off drama there will perhaps be elements of comedy and romance. However, the overall atmosphere of the film is supposed to be emotional, pulling on the heartstring and portraying the hardships of our protagonist.

In this situation, upbeat hip-hop or pop music is very inapproapriate. I've been looking at a lot of musicians that are quite unknown or not mainstream in the slightest.

Here are a few examples:

Asleep - The Smiths
Why Does It Always Rain On Me? - Travis
Call It Off - Tegan & Sara
Delicate - Damien Rice
Creep - ...versions by Radiohead, Scala or Damien Rice
Lua - Bright Eyes

Here are a few videos of the songs...


Lua - Bright Eyes





Call It Off - Tegan and Sara

I just need to discuss music with my other group members and see what would work well with our film opening!

- Ria

Ideas 2

We looked at a couple of films such as Sliding Doors to get us an insight into the idea of making different decisions and how it affects our lives.

Eventually, we have come up with a definite idea for our film. The plot follows the life of a young woman, stuck in a dead-end job, and how different decisions takes her to completely different destinations in life.

Our 3 minute (approximately) film opening will start with:

- A dream sequence: She's dreaming that she's in Oxford Street shopping at her heart's expense. There will be shots of her going into different high-end boutiques, browsing clothes, and shots of her handing her credit card to the cashier. At one shot, the credit card gets rejected and her phone starts ringing in the dream. The cashier's voice then echoes "Madam, your phone is ringing" over and over again.
- It then snaps to reality as her phone is ringing in "real-time" and her supervisor calls, "you're late for work, you know today's an important day. Get here now" She begins to protest, and her supervisor says "no excuses" and then hangs up. She looks at the time, groans and then gets up. This is when the opening credits start playing.
- There are different shots of her getting ready, going through her daily routine. These are quick shots, she checks herself in the mirror, grabs an apple, gets her keys. This rewinds back to her getting the apple and switches to a split screen, showing two alternative lives. When she leaves her home, each alternative life takes a separate path. Switches to title of movie and a brief journey to work. One alternative decides to go in a cafe to get some coffee. The other goes straight to work.

We might have to fiddle with the ending a little, and decide on sound.

That's all for today's posting!

- Ria