Individual analysis of first 15 minutes of a film(X-men origins: Wolverine)

The opening shot of X-men origins shows us the logos of the companies who made the film, 20th century fox and Marvel.
The first shot is a wide shot of a fire. This room is dimly lit despite the fire to give the shot an older feel. This shot tells us the location of the scene, then tilts up to reveal the first character. This is a close up which signifies importance of the character, and also allows the audience to see the characters dark, moody expression which suggests this character is bad tempered. The camera then cuts to a sick child. It is a wide shot which suggests the character is inferior. This is also suggested by the fact the character is sick.

A new character( a doctor) now walks in. The first character quickly stands up and hides a knife behind his back. This shows that he has something to hide, and also that the new character is more dominant. Also, when he stands up he says 'evening sir'. The title 'sir' implies power.

The man and the sick boy engage in a conversation, which shows examples of the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot. While this conversation is happening the camera keeps cutting to close ups of the other boy who looks angry. This suggests jealousy of the relationship between the 2.

Shouting is heard from another room. The doctor tries to avoid having to deal with this, which makes him seem cowardly, but he is convinced to go. As he leaves the sick child shouts 'father', which reveals the relationship between the two characters. As the two people leave, we are left with a lingering close up of the sick child even though the action is going on elsewhere. This helps build tension and suggests to the audience that the child's reaction is more important. After a gunshot is heard, dramatic music fades in as the sick child gets up and runs down the corridor to where his father is dying.

We are given a high angle shot of the father and his murderer, and then a low angle shot of the child looking down on them, this suggests a shift in power.

Sad music comes in as the father dies allowing the audience to empathise. We are the  shown a close up of the childs angry face and then of his bone claws coming thorugh his skin. This shows the transfirmation of the child from a weak, sick child into the pwoerful mutant he is in the future. However now James is shown a high angle shot to suggest he is not in control of his actions and has 'lost his mind'. This continues as he runs to kill his fathers murderer. Even when he kills the man he is still shown to be small and inferior suggesting his actions were not smart or well thought through.

The child runs out of the house into a dark forest. The darkness shows he is running into the unknown. The fast paced music adds tension and drama to the scene. the other child catches up and tackles young wolverine. They engage in conversation where wolverine tries to apologise for his actions, but the other, who was earlier revealed to be his brother, tries to defend his actions. This allows us to see the violent, aggressive nature of the character and this scene also allows us to see the brotherly bond between the two form. As the brothers begin to run away, the opening credits begin to play.

When important names are revealed in the opening credits, we are shown a still image. This makes sure we don't get distracted by the background action.

The opening credits take us through the brothers' lives as they fight in different wars. Each war shows us a different quality of the brothers

The film flashes forward to the american civil war in which the brothers are fighting. The lighting here is bright suggesting their lives have gotten better. This war shos us the ruthlessness of the two fighters and how invincible they are, especially wolverine who takes a cannonball to the chest and still keeps going.

The next war we are shown is WW1. As the two brothers fight through a trench, we get to see how their brotherly bond allows them to fight as a team to clear out their enemies.

The next war is WW2. In this war we are shown the hatred and violence of the bigger brother, while wolverine stands worried as he watches his sibling wipe out an entire bunker full of nazis.

The final war we are shown is in vietnam, where it is clear that the ruthless brother has become even more violent as he kills everyone, even his own team. However, wolverin still comes in to help. When they become captured, they are fired upon by a firing squad, and as the first bullets are fired, the title appears in big letters.

The two brothers are visited in a jail cell. This cell is very dark, emphasising the two brothers sorrow. The door opens and light floods the room, suggesting hope. They are visited bty a high ranking military officer, who always has the sun shining bright behind him, which suggests he is a symbol of hope. At first the man stands tall above the two brothers and wears sunglasses, which shows that he is superior, however, later on in the scene he takes his sunglasses off and kneels down towards the two, which shows that he is empathising with them and bringing himself down to their level.

analysis of title sequence

research into title sequences

the title sequence above is from spiderman (2002)

clip found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f5ykkGJvMU 

analysis

this title sequence is very minimalistic , however uses symbolism to get the movie plot across. with this been a well known franchise they hardly need to go all out on plot development , however they have things like images of spiderman and the green goblin to give a short info into the plot. the words are used to show importance here , for example,  the title spider man is in big and has the most screentime , alos the main actors have a shot with just their names on it (willem dafoe ect) wheras less important character actors share the shot. they also don't give the name of the characters they play , this adds to the realism of it . A loud orchestral underscore is over this title sequence as well , it just makes it seem more epic , so your even gripped to the title. there's also location hints in the title sequences , with high rise buildings suggesting it will be in the city. 

the first shot i chose was the "columbia pictures presents" shot . I chose this because out of all the writing , this has the most screentime , this is because the company made the film and so would want the most screentime.

the second shot is of the two actors name , Gerry Becker and Bill Nunn , these two are "unimportant actors" who have small parts , the fact that they both share the shot in the title sequence highlights this , the shot is also on a black background with white letters , this is consistent throughout the naming of the actors so people can relate that shot to it.

the third shot is of just Kirsten Dunst name , this is because she is a high profile star and is important in the story , so with her having a shot all to herself it symbolises that .

the fourth shot is of the name of the film "spider man" this shot changes from the shots that preceeded it , this si to show this shot is new and different to highlight the importance and bring back attention , the text also stretches all the way across the screen to again highlight the importance of this wording

the fifth shot has "co producer grant curtis" wrote on it , this shot has less screentime than all the other shots before it , thats because the filmmakers know these are the most unimportant shots , so they manage to minimise boredom and viewers switching off by making the shots as short as possible

the sixth shot is of the green goblin mask , this is shown through symboloism , as only fans of the spiderman films would know who it is , it also provides a foreshadowing of the storyline , the shot is also predominantly green to symbolise green goblin.

the seventh shot acts as an establishing shot , incorporating skyscrapers into the shot to set the scene of where the film will be set (New York) the shot also changes back to blue , as opposed to the green of the green goblin mask shot , to show the importance of green in the last shot.

the eighth and final shot shows a tunnel of red , this red is to highlight the red of spiderman , to set the scene a little more , the shot also carries on  down the tunnel and comes out into the actual film (the end of the title sequence)

BBFC age ratings

BBFC ratings

U- suitable for all ages.

PG- parental guidance

12- suitable for ages 12 and up, fairly wide audience however limits films content to fairly clean with very little in the way of violence.

15- suitable for ages 15 and up, reduced audience but less content restriction.

18- suitable for ages 18 and up, severely reduced audience but can contain fairly graphic content however I would avoid this because it will be hard to put content in that would be acceptable.

R18-adulted works for licenced premises only. No way this can be pulled off this is most likely reserved for adult films. Put this in for extra information.

Questionnaire results

Here is a link to the questionnaire results.

Audience profile

Our audience is mainly male aged 12 -30  because they are the main group of people who enjoy sci-fi action/thrillers. Our film is rated 12A so we can target a large audience of teenagers. We will mainly target people who are fans of films like Jumper and Limitless as they are very similar to our films and were very popular and so a good market to target. Our main audience will likely come from the UK/US as they always provide a large amount of the market and almost all popular sci fi (e.g. Doctor Who, Star Trek etc.) comes from England and America. so there is clearly a large audience for this kind of film. Our target audience will likely be interested in things like sci-fi, comic books and superhero stories.

Online Questionnaire

Could anyone happening to be reading this blog except the group please answer this questionnaire.
Here is a questionnaire to fill in.

Distributors list

Possible distributors

Independent distributors:
http://www.bffs.org.uk/

The British federation of films society is a distributor based out of Sheffield and usually just help start up projects and implements new cinemas. I think they would be able to help us get the film out because they appear to value the independent cinema.

http://warp.net/films

Warp films are a independent film distributor based out of the north of England (not 100% on that one) they’ve done films like four lions, this is England, dead mans shoes, so gritty films about crime and generally unpleasant parts of life however they may be looking to
Broaden their demographic so they could invest in a science fiction/hero/action film like our

http://www.metrodomegroup.com/

Metro dome group is an independent film distribution company based out of London they, like Warp; make films about crime and punishment and other gritty aspects of society because of this they often collaborate with Warp films to make films such as “Shifty”.

Main steam distributors:
Warner bros
Universal
20th centaury fox [gb]


Decide which would be best to distribute our film.
John

Genre Research

Genre research

I am researching films of the sci-fi genre, as this is the main genre of our film.

Sci-fi movies can include many objects or themes that could not exist in reality, and they can be of different forms. Superpowers, time travel, new technology and other worlds are just some conventions of sci-fi.

The film “limitless” is based around a drug that increases the brain’s function, giving him amazing memory capacity and some “superpowers”. Our film will have similar abilities based on brainpower.

 “Looper” is based around the concept of time travel, and a man is tasked with killing his future self. He acts in a similar way to our protagonist in his isolated nature but understanding of unnatural occurrence.

                                   

Iron Man is an example of a superhero sci-fi movie, but the character has no special powers but has built a suit to give him extra abilities. This proves that sci-fi events don't have to be far-fetched and could be possible in the real world. The character also acts irresponsible at times, similar to how our character can be.

SO I have found that there are many different things to base a sci-fi film around, but all are not (yet) possible in the real world.

Research into similar films(Jumper)

Jumper

This film relates to our film because it follows the same storyline structure as our film because it follows a person with the extraordinary power of being able to teleport, who is being hunted by a government agency. It follows a very similar storyline and so we can use this to improve our film, however we have to be careful because this film was poorly received by the public.

Questionnaire

Name:

Gender:

Region came from:

Thoughts on storyline?

What genre is it ?

Where do you expect to see it ?

Mainstream or independent ? what audience?

What do you like about the storyline?

What certificate is it ?

What are your thoughts on characters?