Titles

From the previous Examples I gathered the thoughts I had starting forming about the titles were to have floating text "in the world".

A previous examples where this could be seen were in the Deus Ex opening, and also slightly in the Crysis opening but those were instead on the various objects in the scene.





The technology being explained in the previous video is the reason why I picked it out as an example, because, like I previously said, incorporating the titles into the environment is where my thoughts are in terms of titles.





The same effect can be seen in this game along the edge of the tracks.

From this research and looking at titles usually seen in action films, I chose to challenge genre conventions and go for a more dynamic way of displaying titles by incorporating methods seen primarily in video games.

Distribution company

As the brief was for the film to appear to be based on a video game, I felt it would be required that the final film be a collaboration between a film and video game distribution company.

From the research I had already done into video game openings a trend I noticed where that they were all distributed by the same company.



EA are a well known distribution company who have published a huge variety of games including many from the action genre so they were the production company I chose to use for the video game arm of my films distribution.

For the film aspect I looked back at many of the example I had already found during my research to try and find a consistent distribution company. however whilst I recognized a lot of the big name production companies,  such as Warner Bros, Paramount and Columbia. none provided a constant trend, in fact every example had a different distribution company.

So in the end I looked at some of the less well known production companies, as from the research I concluded that they are more likely to take risks on innovative and original IP, and also from looking at the types of distribution companies involved in previous computer game to film adaptations, I found that smaller production companies are more likely to take on these kind of productions.

A production company I found through my research was Film district.

they seemed to have a tendency to publish horror and action films, as well as being an indie publisher, therefore making them more likely to take risks.

Summarising, the two distribution companies I chose for this film were EA and Film District.

Audience Research

I already had a key piece of information in terms of audience from my initial brief:

15-25yr old males and females


Because the brief also described the film as a mainstream action film finding out the key genres this target audience tended to watch was unnecessary.


even though 15-25 isn't a large age range, it encompasses a wide variety of people, with somewhat different overall tastes, as the minimum age is 15 then a certain amount of grittiness is to be expected from the film. From this  my thoughts were that to make a film appropriate to the target audience the film should attempt to look like a larger budget production instead of an indie production, as these are more likely to appeal to the target audience as a whole, as opposed to a smaller bracket of it. 


I also looked to IMDB, looking at the kind of audiences action films drew, specifically films based on video games.


Tekken

Aged under 18	285	6.2
Males under 18	258	6.2
Females under 18	25	6.3
Aged 18-29	8,219	5.0
Males Aged 18-29	7,707	5.0
Females Aged 18-29	469	5.6

Lara croft

Aged under 18	894	6.4
Males under 18	622	6.3
Females under 18	263	6.6
Aged 18-29	35,352	5.6
Males Aged 18-29	28,707	5.5
Females Aged 18-29	6,455	6.0

I also looked at the action film the matrix

Males under 18	5,536	8.8
Females under 18	1,118	8.2
Aged 18-29	254,728	8.8
Males Aged 18-29	218,129	8.9
Females Aged 18-29	34,921	8.4

What was clear from doing this research was that in terms of viewing figures, male viewers far outnumbered females. To combat this the obvious change would be to incorporate a female protagonist, however from looking at both the matrix which has trinity in a key female role and Lara Croft being the main character in tomb raider, it is clear that a key female character alone isn't enough to create a film which would also appeal to a female audience

.

From this chart and research into viewing habits, I found that on average females tended towards films which focused more on characterisation and story, as opposed to the action heavy films men tended to favour. a way to address the female portion of my assigned target audience would be to have a greater focus on characterisation and story , this would however be addressed in the film as a whole, and would have little effect on the opening.

Therefore from this research it would be best to focus on the conventions of action film openings and use them to inform my own product, as they would already encompass the aspects included to appeal to the target audience in the opening.

Continued research: Computer game Openings

I liked the floating text effect on the title in this video as my thoughts were to incorporate something like this into my own film.









what I liked about these three examples was the close ups on various bits of technology, and in the two Crysis examples how they combined this with action.

As stated before video games will have a large affect on the mise-en-scene, so my thoughts are to have a focus such as this on a close up on a character

To develop/ challenge genre conventions my thoughts were to instead have the close-ups on the antagonists as opposed to the protagonists, then to cut to the chase scene previously mentioned throughout.

Continued research: Chase scenes

I chose to look at chase scenes more specifically, identifying aspects that they typically included. Though many of these are not film openings they do give a look at what is commonly included within chase scenes. which I can build into the final video.



many of the stunts here are too complex for me to achieve but it can still be used to see the conventions  commonly seen in action openings.



This was a good example to look at, because it was a comparatively simple chase scene, without the skilled actions and fighting often displayed.



The stunts seen in this example would be impossible to achieve, as I don't have skilled enough actors, to do these kind of things, however how the actors use the environment was interesting and something I could definitely think about adding into my opening.



From researching into chase scenes, I found a number of shots and styles of filming which would be interesting to incorporate into my own film.

What is clear is that a sequence of this kind will require a lot of planning and choreography to achieve successfully.

Research and Planning

As my brief is primarily to make an opening for an action film, just for it to be based on a game, I know that the focus should be on the film aspect of that brief instead of the video game angle.
The elements which will be most influenced by the video game element of the brief would be the various aspects of  the mise-en-scene.

To begin generating ideas, and to see what action film openings usually comprise of I turned to Youtube, as it is an extremely useful research resource, as I discovered during the A2 coursework.

As my brief was for a mainstream action film, I decided to begin my search by looking at openings to a wide variety of action films. As "action" is a very broad genre and can encompass a wide range of different styles and settings, I found myself looking at many films which were somewhat different form one another, I was however able to establish trends and genre conventions which will be integral to the creation of my own Film opening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJubOZLpp4A

Unfortunately I wasn't able to embed this video, but the James Bond films are classic examples of action films.




I also looked at more stylised film openings, these offered less of a clear cut narrative but would also be clearer in terms of titles and setting up a narrative and tone for the rest of the film.














As my brief was to create a film which appears to be based on a real or fictional computer game, I thought it would be pertinent to also research into the specific genre characteristics associated with game to film adaptations.

Consolidation of preliminary research

One of the key defining conventions seen across all openings to mainstream action films, and also action films based on games, is that they they quite rightly begin with some kind of action sequence. unfortunately large scale action sequences are far beyond the limits of what I can achieve.

However from this research I also found that many action films begin with a chase scene, such as that seen in  the matrix and James bond openings in conventional action films, but also in the opening sequence to the Tekken film, an example of a real media text based on a video game.

Taking this into account my preliminary thoughts on my opening were that it should perhaps consist of some kind of chase sequence. However I wanted to look at openings to computer games as well and incorporate elements from the openings of those.

The Brief!

A mainstream action film that will appeal to both 15-25yr old males and females.
Your film should appear to be based on a "fictional" or real computer game