Opening Scene

 Analysis of an Opening Scene

This individual presentation involved analysing an opening scene of my choosing,  I picked Memento directed by Christopher Nolan as I enjoyed the unique experimental style it had.

 Film Poster Analysis

This project involves an analysis of a Film Poster and what we as the audience can tell from viewing it.

BABY DRIVER POSTER                                                  

How does the mise-en-scene and camera angle/composition within the poster communicate concepts and connotations to the audience? 

This poster for the 2017 movie Baby Driver, directed by Edgar Wright, has three main focuses levelled out throughout it. The main one in the image is our (supposed) main character’s face, then all of the characters seen in the reflection of his sunglasses, and finally, the car at the bottom with smoke coming out of it. This in itself already efficiently sets up this movie’s main three focuses - the main character, his relationship with his bosses/coworkers/romantic love interest, and cars.

The overall poster has a baby pink hue, particularly around its highlights and a deep purple for shadows. The colour pink has connotations of romance, suggesting this film will contain a love story. The pink is especially concentrated around the main character’s face, which hints at him having a love interest. 

It is drawn in a cartoon-esque style, this is seen around the stylised and minimally drawn smoke coming from the car and heavy shadowing around the characters facial features. This could suggest that the film is styled in a vintage comic aesthetic - it reveals that it is not too concerned with realism and rather values it’s heavy stylistic choices. Most of the whites are yellow toned and blend in with the retro look, except for the character’s earphones, which are a bright white that lift them off of the screen, the way they stand out could hint at this movie having some strong connection to music. The comic-esque pop art style of the drawing also suggests it is set in 1950’s America. However, the modern car and earphones place this film in modern times, but the overall American influences stand out and allow us to place it somewhere in the US. 

The close up of the face takes up the overwhelming majority of the poster, which indicates that this is the movie’s main character. The way his face takes up most of the action suggests that the story is very centreed around him and perhaps his work life - which we can assume has to do with cars, according to the title of the movie ‘Baby Driver’ and the long shot of the car, which he appears to be calmly looking over; it’s smaller size and lower positioning than him could mean that he has some form of power and control over it, suggesting he is knowledgeable and confident about cars. He is sat in a relaxed position, with his head resting on his hands against a table, this shows that the character’s general demeanour is very chilled out and pensive, as he is seemingly just sitting and watching action unfold before him

The rest of the cast is shown in a mid shot through the reflection of the main character’s sunglasses. The fact that they are shown through his reflection indicates that we are, quite literally, seeing the world and the people in his life through his perspective. The girl in the right lens appears to be the closest and largest image, which implies that she could be particularly important in the plot - her similar age to the main character and general perceived fear and innocence could place her as the story’s love interest. The rest of the characters seem to all have hostile and concentrated facial expressions and are holding up guns, ready to shoot. This reveals the action genre of the film - allows us to know to expect a lot of violence and fights throughout it; all except for the man on the very right, who stands with good posture seemingly looking over the rest of the characters, he is gently smiling, almost with pride - this could suggest he is in a position of power over the other characters and is perhaps their boss or leader. The pride and the fact that it is an older man could hint at him being a potential father-like figure to the main character.

It is interesting to note that while all of the male characters seem to be dressed in hard and practical materials for fighting, like a leather jacket, and the boss on the right is in smart business attire. The two women seem to have less practical outfits - the woman on the very left is wearing an open fluffy pink coat over a tight white shirt showing her figure. Which would be a perfectly acceptable display of her femininity, except in this case she is risking getting hurt or shot by wearing soft and brightly coloured materials that attract attention to the potentially illegal group she is a part of. Her hair is also styled and curled outwards, delicately framing her face - which raises the question of how her hair would stay untouched and perfectly styled even after all of the fights and action they supposedly go through every day. The girl towards the front on the right lens, the supposed love interest, has her hair up in a practical bun, and is wearing what appears to be a more conservative uniform-like costume. This could be an attempt to frame her as the more desirable character who is innocent and not linked to crime - this unjustly implies that she is the more desirable woman simply because of her appearance and innocent afraid demeanour.

Alternative Posters:

    

Trailer for Baby Driver to compare what we can gather from the Poster vs from the Trailer:

How tension is created in an opening thriller

 How is tension created in an opening thriller from a student filmed sequence?

This project was made by Max and I and involves analysing an opening sequence of a larger thriller film.

Favourite Film Review

 What is your favourite film?

This project involves a description and review of my favourite film - The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson.

My favourite film of all time would have to be narrowed down to The Grand Budapest Hotel, directed by Wes Anderson. The movie follows the owner of a high-class hotel recounting the years where he worked as the hotel’s lobby boy, alongside the owner at the time, back in the hotel’s prime in the 1930s. The main cast is made up of Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, Saoirse Ronan, Tilda Swinton and Adrien Brody, along with many others. 

Growing up, I spent my family movie nights mainly enduring dull, lifeless movies that tended to fall flat, and that I just simply didn’t understand as a child - I didn’t exactly look forward to watching movies. That was up until a very defining, unexpected evening at the age of 10, when my sister suggested we watch a Wes Anderson film, and I’ll never be grateful enough to her for that suggestion. 

Once the film began and the first shot lit up the room, immediately I was entranced by the jarring bewitching visuals Anderson is so famously known for. The soft pinks and blues gently radiating comfort off the screen, I remember so distinctly thinking that it looked like I was peeking into a dollhouse. I was even more stunned once the narration began, it truly felt like I was being told a bedtime story that would send me off into a vivid dream of pastel pink landscapes. The narration doesn’t condescend you either, as I was initially thinking - the intelligent, charming and wholeheartedly hilarious writing is another exceptional strength of Anderson’s, particularly in this work of his, the beautifully arranged dialogue of this film compliments and matches the visuals perfectly.

Many would argue that Anderson’s work, especially this film, is another case of style-over-substance - I would argue otherwise. The intense and complex storylines add to the aggressively brain stimulating experience of this film, it is not an easy casual watch, in fact I’d say it’s actually harder to not be sucked into the carefully crafted story when it’s beauty is glaring at you from miles away, even from the tiniest screen. The cinematography draws you in, as it very clearly did with me, and then it masterfully charms you with the truly phenomenal writing, acting, and plot.

This film will forever remain as my favourite; it is the film that made me fall in love with cinema. 

The sheer difficulty I imagined filming it would be really interested me and had me wondering how I would do something similar, sending me off into an endless loophole of researching filmmaking and directing. Even a few years later, film directing remains my deepest passion and thinking about it gets my heart racing, almost all thanks to this masterpiece opening my eyes at that young age. Even a couple of years down the line when I began to lose hope over ever being able to achieve my dream job, and slowly falling out of love with the industry, rewatching this movie really got my headspace back into pure unfiltered joy and hope for my future, and I know my love and passion for film will always remain strong.

Trailer for The Grand Budapest Hotel:

 Belstone Pictures

Background

Running for 9 years since 2012 and currently based in Chelsea, London, Belstone Pictures is an independently owned British Film Company which first started out with corporate filming events, before moving on to motion pictures. The company is owned by Finn Cardigan Bruce, who decided to create Belstone after leaving Hurtwood House Film Academy, where his love for film was first formed. He also owns FCB Productions, a company which builds experiences, transport audiences, and solve problems to do with various different creative industries. This ownership allows for potential extra earnings in order to budget larger projects.

Films by Belstone

They have currently released 3 films;

• Tank 432 (2015)
• Tracks (2018)
• Tucked (2018)

Tank 432 is a horror movie - they made this as their first film as a budgeting tactic to maximise profits in order to be able to finance their later films that were the studio's true intentions. Horror is generally easier to market and distribute internationally as it is a genre that can be understood in any language by any country. It grossed an estimated 150,000 USD, which helped for budgeting future projects such as Tracks and Tucked.

Tucked had a budget of roughly 50,000 USD and grossed an estimated 22,000 USD in box office - this number only applies to only UK limited releases. 

Belstone currently have 1 film in Pre-Production, 1 film in Post-Production, and 13 Films/TV projects in development.

 

Cast and Crew

Smaller studios tend to hire practically unknown talent - mainly for budgeting purposes, but having an unknown cast also adds another layer of realism and relatability to the film that is difficult to achieve with A-List celebrities plastered all over it. This is what attracts many people to smaller institutions and companies.

Trailer for Tucked:

 

Walt Disney Studios

Background

The Walt Disney Studios was founded in 1923 in Los Angeles, when Walt Disney and his brother Roy Disney created and marketed a series of original short films called the Alice Comedies - these were both animated and live action, consisting of a live action girl called Alice going on adventures with her animated cat called Julius. On October 16th of 2021, the company would celebrate its 98th year running.

  

The Disney headquarters are based in Burbank California and have 10 offices over 8 different countries - the building of the Disney Parks also allowed them to operate all over the world - California, Hong Kong, Paris, Tokyo and Florida.

Currently, the Walt Disney Company is not owned by a single individual due to the company being publicly-traded - the largest shared-holder owning 137 million shares being The Vanguard Group Inc.

They also own a large amount of different companies which include Disney, ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, FX, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 20th Century Fox, National Geographic, Star, Hulu. They purchased these in a clever business strategy when they realised that their own movies simply didn't have the effect and magic that they used to - so instead they purchase other companies that they know do the job better than them, and give them the budgets they need to maximise production and distribution of their films, creating a huge profit for both companies.

Disney also owns its own streaming service called Disney +, launched in November 12 2019. Within a year, this platform had already reached over 90 million subscribers, reaching their target around 3 years ahead of schedule, with their profit in 2021 being an estimated 13,7 billion USD.

Box Office Hits

The current top five spots for highest grossing Walt Disney Films are taken up by;

1.  The Avengers, Endgame - budget of 356 million USD
2. Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - budget of 306 million USD
3. Avengers: Infinity War - budget of 316 million USD
4. The Lion King - budget of 260 million USD
5. The Avengers - budget of 220 million USD

Due to its massive size and influence as a company; Disney have access to endless famous actors and talented crew members such as directors to choose from. They tend to vary their cast and crews very often, unless of course they are filming part of a franchise such as in the Marvel Cinematic Universe - in which case they have a multitude of contracts with massive A-list actors such as Robert Downey Junior, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson.

Currently, Walt Disney Animation Studios has produced 59 films, with its first feature film being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, being one of the first full length feature film produced with animation - the first in the United States.

They have a long list of movies in production at the moment, including;

• Home Sweet Home Alone, releasing November 12, 2021
• Encanto, releasing November 24th, 2021
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid, releasing December 3rd 2021
• West Side Story, releasing December 10th 2021

Since Walt Disney Studios is such a powerful and influential company, they have a natural advantage to any other film production company and access to a ridiculously large budget, meaning that they can essentially afford to lose a lot of money; they can take risks. This large budget coming from their larger blockbusters, like their films with Marvel Studios, means that they can fund any film they want with a lot of money to lean back on over years of profiting off of merchandising, advertising, their Disney Parks etc...

Here is a video briefly explaining the company's history:

What is Genre?

 

Genre in Film

Genre

Genre is simply a way to categorise film types based off of its different narrative elements; different genres follow certain codes and conventions that share certain similarities, such as aesthetic choices or plot structure.

Examples of the most common genres include; Action, Horror, Comedy, Sci-Fiction, Drama, Mystery, Thriller, Fantasy, and Romance.

A few quick shots from various different genre films:

It is important to both film institutions and its audiences as it groups and classifies films under categories that contain much of the same elements;

• For institutions, this allows for certain rules and guides to be set up for them to follow throughout the process of filmmaking - this facilitates targeting specific audiences which helps to sell and market the film as it is specifically targeted to them - e.g. if a production studio has made a fantasy film, posters/trailers for that film could include images of its fantastical imagery in order to convey its stylistic choices to target viewers who enjoy that genre.

• For audiences, this helps them identify what they like to watch and what genres they wish to stick to watching, this sets up certain expectations when watching different genres as it allows for a certain idea of the film to be created, which helps prevent any misconceptions or disappointment - e.g. an audience member is unlikely to be shocked by a scary viewing experience if they willingly paid to watch a horror film, therefore they are more likely to give positive reviews.

Sub-genre

Sub-genre is a particular category of larger genre, it serves the same purpose as genre - to group together specific conventions and patterns into one smaller classification, but this time within a main genre type.

They are used to target a more niche audience, this allows for more potential discussions between fans of certain genre, which creates excitement within their fanbases. 

Similarly to main genre types, they are also used to eliminate any potential misunderstanding of what a film will be like - e.g. if a Psychological Horror were to just be labelled as 'Horror', perhaps a fan of Slasher Horror may watch it and be disappointed by the lack of gory deaths/main 'monster', and would write negative reviews over a film they might've otherwise enjoyed if they had the correct expectations.

Slasher horror poster:

 

Psychological horror poster:

Hybrid Genre

Hybrid Genre consists of two main genres being combined together to create a film with elements of both. These are used in order to attract two large groups who are fans of one or the other genre, it is useful as it allows for much larger audiences - e.g. Romantic Comedies are a very popular genre as, stereotypically, the romance elements are targeted to female audience and the comedy elements to male audiences, this could attract a large number of viewers as it targets two main demographics, these could include couples.

Examples

Some associations of different genres:

• Fantasy - elements of magic and wonder, otherworldly and mystical creatures/experiences - often used for escapism, a very defined good vs evil narrative and usually includes a very prominent hero.

       

• Horror - the main goal is usually to provoke fear within the audience, common elements include jump-scares, crazed killers, paranormal entities etc...

       

• Science-Fiction - usually set in a futuristic world, includes anything to do with science that isn't (currently!) real, this may include elements of Time Travel, Aliens/Extraterrestrial Beings, Telepathy/Mind Control etc...