Preliminary Task, Plot to our Final Film

The Group









Ollie Johnson































Matt Johnston



































Lucy Wheeler


















Our first media task was to create our preliminary film this featured a walk in to a space/place a few lines of dialogue and then exiting. We filmed ours in Berkhamsted park and i was pleased with the outcome for our first task and from this I learnt alot about camera angles and panning which could later be used in our filming. Here is our final preliminary task






Our next task is to create the opening two minuetes to a film with the genre of our choice. My group consited of Olli Johnson, Matt Johnston and myself, we decided to pick the genre action/thriller and began to look at other films in this genre to draw from these ideas for our own film. We decided our film was going to be around the same lines as James Bond/Die Hard films in the action/thriller genre and we used these films as inspiration as well as the Bourne Series and Mission Impossible. From these films we found the conventions to an action/thriller film vocus around a villain, a hero, suspence, weapons and death all of which we will try and incorporate into our work.
Our film is about a British agent David White (Ollie) who has obtained terroist activity blueprints and the terroists are trying to get them back from him. Our film will open with David White carrying a briefcase walking down a deserted road in a residental area in the evening, he will be unaware to the fact that he is being followed by a man dressed in black a Russian terroist- Vladimir Weiss, who looks very shady and suspicious the audience will therefore be able to connote this man as the typical villian but it is not too 'in your face' obvious. David White will be passing this briefcase containing the blueprints to another man who will then take these and call for back up leaving David without the briefcase, when the audience will realise due to dramatic irony David knows he is being followed and the opening two minuetes will end on a cut of David jumping out on the stalker with a knife, creating a twist in the storyline almost like twist in the opening of Mission Impossible Two. The plot for the rest of the film will show White setting out to Romania on the search for Weiss joining two other agents. They procceed to a safehose where they find their contact dead with a message written across his forehead in his own blood telling them to give up the search for Weiss. They return to HQ to debrife and dissuss how to get Weiss where they want him. They decide to let 'slip' that the BluePrint has changed hands and will exchange it with the Romanians for the intel on leading terroists and release of captured agents. With this deal they hope to lure Weiss into the open as he will do anything in his power to get the BluePrint back.
I feel that the target audience for our film is aimed at mainly males aged between 13-30 however this could also appeal to females. We filmed in Amersham all in the same location as everything we need for the set up we have found in a single street e.g. long streach of road in residential area, an alleyway for stalker to remain out of view and a telephone box. We are aiming to achieve a film that has a variety of camera shot and that is simple but effective as we need to create suspense and tension to build up the opening and try and attract the attention of the audience in the opening two minuetes so that if this was a really film they would remain watching it. We hoped to achieve this by decoding previous films in our genre and encoding our own film that our target audience will enjoy.








At the beginning of our media courses we started by writing a review on our favourite film here is mine on 'Control' a Anton Corbijn film:

Control'  'Control' is a biographical film directed by Anton Corbijn about the life and death of Joy Division's Ian Curtis.The black and white filming is effective at both showing the time in which this film is set as well as the darker issues covered all leading to Curtis' suicide. Due to this black and white filming the clothes wore by the actors whilst showing that 'Control' is based in the 1970's and giving the actors their 'cool' persona also give the impression that the clothes hold less importance than the actual people inside the clothes that the audience are getting to know. As well as clothes styles popular 70's music is used throughout to portray the era, such as David Bowie,Buzzcocks and Iggy Pop. The beginning of the film shows the scene of Ian Curtis in a dark room reflecting on his dark past, from this the story unfolds. Showing the path that Curtis took leading him eventually to his death. The audience are then aware that the story to come is one of a personal struggle with a dark and depressing ending. Curtis' epilepsy represents one of these struggles with close up shot of Ian being used to show not only the seriousness of these  attacks but how the audience feel involved in his life. Love represents another struggle of Curtis' marrying at a young age to Deborah and coming to regret this when he falls for flemish Annik. The bland,dowdy,frumpy clothing worn by Deborah draw the audience to feel sadness for her as she remains clueless that her husband is having an affair with the attractive,accented Annik. Annik and Deborah are always compared with one scene showing Deborah at home alone with the baby watching the phone waiting for Ian to phone, whilst he is off gallivanting with Annik. This concludes with Curtis telling Deborah he no longer loves her. The Joy Division song 'Love will tear us apart' is  played as Deborah frantically searches the house finding clues that confirm Ian is having an affair, instantly  adding more sympathy for Deborah using quick changes of camera shots to show how desperate she is to find the truth.   All of Ian curtis' struggles finally catch up with him, along with his epilepsy and caotic love life, his life  with his band is no longer working and his tiredness and alcohol consumption end up with him in a depressed state of mind no longer seeing anyway out of this mess. Ian tries once to committ suicide on returning from a tour, the audience feel part of his depression as the lights darken and the camera pans round his small house containing his unlove wife and their small child. Ian however is taken to hospital after his overdose and you see him having a epileptic fit in the hospital bed, you feel part of his experience. Ian's lack of love for his band is shown during his dialoge showing him returning from the hospital wishing that he had been left to die. All the pressure and lack of control he has, has built up inside of him and he can no longer cope as the scene shows the hospital dissapearing behind him maybe showing that the hospital can no longer help him and he will soon be in control of his destiny.       However the ending of the film alike the rest has a depressing tone yet almost a calmer atmosphere than has been portrayed through the rest of the film showing that now his life is ending he can finally achieve peace and the control he needs and has lacked throughout his life. Narrative is used as he writtes his suicide note reflecting back to the poetic beginning of the film. A snap shot of the moment he met Deborah is also  shown maybe showing that she changed his life. However before Curtis can committ suicide he has an epileptic fitt representing that he still has no control over his destiny and life. In the morning Curtis wakes and the scene is almost dream like as the audience see a close up of his face and then his eyes focusing on the clothes hanger in the kitchen which had been shown at various moments of sadness for him during the film. This not only links the film together but shows how his life was always planned out for him and so for so long he has been trying to gain control yet even his decision to die has been controled for him. As the clothes hanger falls away the screen becomes completely black with the next scene showing Deborah arrive back at the house and the camera only focusing on the front door as you hear a scream from inside as she discovers him, with the death tastefuly filmed never actually showing a dead Ian Curtis but the morning of those whose lives he touched and was part of as the song 'Atmosphere' is played to end the film. Focusing lastly on a church chimney with black smoke rising out causing the audience to think what this means.      Altogether I think this film not only represents Ian Curtis' life but also the fact that whether it be love, illness or fame he never had any control over his life.