We needed to research the conventions of genre, narrative, form and style to know what to conform to, and to ensure our opening was instantly recognisable to films in that genre.
Genre: Zombie-action sub-genre
To use the presentation above, press the button in the middle saying 'Start Prezi'. Then wait for the blue bar at the bottom to load. Finally press the right arrow at the bottom to look through and press fullscreen if you need it to be larger.
Narrative structure
Todorov was a theorist who decided to split up the generic structure of events in a film into a general theory.
He showed that all films have to start off with an equilibrium. This is where the audience gets a sense of what the film events and surroundings are supposed to be like. You would learn about routines and how people are generally living. In apocalyptic zombie films like ours the equilibrium seems really far from reality but the audience still withholds their disbelief and accepts it as the normal while they view it. In our opening we set up the equilibrium as a dystopian suburban location where zombies roam around. There are a few survivors who are well equipped and are trying to kill the zombies. It also shows how Daniel and Maran are familiar with zombies and aren't surprised when they get chased. In these shots we used cross cutting between the zombies and the protagonists to show how they were close and connected, and a real and present danger.
Then there is normally a disruption. This is where an event disrupts the equilibrium often in a surprising way.It happens early in the film and is used as a device to hook the audience in. In our film you see the disruption at the end of our opening. This is where Daniel sacrifices himself to save Maran and then Maran gets knocked out by a rival gang member who you would later find out to be the main antagonist. This also creates narrative enigma as the audience don't know who knocked him out and what is Marans' fate. This in itself creates a cliffhanger.Once the protagonists recognise there is a change they will try to fix it which is their attempts to repair. This is how they have to overcome obstacles to try to fix what the disruption caused. This will consist of the main part of the film as it is the most interesting and has the most plot twists, as they will normally have minor disruptions within the attempts to repair to keep the audience intrigued. We would have this as a hostage note or a cry for help from Maran, back to his group. Then his group would attempt to rescue him.
Todorov finally said that it always has to finish with a new equilibrium (or a return to the original). This is once the protagonists have completed their task or failed at it. It is where the audience is supposed to accept that that is the end and things will supposedly stay that way. We would finish our film with Maran being saved from the rival gang, though some of his group may be lost in the process to create a new equilibrium.
Form
The role of an opening sequence is to introduce key characters, use title to provide institutional details, establish narrative and establish and anchor the genre. We did our research on titles for the Zombie/Action genre and discovered they often choose dark colours. We used a dark red to represent our bloody theme. We used Live Type to execute the best possible text.
The music we used works in synergy with the action happening on screen This made sure we raised the tension and the excitement. In our research we found out that in films like Resident Evil this is very effective. It took us a while to find the music, but it was the best one we found.
Style
To create the correct dystopian effect to go with our genre we had to get the right grading, which was slightly dim and gloomy to represent the atmosphere of the situation and the film. We graded our opening in comparison to 'I am Legend' and '28 days later'. We wanted our film to be realistic and represent the gritty reality of an apocalypse creating an atmosphere of hopelessness that underlies everything.
My video commentary below is me talking about how different aspects affect the audience and what we were trying to achieve.
Due to technical difficulties the video below has strange flashes and is jolty in places.
No comments:
Post a Comment