Synopsis

Our main Antagonist, Veselin Stancioff, is an illegal immigrant who imported himself from his home country of Bulgaria to the United Kingdom, his life is highly integrated with crime, drug shipments, drug dealing and money laundering. Our main Protagonist is an agent under the name of Aidan Wridley, who's job it is to apprehend criminals of a high threat level to the nation, the lives of Stancioff and Wridley are intertwined when Wridley is assigned to capture and have Stancioff sent back to Bulgaria. Other characters are used as companions the main Antagonist and Protagonist, these characters are either superiors, inferiors, close friends or business partners.

Starting our main project

For our project, we have decided to make the opening sequence to a film which follows the same generic conventions and typical storyline of a James Bond movie, the idea was sprung out of no where that we were going to make a scene of a person running away from someone else, unclear as to the reason why, or anything behind the story.

After we established a basic story of one person running away from another, we decided to start building characteristics. Typically, the one who is running away is the antagonist, we decided that he would be a Bulgarian illegal immigrant, who should not be in the country. We then developed the idea of the protagonist further, intending for him to be a figure of authority (etc. policeman).

We had two main characters introduced, the antagonist and the protagonist. We planned to launch straight into a fast paced action sequence, using typical shots of a chase scene from movies, we then started working on the ideas for introduction to the characters, many inspirations were drawn, and we decided that we would take some of our favourite ideas from current films we know of. We have extracted the news reporting scene, the establishing shots and an introduction shot from the film I Am Legend. The scene is not the same scene as I Am Legend, it will consist probably of about 45-60 seconds worth of footage.

These 60 seconds have been used wisely to delve straight into the story instantly introducing the two main characters of the story. While we were discussing this, we decided that we were moving away from what we solely wanted, we felt that a typical English edge to the story should be used. We reviewed the introductions to many different English Gangster films, picking out the generic conventions that are used throughout them all.

We reviewed the films Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Lock Stock and Four Stolen Hooves, Layer Cake and Gangster Number 1. We have recognised that throughout these films, there is a very good use of freeze-framing and narration, we feel that adding narration to a film will give it that English edge we are really looking for, the freeze-frames will also be manufactured into the sequence.

After some talk, we decided we needed more characters in our cast, so after recieving confirmation of the fact that we were allowed to use extra actors, we created an ally for the antagonist. We originally had decided on the idea that this character would be an ally of the protagonist, whom would assist in catching the antagonist of our film. After some discussion, we decided that it would be better if we have this character as a business partner (but not necessarily a friend) of the antagonist.

When we were planning the ideas for the film, we felt that our cast of three characters whom would have an acting role in the film was fulfilling enough, although after reviewing the 5 chosen gangster films some more, we realised how important it was in choosing who the narrator is, we made some plans, brainstorming ideas on who would be the narrator. We also evaluated the outcome of the film depending on whether or not the narrator would narrate via digetic or non-digetic sound.

Firstly, we noted that the narrator always seems to either be a protagonist, or a neutral party, he would NEVER be an antagonist. This instantly meant our immigrant character couldn't possibly be our narrator. We made plans for our police officer to be the narrator, although we could still see a few flaws in our film.

We decided that the police officer should not be a police officer, but instead, a secret agent, perhaps from MI5, or MI6. This idea seemed to fit in very well with our film, so upon deciding this, we reviewed some of the James Bond films. We noticed one thing striking about the James Bond films, which is that every time you go to see a new James Bond film, you already know the central character. James Bond is a character which is used throughout all the Bond films and his typical personality is never changed, in fact, we went as far to say that he never narrates the story, but instead, he just takes part in the action scenes, while his superiors narrate the story.

With this fact in mind, we decided to create another character, this character was chosen to be the narrator from the moment he was created. We wanted this character to be a superior to our protagonist, which would have benefited the film greatly. Unfortunately, because we have no budget for the film, we felt that this would be hard to achieve. The reasoning behind this is that if he was a superior, he would have to be in an office, with his office staff and the correct 'Mise-en-scène'. If the character did not have this setting, he would instantly be out of place and the audience would find it hard to imagine him as a superior.

To get around this problem we decided he should become an associate of our protagonist, he would supposedly be watching the scenario through CCTV cameras. The generic conventions we obtained from the English Gangster films are still going to be introduced, the character we have created is going to be a character who seems to know everyone who is important to our movie, which is perfect for him because he will be the narrator. We feel that because we have included all the good conventions from other films, it will give it a little bit of a different feeling.

Now that the characters have all been created, we felt that they needed naming, the five characters in total have been named and the actors have been casted. These characters are :

Shane Heseltine – Aidan Wridley (The Main Protagonist)

Harry Wall – Veselin Stancioff (The Main Antagonist)

Alex Wilshaw – Steve Waterman (A Secondary Antagonist)

Josh Watkins – Rob Krook (The Secondary Protagonist)

Vicky Hadley – Kate Sutherland (The News Reporter At The Very Start)


The names of the protagonists have been chosen to sound like typical English middle classed names, when we were naming our associate to our antagonist, we wanted to have a name which gave an impression before the character was even seen. The names Damien and Steve were the two most apparent names, which are stereotypically viewed as names of aggressive people, we thought by giving the stereotypical name, we could build a first impression of the character by something as simple as his name. The name Veselin Stancioff was not an easy name to come up with. We wanted a good Bulgarian name which would enforce the fact that this character was foreign. The name Veselin come from a Bulgarian person i already personally know and the surname was one that seemed to fit the name well, out of about 10 or 12 different Bulgarian surnames.

After naming the characters, we decided that we should stop talking about what the characters should say to each other, and actually manufacture together a script, the whole sequence has now been scripted and we know exactly how we are going to produce it.

We hope to have the audience going and wanting to watch more by the end of this sequence, which we have anticipated should happen if all goes as planned.

Evaluation of preliminary piece.

After displaying the preliminary piece to the class, we have to evaluate it. The piece was a good piece but it had some errors which made the piece lack in standard. The piece had a good composition of shots which worked really well in displaying the pace of the film and the emotion of the protagonist. A variety of shots were used which kept the piece entertaining and didn't keep rotating back to the same old boring shot. The beginning of the sequence was edited with a fast pace which emphasized the rushed and hasty maneuvering of the protagonist, this editing was maintained until he had calmed down and sat down. even though you could tell the character was still stressed, it was apparent that he was not going to snap and was easily the underdog of the situation (he attempts to draw a pistol, yet the antagonists words stop him, by telling him that "the consequences will be bad if he continues" and "do you know who I am"). the piece maintained the 180 degree rule all the way through the sequence.

There was a continuity error in the film, when the protagonist storms into the room, he leaves the door open, yet when he is in the room the door has supposedly closed itself. There were a few badly composed camera shots which had wasted space around the characters, this would distract the eyes of the viewer and make the film look bad. While the characters stand up and sit down, the shots are quite badly composed and half of their head is lost, this is also an example of a badly composed shot. In the shots which were behind the antagonist and facing the protagonist, the 180 degree rule is extremely exaggerated, which causes wasted space and makes the shot look bad.

Our Preliminary

For a Preliminary task we decided that the scene would be a simple confrontation between two characters. The scene would take part typically halfway through a film, the two characters who are in this scene are the antagonist and protagonist of the situation. We are told by the protagonist that he has had his daughter kidnapped by the antagonist, whom is holding her hostage. a short conversation is held and the antagonist gives the protagonist "one last job to do"