Down the streets of Shere

We have decided to use a range rover for our change over’s and for the very beginning of our tittle sequence. We thought this was a good choice of car, as it looks slick. This also makes the man look very important. The only difference is that we are going to use a normal grey range rover so slightly different to the one in the video. 

We thought we would use this car as it signifies that he has a wealthy and important background. We use another signifier in our tittle sequence. The main guy who gets poisoned is going to be wearing a suit, which shows his importance. We also want him to have a driver instead of driving his own car. One of the main reasons for this is we wouldn't be able to get a young person to drive a range rover because of insurance issues. 

New ideas and changes

Today we discussed our tittle sequence again thinking about the new research we had done. We then decided that there are still many ways to improve upon it. We thought using our research that we can film it differently to how we thought. We are thinking of flicking backwards and forwards between the guy buying the cigarettes and the main character (the guy that gets poisoned). We thought this way it will make it clearer to the audience who they need to follow. At first we were just focusing on the pass over of the cigarettes, as that is what the poison is carried in. Normally in tittle sequences the camera will follow the main character and that is what we need to do to make sure the 
audience don’t get confused. 

When we realised that we needed to change it we started a rough copy of another storyboard. From this we could then see the changes clearly and draw in what we were changing. 

Characteristics of Characters

We have got 7 characters who aren’t counted as extras and we have had a long old process of deciding who should play who. We have also chosen the final people who we want to be in our prelim. We knew a while back what characters we needed and what they needed to look like. 

·      Spy – Large well built

o  Foreign look to him (dark skin, dark hair, stero typical)

o  Well dressed (suit)

o  Actor – Mike

·      Passover Man 1 – Large

o  Dangerous look

o  Skinhead

o  40’s ish

o  Actor – Adam

·      Oldman 1&2 – Old (50’s/60)

o  Stereo typically dressed (hat, jacket, etc.)

·      Passover man 2 – Young man

o  Hooded

o  Stereo typical teenager thug dressed

o  Actor –Theo

·      Passover man 3 – Biker

o  Leather jacket

o  Tattoos

o  Large

o  Biker boots

o  Matt

·      Cook – Large

o  Coloured

o  Chef outfit

o  Whites / hat

o  Actor – Habib

·      Deliever – waiter outfit

o  Young 20/30’s

o  Normal cooking

o  Actor - Hendrik

Our Characters

Character List

• Shopkeeper- short, quite large, has stubble (looks a bit rough and scruffy), middle aged, possibly Indian or Pakistani to eradicate suspicion by using a stereotype

• ·  Old man- quite tall, smart, takes care over appearance, woolen jumper with white shirt and corduroy trousers.  Neat well cut moustache, spectacles with large thick lenses that are quite dated
•   Young man (student)- around 24 years old,  stylish, slim, good-looking, fashionable clothing like, skinny jeans, jacket, smart shoes, well shaven and neatly combed hair
•   Biker- mid 30’s, beard, skinny (slim), sleeve tattoo, piercings, black leather clothing, dark glasses.
•    Chef- large man, late 20’s early 30’s, kitchen whites (clothing), white chef hat
•   Waiter- Tall, young, smart, lean, combed back hair, black trousers, black jacket, waist coat, and white shirt, looks clean generally

•   Spy- Broad shoulders, dark slicked back hair, olive skin (tanned), big eyebrows, big noses (almost has a jewish look to him) slim, healthy and kind looking man

Now we have brainstormed what we want our characters too look like, we can think about the sort of people that will fit well to the part. 

Prop List

For our prelim we need a variation of props in order to make it look the way we want it to. The start of our list is below but we may need more.

Prop List

·         Corner Shop

·         Packet of Cigarettes

·         Deck of Cards

·         Café ( chairs, café, tables, drinks)

·         Syringe (poison)

·         Biker helmet (whole biker costume)

·         Slick black motorbike

·         Restaurant

·         Plate of food

·         Waiters

·         Well dress spy-man (suit)

·         Slick car (range rover)

·         Alley way

·         Full restaurant

   
 This is just a rough draft of what we may need. We haven't decided how we are going to get  everything yet eg.range rover. By having a list written out we can look out for certain things that we may need and as we have done the list early, we have time to look for them.

Storyboard No.2

Updated Storyboard for Shere Vice by dautadra

Confession of a Dangerous Mind

This could also be a good way to help our filming techniques. How the camera focuses on him, allowing the audience to realise that something isn't right. This builds tension in the audience because the audience knows that he he been poisoned  But we thought that if we took inspiration from the Sherlock Holmes scene, where we haven't seen the cook poison his food, until he has a flashback type thing. We could make it so that, like in this, the man begins to realise somethings wrong, and the audience then also like him,  do not know what is going on,this could build confusion and suspense in the audience until it is revealed that the man has been poisoned.
Then from the close up of his realisation, through his slow suffering, having the cook,in her placement, over the shoulder, blurred into the background, but is still visible.I think this would be a good camera technique because it suggests that the cook did it, if the audience didn't already know,and created a more visually interesting screen, because it is setting up the rest of the film in the audiences minds, that the cook has a main part to play.

New Ideas&Research (James Bond)

Each time my group and I go over what we want to do we come up with new ideas. Today we have come up with two new ideas to improve our tittle sequence.

Our first idea is to have the main character who the chef will be poisoning, arriving in a formal car. We will then film him getting out of the car and walking into the restaurant. We have the idea that we can then edit to the kitchen to show the chef preparing the poisoned food. Then flicking backwards and forwards between him walking in and the kitchen, this will make it effective to watch and less boring.

Our second idea is that at the end when he has eaten some of his food, we want to show the chef watching him. We have been inspired from the poisoning scene in Casino Royale. When the poisoned guy realises, he then looks at his food and attempts to walk out. We film him leaving and then his vision goes blury. We think that it would be effective to film it from his point of view so we see that his vision goes fuzzy through the camera and then it blanks out and the opening tittle appears.

Poisoning in Sherlock Holmes

In this scene we don’t see any poisoning going on until the flashback which is another idea that we could use in our opening sequence. This is very powerful because we don’t actually know anything is going to happen at first. We then see him dieing and then it goes to the flashback. We could use this in ours but the only thing we need to think about is where we are going to put it in. This is also very different which means that the audience won't be expecting to see what they see. 

First Plot Narrative

Plot of Narrative Action for Title Sequence

The thriller begins with an Elderly man (late 50’s) entering a corner shop. There is a stereotypical shopkeeper working behind the counter. The elderly man asks to buy some cigarettes. The elderly man walks out of the store with his cigarettes in hand. He then opens the packet to see a small glass tube in the place of one of the cigarettes. He smirks and walks on.

The elderly man approaches a local café, where there are two other men of a similar age and character to him sitting outside at a table playing a game of cards. The two men stand up and greet him in a cheerful fashion. The elderly man removes the packet of cigarettes from his pocket and takes a cigarette for himself, he then reaches out his arm and offers another to one of the men, the man obliges then takes out the glass tube. He then passes the tube to an on comer behind. The on comer is a young man. He takes the tube from the elderly card player and walks on.

 The young man turns the corner onto a busy high street. He walks along the street surrounded by lots of people, and abruptly knocks into another middle aged man dressed in a black leather jacket holding a motorbike helmet. The young man slips the tube into the biker’s pocket and apologises for the clash. The biker turns and walks on showing little sign of anger or any emotion.

He climbs onto his bike and puts his helmet on, shuts the visor and drives off. The bike speeds down the road and takes a sharp turn into a back ally. He gets off the bike and walks through an open door into a kitchen with chefs working franticly. He approaches a large black man dressed in white overalls. The chef recognises the man and greets him with a hug and a noticeably smug look on his face. The biker then reaches into his leather jacket and withdraws the tube. He hands over and turns to leave, smiling.

 The chef walks over to the plate of food, opens the tube and pours the content onto the food. The waiter takes it from him and walks out the doors of the kitchen into the restaurant.

He approaches a man alone at a table and gives him his food. The man thanks the waiter and he turns to go. The man begins to eat food, and then begins to choke.

What is a Storyboard?

At the moment my group and I have only produced a rough copy of a storyboard. Storyboards are very helpful as we can see what order we want out sequence to go in. We have about 5 pieces of A4 paper each with 5 boxes on. These are double sided sheets, which means we can draw it with each and every shot needed. Next to this we have written down what camera shot we want to use, where we are going to film and which character is going to be in the shot at each time. This helps us plan what we need. 

Real Definition - A sequence of drawings, typically with some directions and dialogue, representing the shots planned for a movie or television production. 

Story Board Planning

Last lesson my group and I were discussing our prelim. We organised a storyboard so that we could split the scene up into little sections. This meant that we knew what everyone would be doing in each section of the prelim. We drew a storyboard up which is pictured below. 

In the storyboard we drew pictures of where about’s we wanted people to be in the scene. We also wrote in the boxes a few actions we wanted people to be doing. We also changed it slightly. 

Each time we all sit down and discuss our prelim we always come up with new ideas and ways to improve on the work we have already done. As we have been inspired by the film 'Miami Vice' which there are lots of changeovers in, it looks very effective. We have put more change over’s into ours but done it completely different to the film Miami Vice.

We also thought of the characters that we want to use. We described on a piece of paper the type of people we wanted to act in our prelim. We then thought of people that we knew that fitted these descriptions. 

After this lesson we had a full story board although it wasnt our final one. It was more of a rough copy so that we knew what was what.