'Pan' Film Review

Last week I saw Pan, directed by Joe Wright and starring Hugh Jackman, Rooney Mara, and Levi Miller. I felt that the film was boring, strayed far too far from the original Peter Pan origin story, and was more focused on extravagant CGI than on developing a strong plot. The characters were quite one-dimensional, the motives of Captain Hook weren't clear and the casting of a white actress to play Tiger Lily made no sense. Overall, the film looked nice, with bright vibrant colours being used at every opportunity, particularly around the natives, but I felt the film had nothing more to it than that and so it is difficult to use it as inspiration for our film opening. Below is the trailer for 'Pan'.

'Spectre' Film Review

Today I went to go and see the new James Bond film, Spectre, because the release of this film has been highly anticipated and the director, Sam Mendes, has directed other films such as Skyfall and American Beauty, both of which have been highly acclaimed. Going into the film, I expected a classic Bond film with unrealistic action sequences, sexism, and excessive alcohol consumption, which is essentially what the audience got.

The film opened at celebration of The Day of the Dead in Mexico City. The frame was always very full and busy and at times it was difficult to know where to focus, however this very vibrant way of opening the film caught, and held, my attention. I don't think we would have the funds nor the time to arrange an opening that comes near to the scale and vibrancy for our film opening, and Spectre does not fit the genre we are looking into. However, near the beginning of the film there was a long tracking shot of Bond hopping across the roofs in Mexico City. We are looking at doing a long tracking shot in our opening so this is useful.

After the action packed opening 5 minutes, some of the film seemed to drag but it culminated in a very fast paced and dramatic final act. There were particular shots that I enjoyed, of the character's Bond and Doctor Swan having a conversation, during which Mendes changed the film convention of doing over-the-shoulder shots during conversations and instead had shots in which each character was centre of the frame, which I thought was really interesting and reminiscent of Wes Anderson's 'Grand Budapest Hotel'. Since we are thinking of having an interview scene in the opening of our film, this might be something we could look into further.

Overall, I enjoyed the film and found the shot choices really interesting, as well as fantastic acting from the cast, particularly Christoph Waltz as Oberhauser, Ben Whishaw as Q, and Naomi Campbell as Moneypenny.

Research Questionnaire

Questions:

1. Name?
2. Age range?
3. Favourite film?
4. Favourite film genre?
5. Least favourite film genre?
6. Favourite film opening?
7. Thoughts on age certificates?
8. What 3 things do you look for in a film?
9. What do you like to experience when watching a film?

I used both video interviews, as shown above, and contacting them through Twitter to complete my research.

All those asked on Twitter were within the 18-25 age range and those asked in the video interviews were a wide range of ages.

In terms of genre for a film, majority of the market seems to like thriller or horror films (8 out of 14 asked) which fits well with the genre we originally pitched. In addition, those who didn't mention thriller films liked to experience tension and edge-of-your-seat moments when watching a film, which is something that we hoped to include in our film opening.

Protagonists were seen as important to those asked, including protagonists who were complex and not perfect people. We were thinking that our protagonist would play an important part in the opening, rather than many establishing shots of scenery so this helps to back up our idea.

10 out of the 14 asked said that they are hooked by an opening that did not reveal much of the plot, so that they were left wanting more, also, half of the people asked said that they liked an opening with nice cinematography otherwise they may find the opening boring and therefore not continue to watch the film. 

Tracking Shots

One of the ideas we had in our 25 word pitch was that we would open with a long tracking shot of a character getting ready to and then leaving the house. Below are some examples I found of tracking shots.

The first is from a short film by Bertie Gilbert, 'Rocks That Bleed'. However, this tracking shot doesn't show the face of the character, which isn't what we would want to do in our film opening.

The next example is the film Birdman, which is filmed almost entirely through tracking shots.

The film Atonement also uses a very long tracking shot, following one character, which is exactly what we were thinking of doing for our opening. 

Coursework Task and Assessment Criteria

The coursework task is:

Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film to last a maximum of two minutes.

Assessment Criteria:

Film

Blog/Research

Evaluation

Storyboarding

In Monday's lesson we learnt how to storyboard, which is an important part of planning for a shoot and so will benefit us when we make our film opening. We practised storyboarding using a scene from Luther and below is my finished storyboard from that scene.

Our 25 Word Pitch

Here is our 25 word pitch for the film opening we are going to make, as well as a really useful discussion with the class afterwards. I think our next move is to clarify which locations we are going to use and start to think about how we will hint at the film's genre (which is a thriller) in the 2 minute opening. Another factor that we will have to consider is who will play the 'interviewer' in the piece.

Prelim

Our prelim.

Interesting Sound

An example of interesting use of sound would be this clip from an episode of the BBC's Sherlock, 'The Hounds of Baskerville'. In this clip, tense music and sound effects as well as Watson's whispering builds tension in the scene and creates the illusion that the 'Hound' was in the room with the character. The music builds even more and the creature-like sound effects increase towards the end of the scene, leading the audience to believe that something bad was going to happen to Dr Watson.