Opening sequence treatment- Detail of characterisation, story and setting and how this will be constructed

Characterisation 

Protagonist:
18 year old male; average middle class white boy
Comes across as your average guy mixed up in a crime; appears guilty and concerned about what he has done

Runs away from crime; shows lack of responsibility which is typical of teenagers

Actor- Matt

Similar characterisation to Freddie from Skins in that he is an average teenage boy who shows emotion towards situation for example his girlfriend, however he often ends up in troublesome situations.  

Protagonist's Girlfriend:

18 year old female; average middle class white girl

Inquisition about boy's whereabouts shows she cares and worries about boyfriend

Actress- Georgie

Anger shows her strength and power, like the character Mini in Skins

 
Story

• Flash forward to middle of film
• Boy running away from something; audience does not know it's a crime yet
• Fast paced running sequence
• Frantically knocks on girlfriend's door before pushing his way in
• Does not respond to her questions and continues to panic
• Reveals that he has been involved in crime, injuring girl's brother
• We hear a knock on the door; leaves audience in suspense
  
  Setting
  Typical urban London streets; Walthamstow
  Middle class family house for girlfriend's house

Opening sequence treatment - film making techniques

• In the same style as Trainspotting, we plan to use a range of shot types and editing within the part of our opening sequence where the protagonist is running such as close ups to convey the protagonist’s extremely paranoid and anxious expression, over the shoulder shots to show the sequence from different points of views, fast-paced match on action for continuity purposes as well as adding intensity and excitement to our sequence, wide shots to provide perspective. 
• We also plan to use camera movements such as panning throughout our sequence to make the audience feel more directly involved in what is going on.
• During the conversation between the protagonist and his girlfriend, we will use shot-reverse-shot to present the conversation from both POVs. We will also incorporate lots of close ups into this part of the sequence to show both characters’ reactions to what is being said. We plan to include lots of reaction shots to contrast between the two characters.

Opening sequence treatment - intended style

Roland Barthes

• In our opening sequence we use Barthes' theory of enigma codes to make our audience ask questions such as “is the protagonist good or bad?”, “what has he done?”, “why is he running?”. Enigma codes will also help add to the excitement and suspense of the opening.
• Trainspotting is a good example of the intended style of our opening sequence. This is because the opening sequence begins with a chase scene in which the audience has little knowledge of why the men are running, in the same way that our audience will be asking questions about what 'Dan' is running from.
• Protagonist is running away from something and the audience wants to know what he is running away from/ has done.



The opening sequence of Trainspotting is filled with enigma codes. 

The same enigmatic style will be present in our film opening.

• The opening sequence will fit in with the conventions of the British drama genre as the protagonist will be running through stereotypically British locations. He will also have a worried, paranoid way about him which connotes the drama genre.

Opening sequence treatment - Lighting

• The running part of the scene will be shot outdoors, using natural light (similar to the lighting used in Trainspotting, shown below). To make sure the lighting in this part is consistent we may start our shoots slightly earlier to make sure we don't run out of time and start losing the light.

• For the part of the scene inside the house we will use a lighting kit. however as the tone of the film is meant to be serious it won't need to be extremely brightly lit.

Opening sequence treatment - Titles

We will be using titles to credit:

• The Production Company
• The director
• The producer
• The main actors

We plan to have integrated titles similar to the ones used in Zombieland (below), however not as complex as they are not the main focus of our opening. For example, one idea we had was for the title to be on the screen, and as the protagonist runs past it will wipe away as if he is interacting with it. 

We will use a simple font and colour so as not to distract from the action in the scene.

Opening Sequence Treatment - Music

We will use little or no Sound FX, possibly an exaggerated hammering sound at the knock on the door at the end of the sequence to accentuate enigma, fear and suspense.

For the music we have researched how genre relates to audience and are choosing between ambient electronic music e.g. Kidulthood, Attack the Block which have proven to work well to provide intensity, suspense and hysteria. Seeing as in their opening sequences this music features alongside a seemingly unfriendly urban environment, we decided that this would be our choice of music type.

The proposed track for this genre is music from a group called Noize Index. The song is called ‘the Siren’, downloadable from their SoundCloud page, heard below:
The music is similar to that produced by other artists with liquid drum and bass roots such as Netsky and Pendulum, who are well known by and appealing to our target audience of 16-24s year olds. These can be heard below:

The other option we chose from was upbeat indie/punk rock music, which featured very effectively in Trainspotting with the track 'Lust For Life' by Iggy Pop. Music similar to bands like Jet and The Arctic Monkeys would fit this style as well as appeal to our audience, provide irony and drama as well as a thrilling, action mood to the film. The proposed song for this option was a demo song called ‘Grindy’ from shockwave-sound.com, who produce multiple sample tracks for people to use.

Both of these types of music are popular with the target audience and have proven successful to introduce films with similar themes and locations. Also both artists have their music available to download royalty free and use legally at the users will as long as credit is given to the artist, e.g. in a link in the description for a youtube video.

Opening Sequence Proposal- 6. Outline of Opening Sequence

• Begins with boy running round corner into shot 
• Follows boy running through streets using range of shot types to create realistic, fast paced sequence 
• Boy ends up at girlfriend's house and frantically knocks on door in a panicked manner 
• Girlfriend opens door and boy runs in, pushing past her 
• Boy sits on floor asking himself questions like 'what have I done' while girlfriend demands to know what is going on 
• Boy refuses to answer and continues to panick  before revealing that girl's brother has been injured in some sort of accident
• Suddenly the two hear a knock on the door and sequence ends with reaction shot of the couple fearing who could be at the door
• The credits will be in a basic font, integrated into the sequence in a simple way with little movement so that they wont distract from the action and slow down the pace of the sequence
  
  
• Trainspotting begins in a similar way, throwing the audience straight into a chase scene...

Opening Sequence Proposal- 5. Basic Narrative of The Film

• Key Characters:
  Protagonist- Boy, 18 years old, ended up in trouble by accident
  Protagonist's Girlfriend- 18 years old, cares a lot about boy, never been in trouble
• Begins with flash forward of the disruption in the film. This is done in films such as Battle LA and Skyline.
  Battle LA throws the audience into the action, leaving them asking various questions about how and why this sequence happened. This creates intrigue and interest in the audience which is what we intend to do with our opening sequence.

• Returns to equilibrium of film, boyfriend and girlfriend going about normal life and boy messing around with friends
• Builds up to event seen in opening sequence, boy starts to get involved in criminal plans and activities
• Resolution of boy getting away with crime with girlfriend's help
• Ends with happy couple like beginning

Opening Sequence Proposal- 4. Representation

Age
Negative, stereotypical representation of young people as being anti-social and involved in crime, often portrayed by the media and in TV/film.
We will avoid the partying/drugs lifestyle represented in the TV drama Skins and focus more on the urban crime lifestyle represented in Kidulthood and Attack The Block.

Gender
Stereotypical representations:
Male protagonist gets involved in crime - more typical of boys

Violence/crime in Kidulthood

His girlfriend is a typical girl shown through her appearance, but with strength and independence like the character 'Alisha' in Misfits

Audience reaction
Able to relate to the problems that the teenage characters face, such as peer pressure and getting involved in crime.
Female audience will relate to boyfriend issues and/or aspire to be like our strong female character

Opening Sequence Proposal- 3. Genre

• Our chosen genre is British Drama
• We have chosen this genre as we live in an urban British environment so locations which fit in well with the British Drama genre are easily accessible for filming.
• By choosing this genre, we will also be able to find appropriate actors as our group all live in London so finding British actors will not be a challenge.
• Our film will be highly relatable to our target audience (British 16-24 year olds) as the urban surrounding will be recognisable to them.
• The first section of our opening sequence will be set outdoors on the streets of London to convey the British side to our genre. We will also include an enigmatic conversation between the protagonist and his girlfriend to connote the drama part of the genre.