Analysis Of The Opening Scene Of The Godfather

The opening of the Godfather starts with a non diegetic sound of the soundtrack playing against a black screen the soundtrack is distinctive to the film and can be easily identified with the film if someone has seen the film before. The next thing we here is dialogue from an Italian man we can tell he is Italian from his accent and that he's a male by the tone of his voice as his voice is of a low pitch and many female voices tend to be of a higher pitch. It then starts on an establishing shot of the guys face as he continues to speak throughout the shot, we can tell from his facial expressions he's worried and concerned. The camera then pans out and turns into a mid close up of the character speaking. The camera then continues to pan out to give us a bit more of an insight into where he is he seems do be in quite a classy room yet its quite dark and gloomy creating a real atmosphere to the film already.
We then see a shot reverse shot as we see the character from the point of view as the person he's addressing.We then hear the rather low,deep voice of the Godfather in the scene by this point we can see the contents of the room props like old fashioned telephones lamps and desks are shown within the shot. The shot then turns into a two shot as someone else moves into the scene and the Godfather whispers in the mans ears this shows us his authority showing he's en charge the main authority.
The fact that within the scene we can see the main character within the shot asking the Godfather for help it really gives us a sense and feel of his authority. The camera the turns to show us the Godfather one thing we notice as the camera begins to pan out and show everyone within the room is that everyone in the room is wearing a suit this is significant as its shows us that everyone has to be dressed very smartly if they want to get near to the Godfather and that all meeting carried out by him are very slick and professional.



 Opening Scene Of The Godfather



Timeline Of Title Sequence 

                                                                                                                                                         

6 seconds in                    42 seconds in                                          50 seconds in

Production company    Opening titles                                        The Title of the film

Paramount  Pictures    presenting the production company     The Godfather

for 17 seconds on screen  for 3 seconds on screen                         for 5 seconds on screen 

Continuity Task (Evaluation Question 7)

In this task we know about all the different types of edit this video shows us using three types of shot the 180 degree shot a shot reverse shot and a match on action. This is a brief demonstration to show we have a basic idea of the different camera angles and know how to use the camera and have at least a basic idea about the different types of shot.  

How does the media product represent particular social groups (Evaluation Question 2)

Jason  Statham 

We were really in the early stages of character planning however we did have a rough idea of what we wanted our character to be like we wanted someone who was dominant and the audience could take seriously. We needed someone who had the right character in the film like Jason stathem for example who played Turkish in Snatch and Chev Chelios in Crank and Crank 2 high voltage. Who manages to stay in perfect character all the time his in the film and has a talent for really getting into the character his given especially the gangster/action genre. He also manages to connect with his audience incredibly well in the way he interacts with the characters in the narrative. 

Jack Barber

We decided to cast Jack as one of the main characters as we felt in a similar way to Jason Statham he's able to stay in character most of the time as well as  being able to connect with the audience. However there of course a large amount of differences between Jack and Jason Statham one being appearance in the sense that Jason is clearly looks more slick and professional giving us more of an impression that he could be involved in a big criminal organization whereas Jack's appearance doesn't really give the audience the impression that he comes from a large criminal organization or any sort of criminal organization altogether furthermore the fact that he's wearing a coat gives us the impression that if he's in an criminal organization that he isn't incredibly high up within the organization. Secondly apart from being less experienced than Jason Stathan we can also tell from the facial expressions that Jason Stathan is slightly more serious in his work however asides from having a wide range of differences the two similarities are of vital importance and helps to set the mood for the genre and grab the viewers attention. 

In what ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (Evaluation Question 1)

The Title Of The Film

We decided to use this type of font for the title as it made the tittle more bold and easy to read we also decided to use a black background against  a white title as we feel it makes the title stand out more on the page. We choose this title for our film as it sums up what happens in the narrative and it gives the viewer an idea and an insight of what the films about and what sort of genre it could be.

Setting/Location

There were two main locations that we used in the shooting of our film. These were the drama room and the construction shed. We used these two locations in particular as we felt these were the most suitable locations to shoot a gangster film  as alot of gangster films usually open onto a dark setting good examples of this are films such as The Godfather.

The Drama Room 
This is the first location we used to shoot our film because the location was very plain and simple with black walls making it harder to know exactly where it is creating a sense of mystery also where this meeting is taking place. The dark walls also help with the lighting of the film so along with dimming the lights in the room the black walls helped to make the room darker and more ominous.

The Construction Shed
This second location we used to shoot our film we used this location the majority of the time for the action scenes and other important scenes within the film. The reason we thought this location was a good place to shoot the majority of our film was because not only is it relevant to the gangster genre but it is also unique to the stereotype people would expect to see in the genre which is good as it makes people realize that not all films have to stick to the stereotype.

Costumes and Props

Here is a basic example of some of the props and costumes used in the making of the last man standing. There are many simple iconic props such as a variety of guns, ski masks, black hats and coats along with a bag used in the meeting as a bargaining ship. We researched what costumes and props the majority of gangster films used and realised they usually didn't usually use a large amount of props instead they just used some iconic props that had more of a meaning to the narritive and had more effect and impact on the audience. Similarly in our film we've done a similar thing and haven't used to many props and reused the same guns in different scenes seen as how unless you've got a large amount of people in a shot using alot of props you don't need as to use as many props.

Camerawork and editing


We used a wide variety of camera shots while producing this film for example long shots , mid shots two shots etc. and we always made sure we had the camera at the best possible angle to capture the best shots possible to give the viewer a better viewing experience. Once we'd captured all the shots we needed plus some extra shots not needed in the final film we moved the footage from the camera into premiere where we cut the best shots we'd captured and moved them onto the timeline to go into our final film from which we did our last minute editing and added in the after effects. While we were shooting our film we used tracking to make sure we covered all angles of production and so we could follow the characters as they moved about so we could capture every peice of the action.


Title font and style

The style of font we used throughout the film for the titles was bold and bright so they stood out against the background within each shot. We then compared the use of style and font for titles in other gangster films to see how they go about incorporating them in their films opening. We used this consider how which style of font  we should used for our titles and eventually came up with a bold title that stands out from the background as shown below.

Story and how the opening sets it up
Genre and how the opening suggests it

The genre of our movie is the crime/gangster genre  the opening suggests this from facial expression types of props used the locations and the costumes to an extent. The facial expressions suggest its a ganster movie as the guards faces are more serious and threatening where as the other guys facial expression is more intrigured, causious and self statfised over the propersition taking place . This fits more into the crime/gangster genre as it is more how a criminals facial expression would be if they were at a meeting talking about trading illegal goods with a suppler. The fact that the guards are where ski masks in an attempt to cover their faces so people can't identify them also contributes to the threaning facial expression wanning people not to mess with them and as for the location well both locations without being told are not easy to recongnise showing that if a fight were to break out the person who survived could get with it.

How the characters are introduced


Each character is introduced at the beginning of the film in Jacks flashback, as he described what happened and we introduced the characters at the begging of the film to avoid confusion. They were introduced individually in the flashback so the audience can more easily identify which characters and too not take up as much of the screen with loads of titles all on at once so the audience can't see whats happening in the scene.

Jack Barber

Special effects


We used a wide selection of SFX especially in the action scenes from gunshots (muzzle flashes) and smoke effects and many more. This gave a more realistic look and feel to the film clearly displaying what the guns would look like if they were real guns and really fired.

What have you learn't about technologies from the process of constructing this project ? (Evaluation Question 6)

We used a wide variety of technologies to help construct our project some of the first bits of equipment we used were essentially in producing our film. The first piece of technology we used was the camera it was a vital that we learn't how to use the camera and practiced filming with the camera so we knew how it worked and which angles and positions you can get the best shots. We then practiced film with the tracking and with the tripod to capture the best shots possible for our film .

In post production we placed all our footage in programs such as Premiere where we were able to edit the footage into our final film. We then captured images from our blog and edited them in Photoshop which we then copied onto a memory stick and placed on our blogs in the digital storyboard and under the first evaluation question as evidence of each of the different aspects shown in evaluation question 1. Once we'd finished editing our film we moved the film onto sites such as Youtube and Facebook to get general feedback on the film.

General Feedback On Final Film From Group

We had alot of positive feedback on our final film from our piers. Many commented on how they liked where we'd set the film and how exceptional the film looked as a whole. We had very positive feedback on how the storyline unfolded and people commented on our use of suspense to build up the storyline. One of our piers even commented on the good use of special effects and SFX in the film. They commented on how enticing the film was and how it made them want to watch more. Overall our piers thought our film was very enjoyable and very well produced in fact we had some comment on how stylish some of the shots looked and some even considered buying the film.

This was very positive feedback especially when compared with our original film which had very mixed feedback much of negative. I think this was because we hadn't particularly put much effort into the film and we had completely the wrong setting. Many others also let it down small things you wouldn't normally see in gangster films such as gangsters eating melons and drinking orange juice. However I felt we put much more effort into our re shoot and it seems to have payed off as we have produced a much better film which fits more into the gangster genre and had many unexpected positive bits of feedback.

Analysis Of The Gangster Genre

The gangster genre is well known for action scenes, scenes of violence , corruption, drug use and gambling and sometimes scenes of a sexual nature. Well known gangster films include films like Oceans 11, James Bond, The Godfather, Goodfella's and Reservoir dogs. The opening scene of the majority of these films tend to be dimly lit, this is used to create a sense of mystery and suspense. All the well known gangster films contain scenes of violence and add sound effects like gunshots and explosions in the post production stage of filming this gives a sense of tension,suspense and atmosphere to the film. Many ganagster films use cross cutting to cut from one event to another to further increase the suspense of the film as your waiting to see whats going to happen next keeping leaving the audience on the edge of their seats. Gangster films usually use props like cars usually used in car chase scenes, pistols, machine guns, explosives almost anything that can be used as a weapon such as crowbar,axe etc.  I also found that with the title sequences on many of the films that all the heading's were in bold this is so their names stand out so we can clearly identify who's who and relate to the character character with greater ease. I also found with many of the more well known gangster films like reservoir dogs , oceans 11 and the godfather that main characters are dressed quite smartly showing that their more important and of a higher class.

Our New Production Company

We decided it would be better to change the production company to swift get away productions instead of pizza planet productions. This was because old name of the production company we felt didn't fit into the gangster genre whereas we feel that this new name is much more slick and professional and is better suited to this type genre.We made the title in bold and used the white and black so it stands out on against the background. After looking at how other gangster films have presented their logo I found that our logo had quite afew similarities in comparison as many of the logos are presented in bold with little use of colour a good example of this is reserviour dogs.  As you can see from the two logos below their are afew similarities in the logo for reserviour dogs and our logo. First the bold headings this is common in the gangster genre and used in films such as The Godfather and Reservoir Dogs this is so the name stands out on the page and catches the viewers attention. We placed the name of the production company in the top left hand corner of the page in a sans-serif the reason its in a sans-serif font is it shows it the film is more contemporary and the fact that there is much within the frame makes the name of the production company stand out against the page. The use of white and black on the page really compliments itself really well as you can see below other films like Reservoir Dogs have used a similar effect as the combination of black and white really makes the title stand out within the frame.

Behind the scenes

What kind of media institution might distribute our film and why? (Evaluation Question 3)

The kind of media institution that might distribute our film are organisations companies like Warner Bros, Paramount Films, Miramax Films, 20th Century Fox  and Universal Pictures who have produced and distributed well known gangster films in the past. Most famous of which are films like Reservoir Dogs distributed by Miramax Films, Oceans 11 distributed by Warner Bros and The Godfather distributed by Paramount pictures.


20th Century Fox

Warner Bros







Paramount Pictures








A film such as ours might get funding from organisations such as the BFI (British Film Industry) who's main purpose is to encourage people to start making films in the UK promote foreign films and fund independent films in the UK.

A production company is a company responsible for the physical production of new media they are required to fund all their own movies and decide which films would be best to produce and mostly likely to make a large profit a good example of this is The Kings Speech.

Here is our video commentary again answering the questions above along with other questions related to our film.

Props & Effects

Props

Guns
hand guns , assault riffle ,sub machine guns, Hunting riffle scooped

• Cards & Chips 
• Rope
• Crash mats 
• Pizza boxes 
• Table & chairs 
• Van 
• Mobile phone 

Digital Storyboard

Last Man Standing

       Establishing Shot

Parallel shot of meeting




























Freeze Frame Introducing the chararcter

Low Angle Shot Of Main Character Leaving The Room

Two Shot

Mid Shot

Tracking Shot

Two shot

Script

Plot - Last man Standing

Two men have taken a man hostage in an Industrial building and are waiting to meet their new contractor. There is a great deal of tension as they are unsure if they can trust the man they are supposed to be meeting. The Hostage is tied up on a chair, central to the room. He has no chance of escape. Soon after the contact arrives and the men begin to question him. The man 'Jack' is carrying a bag of money. Which through a series of flashbacks we find out, is stolen. This soon leads to confrontation and an attack on the two men. Jack manages to escape and the men pursue. It turns out to be a setup and a group of thugs begin attacking their position. 

Foley Sound

What Is Foley Sound ?

Foley sound is basically sound effects added to the film during post production (after filming). Its basically a wide variety of sound effects which can be ambient sound such as birds and the wind all the way to sound effects like gunshots,glass smashing , doors slamming and explosions.The reason these affects are added in post production other than having the sound's whilst shooting is so that the sound in the film can be of a better more professional quality and not of a worse quality from the sound on the camera.

Setting

 Construction shed

We felt that this would be a perfect location to shoot our film as it looks like an industrial site which is the sort of location that fits into the gangster genre. We also thought it was the perfect location as it had good lighting which was very suited to the camera whereas if we had it in a location that was too dark there wouldn't be enough lighting in the room for the camera shoot anything visible on the screen. We also thought this location would be quite unique as only a minority of gangster films have an industrial site in the opening scene.

Pictures Of Location

Drama room

We felt that this would be an ideal location to shoot our film. However for it to be a suitable location for our film we will have too dress the room in a way so its suited to our film as our film is a gangster film the setting has to be quite dark to create more of a sense of mystery so the room would have to be dressed so the room was darker we would do this by reducing the brightness of the lights in the room and dressing most of the room in a dark material.

Pictures Of Location