Split - Opening Sequence

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task

Evaluation Activity 7

06 April, 2012 - 23:17 a.m.

Well, looking back at our preliminary task and comparing it to our official Split opening sequence, we can notice a lot of differences such as the continuity flow as our preliminary task had contained obvious continuity errors.

This is proven by the fact that I would be walking through one location that was being filmed and the continuity would dip to another different location where I would continue walking which means that the flow of the preliminary task was disrupted whereas, in the opening sequence, we had decided to keep recording (even if there was any mistakes..and believe you me, Nile made a lot of mistakes during the football process >.>) and not disrupt the recording process.

This is due to the fact that it would only make our continuity flow even better due to the fact that all of the character physical movement would be within a single video which we could edit with more ease.

Due to the fact that it was only a single protagonist being featured within the entire opening sequence, we didn't use no reverse shots whereas in the preliminary task but we did reverse video clips without disrupting the continuity error (e.g. using the flashback sequences while Nile/Brad is walking towards the fellow gang he had abandoned for his personal purposes) to avoid the length of the walking sequence itself and helped us progress much more since we had learned how to keep an audience immersed with using similar/lengthy scenes but executed in a variety of ways.

After all, we had known that the opening sequence is the formal introduction to the movie and a monotonous/cluttered opening sequence would have already led the audience to assume that the rest of the movie may suffer from these mistakes -- similarly to how the opening chapter of a book should grip the reader and be consistent in terms of its immersion up to the final moment.

Furthermore, we had learned to use the camera with and without the tripod although we felt that using the camera with freehand movement would have been handled with more ease plus it would also add to the atmosphere due to the fact that our Split movie would revolve around the main protagonist sprinting during football matches, being chased by ex-gang rivals/members so shaky camera movement would be required regardless to add to the realism and pacing of the movie.

- Omar Abasi (Split Movie Editor)

Evaluation Activity 6 - Processes used while constructing the Split product

Blogger - Perhaps the one that I should be listing as the first and foremost due to the fact tha- well, you know why anyways.

Blogger was a really cool online diary where we could keep updating our blog so that followers could notice our progression with our Split product and also helped us as much as the followers who wanted to know more about how we were doing with the opening sequence itself as we could go back to any blog posts we had posted through the past few months so that none of our processes would be cancelled or delayed due to any mishaps because all of our blog posts were secured on one blog with sub-categories of our pre-production, research and much more.



Mac - The Mac was the source to all of our other programs, softwares and websites that we had used while constructing the official Split product (well, of course, excluding the camera itself.) We had used the Mac to set up our Blogger, Twitter and YouTube accounts as well as utilizing programs that were pre-installed on the Mac such as Adobe Photoshop CS4 which would be used for several pre-production tasks such as nine-frame analyses, picture-editing (whether it would be our official movie poster or anything like that) but the Mac also allowed us to use Adobe Premier Pro.
Beautiful piece of technology, this is.



Camera - If you thought that using the Apple iMacs were beautiful, we even soaked up all of the high-definition glory possible with Panasonic HD cameras which were used for our filming process with the inclusion of our Split opening sequence. Once again, the cameras were definitely beneficial since you can't really make a movie without cameras as I'm sure that the crew and I had filmed, deleted and re-filmed scenes perhaps over 35 times within the space of a week so yeah, it did really act as the heartbeat of our movie.



Twitter - We had used Twitter as social media purposely for our Split product as well as interacting with my crew about any concerns regarding our pre-production, post-production or editing processes while we weren't all doing these processes together so it was a great, intuitive way of being able to communicate with people without any complications whatsoever.

YouTube - We had used YouTube to promote our AS Media Evaluation Activity which can also be seen as marketing our official movie due to the fact that it is a documentary-style video which nitpicks a great amount of information regarding our movie in comparison to other already-released movies.

Furthermore, YouTube is a great way to promote any of our videos that we have been editing and finalizing for our AS Media Studies as it would be a way for us to gain constructive criticism and to be able to reflect on it and better our product.

Adobe Premiere Pro - Once again, without this piece of technology, our Split product may have not been produced to the standards that it were. We had edited this video, provided effects such as the flashback monochrome effects which would be used to help vary and strengthen our professional movie-editing skills, we had utilized video transitions as well as being able to experiment with audio effects too such as the exponential fade which we would use to change the volumes of our soundtrack at specific parts within the opening sequence that were editing with the help of this program.





Evaluation Activity 3

The production company may be directly responsible for fundraising for the production or may accomplish this through a partner. Production companies are well-known for its variety of task-handling which varies from handling the budgeting, scripting, scheduling, cast and setting and the organization of staff.

Production companies are known for its own production (e.g. Lucasfilm Ltd. are widely-known for their production on the critically-acclaimed Star Wars series as well as the Indiana Jones series which they had also produced which led to its own exclusive video games etc.), post-production, distribution and marketing (e.g. Lionsgate Entertainment are well-known for owning the rights to the Hunger Games potential franchise and distributing the movie in the United Kingdom and United States of America.)

Production companies are often either owned or under contract with a media conglomerate, film studio, entertainment company, or Motion Picture Company, who act as the production companies parent. They can also be mainstream/independent production companies such as the production company examples which were provided above this piece of information -- Lucasfilm Ltd. and Lionsgate Entertainment.

A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for releasing movies to the public whether it is on the silver screen/on a theatrical basis or a straight-to-DVD basis/home viewing in general (e.g. T.V/Blu-Ray Disc viewing, Video-On-Demand viewing such as Sky Box Office).





For our Split movie, we would decide to go with the Momentum Pictures production company and this is due to the actuality that they were the same company that had produced a notable amount of BAFTA/Oscar-winning successes such as The King's Speech, Defiance and Lost in Translation plus we would have enough budget to be able to request for them to own the rights to our movie (or franchise if the Split movie is released to a lot of positive reviews from audiences and critics alike).

This is due to the fact that momentum Pictures is a one of the leading independent motion picture distributors in the UK and Ireland and releases approximately 20 theatrical films a year which means that when marketing our movie, it would be more likely to be a success rather than failing with an independent company that is not really known to the British audience let alone any audiences overseas.

The film production company would usually appear at the start/introduction of the movie as it would establish which production company has produced the movie along with any other companies involved in the production, distribution or marketing or the movie which would then be followed by the list of cast names or just the opening sequence itself.

We had decided to utilize this approach due to the fact that we felt that it would have been more beneficial to formally introduce the audience, who would be watching the Split movie, to the production company followed by the New Cinema Entertainment company which would be followed by the opening sequence (with texts full of cast names appearing throughout the opening sequence.) This is due to the fact that a particular structure would need to be used when formally introducing film audiences to the people who have had an involvement with the movie itself rather than a random structure that would seem ambiguous.

Evaluation Activity 5 - How we have attracted/addressed our audience

This is our Evaluation Activity video. However, we couldn't post up the video with the audio due to copyright claims but we hope that won't take away from the video itself as it still regards all of the information revolving around our Split movie as well as offering a good amount of information on each particular section that we had taken into great consideration during the production of our movie and opening sequence.

NOTE: I have noticed and do apologize for the text disappearing so fast, please bear with me and pause when the text does pop up. This is a random hiccup that I did not encounter when editing this video and could be due to the quality of the video or because of the amount of editing within it but once again, my apologies.

Editing - By Myself

Evaluation Activity 2 - How our media product represents particular social groups

How our media product represents particular social groups

The football picture of Theo Walcott represents the football alter-ego of Bradley Keano, being the ex-gang leader who then gets accepted into the Arsenal trials midway through the movie (sorry for the spoilers!) and the caption links to Bradley Keano in terms of appearance, costume, role in film and even the character as Theo Walcott is an energetic and swift footballer and we attempted to have Bradley (Nile) be comparable to rising football players such as Walcott.

This is due to the fact that since he shared a similar path with Keano but the difference is that Walcott's path to superstardom was a real-life aspect and that's what motivated us more -- the fact we did not want this to feel like a Hollywood movie but an original "based on true life" sort of movie.

The suit picture of Walcott, if you already didn't know, represents the academic/smart lifestyle of Bradley Keano -- again, this was challenging due to the fact that we had tried to keep everything realistic here by making it seem as if Keano is still a kid in the game as well as he is a kid battling to get into university as well as being a kid who is battling to escape the visions that haunt him from his previous crime lifestyle.

The smartwear that Bradley uses in the movie is used as a, "clean slate all over again", sort of costume as it represents the light at the end of the tunnel for the main protagonist as well as it being cleanliness which contrasts the mood and atmosphere we were trying to hit with the entire movie.

So, you know, you'd see Nile's life as a gang member (since we would provide backstory to fill in any plotholes or gaps) and think, "Uhh, man, really? When's he going to leave", and then you see his academic successes and feel sheer joy for him.

Last but not least, the picture of the mixed-race person with a hoodie on represents the bleak ex-wanted gang leader, Bradley Keano, being part of the fearless "Golden Gunz" gang in Southern London.

The colour of the picture adds to the negative connotations as it paints the picture of the grey-ish feel we worked hard on trying to add into our movie as well as the grayscale colour adding to the fact that the gang life is old with the school/football life being new (hence the vivid colours that the other two personalities bring) and that the gang lifestyle will be mainly backstories about Keano's rise to the top of the GGP (Golden Gunz of Peckham).

As well as this, it could also mean the gritty feel that will be expressed when Keano realizes that his fellow gang members are attempting to lure him away from his successes and draw him into a web of deception, thievery and sin.

This would be proven by the fact that Keano's mother is a religious Christian -- she will be the main inspiration/driving force of Bradley throughout the movie as her voices will also be heard faintly through bad/thought-provoking moments that will pave the way for Brad.

Evaluation Activity 4 - Who the audience would be for our media product

Q: Who would your audience be for your own media product?

A: Interesting question. Our audience would simply be the cast in our movie who would be true, and not cliched, representations of the audience themselves -- so, for example, the main protagonist, Bradley Keano is an ex-gang leader who has ascended into football superstardom as well as ascending on an academic level too. We thought that by varying these personalities, he would be able to connect with so many target audiences on a level that other movies such as Shank, Adulthood and 1 Day couldn't do.

We're trying to craft a media product that would attract viewers of all kinds -- football enthusiasts, gang members who watch this movie and leave the theatre thinking, "Wow, that really reflects us", and be able to use our movie as an inspiration to change themselves. It's a movie that inspires the audience and takes the courageous movie of emulating everything that is bleak, uninspiring and gritty about Southern London crime life.

Q: However, it must be difficult trying to develop and market a movie like this. You've got to think carefully of avoiding obvious stereotypes, one-sided characteristics that may occur often throughout the movie and you've got to make sure that you represent whatever you are trying to portray in a realistic manner. How challenging has that been?

A: Well, it has been challenging and your explanation seems to be the words that would have come out of my mouth now that you've asked me that. But seriously, we're trying to hit all emotions -- just because it's a gang movie doesn't mean the emotion throughout will be bleak until the final moment. Bradley Keano goes through some humorous moments, there will be crying when the movie reaches its climax, there will be joy when Keano achieves what he does.

We've just been trying our best to represent a person's life and not an actor's life. There's always going to be that difference between portraying a person and portraying a character; we knew the only way to meet our audience's needs, and for them to watch it, would be to make Bradley Keano feel like a human being when he speaks, cries and all of that and not speak all 'gangsta' [laughs]..you know, just because he's been through gang life before. Gang members are humans, act human.

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The picture expresses movies such as 'Training Day' and action-adventure/thriller movies in general due to the fact that we would expect our average movie viewer to be interested in this type of movie genre as well as football movies (represented by the football logo on the left side) to represent the fact that since there may be a lot of male viewers (especially due to the fact that Split is a male-dominated movie), it is likely that some, if not the majority of them, would either watch or play football - whether virtual or real.

As well as this, they would watch TV programmes such as 'Top Boy' due to the fact that 'Top Boy' is, once again, a real-life representation of South/South-East London life as a youngster and how it is even difficult from a black African family's perspective -- which reflects our movie specifically due to the fact that Bradley (Nile O'Meally Newell) is a character of Afro-Caribbean origin so elements of his heritage will be included in the movie itself.

They would watch 'Waterloo Road' due to the secondary school atmospheric feel of the series itself as we feel that most of our viewers would be invested in watching movies and series that are actually genuine and not mainly big-budget Hollywood-filled blockbusters.

Last but not least, they would listen to grime music (e.g. Krept and Konan, Skepta, Wiley etc.) due to the fact that the licensed soundtrack in the movie itself would be, all rights reserved, to these grime artists as the soundtrack itself would echo the Southern London lifestyle and emphasize how gritty and dark life is there so we would expect most of our audience viewers to listen to this type of music if not R&B, rap music or hip hop aside from that.



Evaluation Activity 1 (Incomplete)

Our film was influence by the film Kidulthood by Noel Clarke, as it had focused on a teenager who is involved in multiple things such as gang culture where our movie had multiple connotations but involved more depth (e.g. more mini-stories which would interweave with each other due to the fact all of these storylines linked to the main protagonist). Since our film was inspired by drama/thriller-inspired British blockbuster Kidulthood, we had crafted some of our ideas from their film and this is shown by the nine-frame analysis below:

Alterations Made Along the Way

We have news about, perhaps, the biggest alteration that was made in the opening sequence process so far and it is the fact that Nile O'Meally-Newell, also known as the main protagonist (Bradley Keano), has left our group and moved schools so this was definitely quite a shocker for us but we realized that we are still able to overcome this regardless and our research and planning work will be quite different due to the fact he is the key character of our Split opening sequence so we will just be posting a reasonably-sized picture representing him rather than a picture of him explaining his character traits and appearances that we are attempting to emulate in our opening sequence.

However, the show must go on and we enjoyed having Nile in our group so, news aside, we wish the best for him in his future and still hope he can accomplish whatever it is he desires.

Costume Planning Analysis (Vans)

Vans are growing rapidly in the sneakers fashion trend and we wanted to ensure that our "Split" movie is consistent as well as it is current since if we included elements that felt dated and not modern-day elements, it also wouldn't really help with the fresh and innovative style we are trying to bring to our film and opening sequence. Furthermore, we picked grey Vans to be the type of footwear that Nile O'Meally-Newell (Bradley Keano) is going to wear in the film and opening sequence as it also connotes to the dark and monotonous atmosphere of the gang lifestyle in comparison to the bright and colourful lifestyle of Bradley Keano being a football star in the making.

Simplicity also links with the movie itself since we picked a simple football kit for the opening sequence, simple smartwear (typical white shirt and black tie; the white shirt being the dress code for several schools anyway) and simple casual clothing to represent the fact that the audience shouldn't be worried about if the film would suffer from complexity despite the fact we are trying to flesh out three "characters" fully, balancing out each of the three personalities so we are faced with the risk of leaving plot holes or continuity errors yet we have managed to counter this in our opening sequence since we know that the gang scenes had a slow and intense pace while the football scenes had a fast-moving pace to it so we are glad with the costumes we had come up with to fit in with everything else.

Costume Planning Analysis (Smartwear)

The colour of the smartwear, being white in the scene where Nile (Brad) is fixing his tie, can link to themes such as purity since if Bradley Keano is able to leave the gang and focus on his examinations; this could lead to him taking a pure path towards University and also being able to get the best careers out of his abilities, creating pure money for himself rather than being in a gang that would rob stores and mug the innocents to earn filthy money which would then be spent on less beneficial things.

Furthermore, the colour of white links to light so the costume had been particularly chosen to show that light has been shed upon Bradley Keano and if he is able to take this lifestyle and get the best results out of it, his future would be bright and could lead to a wider range of possibilities than it would if he was in a gang. Also, if he plays for a big-name football team such as Arsenal, his examination grades would help him since if he has an early retirement; he can use his qualifications to get a good job that will pay him good money and his life would still be bright and consistently good whereas, in a gang, Bradley would always have that same question recurring in his mind, "Will I be able to live up to the end of today? Will I go sleep? Will I be even able to have enough money to feed myself?" That is the type of atmosphere and mood we are trying to adopt for our "Split" film.

Costume Planning Analysis (Bomber Jacket)

The black bomber jacket represents the bottom of the scale as the main protagonist could not sink any lower than being in a blood and money-hungry gang that would murder any innocents to gain what they feel will benefit their lifestyles and this adds to the overall atmosphere of the"Split" movie as it adds to the grittiness and violent nature of the movie since no main protagonist could be completely perfect and all lead characters must be flawed in a single way or more than one and this is what we tried to go for with Bradley Keano as the audience could interpret him as a person who had different motives in a gang which had different personalities to him but he realizes this, at a late time, and will find it difficult to leave the gang since once you are committed to a gang, the other members would expect you to always follow their code of honor and to never betray them so it also adds to the element of suspense and surprise in the movie.

Furthermore, this also represents the dark nature of the protagonist and the gang itself which means that it also adds to the character of Bradley Keano since we did not want a one-dimensional lead character in the movie so we had decided to add different lifestyles to widen the ways in which the "Split" storyline can branch out and how his character can be portrayed by the audience since a lead character that can have various interpretations is better than a lead character only being interpreted as either a villain or a heroic person since the audience could interpret the character as being a villain in his early days but attempting to turn over a new leaf or a good character that was lost in a world in which he was unable to mold with so he tries his hardest to escape his past. It follows the same "person who tries to leave his past and create a good life while he can" type of storyline that is added in most of the drama movies yet this storyline structure can be described as much more varied in comparison to the likes of Shank and Anuvahood.

Costume Planning Analysis (Football Kit)

Although we picked particular costumes for our opening sequence's scenes, this is an analysis of how these costumes link to the themes and atmospheric feel of the movie. The yellow Nike football kit represents life and vibrance as the colour also represents the main protagonist's happiness to be rising to the top in the football dog-eat-dog world and this also contrasts the other recurring themes in the opening sequence. Furthermore, the fact that this particular costume features the least black colour out of all of the costumes that are used in the opening sequence also emphasizes how the football lifestyle of Bradley Keano is distinguished from the two other lifestyles.

The costume also represents his potential since if he wore a jersey from a licensed team such as Arsenal or Manchester United, he would have already exceeded his potential and been at the top and it wouldn't have blended in well with the storyline at all as he would have already been a successful football star yet he would still be a notorious gang leader and also still taking his examinations whereas this football kit also hints at possibilities and outcomes that will occur later on throughout the movie such as him being so close to being in a team such as Arsenal yet his gang lifestyle would be a barrier or the fact that he IS in Arsenal yet he may be kicked off of the team by the manager for his misbehaviour or may be told to leave the gang and focus on helping the team win the League otherwise he would be kicked off of the team for good. The possibilities are endless which is why this costume fits in perfectly with the style we are trying to go for with our film.

Existing Film Production Company Research

  

Scripting

We had decided to craft a script for a monologue that will be featured in our opening sequence and this is to breath more life into our character since there are voiceovers in some opening sequences (examples include Inside Man etc.) and the voiceover from our opening sequence clicked really well with the scenes and the flow as it will also give the audience a sense of what is to emerge later on throughout the movie (e.g. Nile attempting to determine himself to work harder and achieve his dreams yet the corruption of the gang, that he once banished and left behind, are trying to stand as a barrier and a threat against him)

"I say to you, that if you have never found a dream that is so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren't fit to live. Some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid that somebody will stab or shoot you. So you refuse to take a stand...... you died when you refused to stand up for right. You died when you refused to stand up for truth. You died when you refused to stand up for justice."

Background Music for Opening Sequence (Final)

BGM for our Opening Sequence:

After some group discussions and a lot of time spent on researching which songs would merge well with the pacing of our opening sequence, we had decided to use the instrumental beat of "Jus' a Rascal" which is composed by British grime artist, Dizzee Rascal.

The reason we'd decided to use this instrumental beat is because the instrumental picks up during certain parts which blends well with our opening sequence since the pacing of it is quite slow in specific parts (e.g. the school scene where Liban convinces Nile to stop revising) before the pace starts to pick up (e.g. the football scene) but we had also decided to blend certain parts of our BGM (such as starting it from specific parts so that the song doesn't feel out-of-place or doesn't quite click with the opening sequence). This was definitely a difficult task since we had a lot of scenes to squeeze into within two minutes worth of an opening sequence that would have the right flow to it and there were, indeed, limitations to how long the scenes were (i.e. the last flashback scene before Nile meets up with his fellow gang members was too long, especially considering the fact that flashback scenes are quick and snappy) but we had managed to counter these limitations and are happy with the final result.

Split Timeline

Conventions of the Drama Genre

Dramatic conventions are the specific actions or techniques the actor, writer or director has employed to create a desired dramatic effect or style which is beneficial for research since we could compare this to our opening sequence as we had also utilized specific techniques to employ the dramatic feel to when he wears his black bomber jacket and makes the journey to rendezvous with the gang in the alleyway and specific actions in our opening sequence such as when Nile puts his hoody over his head slowly to add intensity since the viewer could actually think what the main protagonist could be thinking momentarily which is, "Does he really want to do this/Do I really want to do this?" as the camera slowly tilts downwards expressing his casual clothing.