/// FILM OPENING EG9 World War Z

(CREDITS TO TRIHARD PRODUCTIONS FOR THIS BLOG POST)

SYNOPSIS

World War Z is a post-apocalyptic film, which was directed in 2013, by Marc Foster, known for his previous work on Quantum of Solace and The Kiterunner, both films which fall far from the genre of World War Z. He is a BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit Award nominee.

PLOT

The film follows the life of the immediate family of Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), through the end of the world, where a Zombie outbreak occurs. Gerry is a former employee of the UN, who knows people in the military, and goes to them, seeking solace, whilst trying to find the cure for the outbreak, or at least trying to find a way for humans not to be affected by the undead. We see Brad Pitt's character go through many countries, in search of someone who knows something about something. He eventually finds the cure in Cardiff, Wales. Which he finds out is a cure, by injecting himself with it, it's some kind of pathogen which he didn't really know was a pathogen. He could have died or something, but he risked his life to find the cure and from then on he was hailed as an American hero!

IDENTS

World War Z follows an unusual pattern in regards to idents, not following the typical rule of using between 3-4 idents. 

World War Z uses 5 idents, which are as follows (in order): 

Paramount Pictures

Plan B

Skydance Productions

Hemisphere

GK films

SHOT TYPES

In the opening of World War Z, we are presented with a long title sequence, which shows clips of the news presenting multiple natural disasters, as well as strange occurrences. We are also presented by short clips of large groups of people walking.

The first shot, is an establishing shot, focussing on the house of the main protagonist. We then experience narrative enigma, as a door into a bedroom is opened. Two children then run into the bedroom of the main protagonist and his wife, sleeping. The mise-en-scene, contains very dim, and boring colours, with various shades of brown, grey and blue, colours associated with conservative.

CHARACTERS

Brad Pitt's character and his wife, are both wearing blue items of clothing, Brad Pitt, wearing a dark blue v-neck pullover, and holding a light blue mug.
The actress playing his wife is wearing a light blue, wool, sweater. She is holding a turquoise/green mug.

ZOMBIES

The Zombie's in World War Z, are not similar to the usual portrayal of the undead, which are typically slow moving and take a while to turn from human to zombie. The zombie's in World War Z are fast moving, and take seconds to turn from human to zombie. They act similarly to Danny Boyle's 28 days later zombies.

/// FILM OPENING EG8 28 Days Later

28 Days Later (Danny Boyle - 2002)

Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle is a renowned film director in the specific zombie genre. He is also well known for directing movies such as Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire and 127 hours.

Plot

A group of misguided animal rights activists free a caged chimp infected with the "Rage" virus from a medical research lab. When London bike courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma a month after, he finds his city all but deserted. On the run from the zombie-like victims of the Rage, Jim stumbles upon a group of survivors, including Selena (Naomie Harris) and cab driver Frank (Brendan Gleeson), and joins them on a perilous journey to what he hopes will be safety.



 Budget + Box office  
                                                          

The budget of this movie was £5m

The box office was $82.7m

Stars

Cillian Murphy
Naomie Harris

Genre

Drama, Horror, Sci-fi

Ideas

Decaying title 'presents' fades away
- Blood splatter on main title

- We won't take the style of fast zombies as we would prefer to use the stereotypical style (more practical for filming)

- Security camera style

Idents

UK Film council

DNA films

Fox Searchlight Pictures

/// VODCAST3 First Shot

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/// FILM OPENING EG7 Bridget Jones's Diary

• Medium Long-shot
• Central Framing
• rule of thirds - central protagonist
• Black taxis - providing exposition in where it is set (London/South England)
• Doesn't have hat or umbrella - provides exposition on her
• Blonde and female - possible dumb blonde stereotype 
• Tracking her - anchors her as protagonist and voice over
• Ellipses to little southern English village - stereotypically nice (now normative)
• Red telephone box to anchor where it's set
• 
  

/// FILM OPENING EG5 About a Boy

• Fade up 
• Audio bridge to first scene 
• Diegetic sound from tv 
• Bird's eye view 
• Tracking shot 
• Protagonist - proppian archetypes 
• Rule of thirds 
• Narrative enigma - not showing protagonist's face 
• Intertextuality with tv show 
• Camera movement and zooming connoting tension 
• Anchored with tense music from tv show 
• Show foreshadowing events - most likely to be Jon Bon Jovi character connotes comedic genre 
• Voice over - inner monologue 
• Non-diegetic sound - guitar strings 
• Red Bull signifies youth, not sophisticated 
• Tea cup with saucer - sophistication 
• Cigarettes - negative connotations - complex preferred reading 
• Campbell's hero's journey/monomyth - all narratives center on journey and progression of protagonist 
• Big book - intelligence, sophistication 
• Lower case bubble font block white - connoting comedic genre 
• Navy blue slacks, gry blue crew neck jumper, blue shirt, grey blue monochromatic mise-en-scene - conservative guy 
• Large collection of books and LPs, electric guitar, speakers - rebellious

/// FILM OPENING EG4 Scream Main Titles

SOUNDS: 

All unsettling

• Female scream
• increasing fast heartbeat
• Crash sound effect
• phone ring
• Wolf howl
• Knife slashing sound
• Gunshot 
• Crash
• Strings (violin)
• Audio bridge

IDENTS:

• 'Dimension' ident has blue tint - intertextualises the Halloween opening

/// FILM OPENING EG3 Grimsby

Grimsby Film Opening Analysis

Several idents because:

- One might be distributor 
- It is an unpredictable risky business therefore co-production spreads the risk


Low budget films often have BFI, TV channels idents.

Working title occasionally don't show their ident as they don't have control. This is because they are a subsidiary of one of the conglomerates in the Big 5. Working Title are considered the junior company.

Had to change the name of the movie as it did poorly in distribution, due to the lack of international understanding (continuous references for a UK audience) 

• Immediate Audio bridging
• Columbia (owned by Sony) are the conglomerate of this working title movie because of first look
• Working Title ident is missing
• First shot: No narrative enigma on character + doesn't begin with establishing shot. Narrative enigma on location Starts with big close-up on two characters kissing + shallow field of focus.
• slight high angle
• R&B music (not seen as sophisticated)
• Heteronormative
  
• Thick wide sideburns connote a working-class character + hints at the comedy element.
• Male's head is larger than the females + male is on top. Connotation of who is the central character.
• Potential red filter could hint at porn or the past
• Further exposition through the mise-en-scene (England tattoo on protagonists back). Specific to England's football team, clear reading on the character + tattoo done poorly (clearly working-class). The fact that it is football is important as if it was a posher sport, the exposition on the character would be incorrect.
• Beer can gives further anchorage of working-class
  
• Anchorage on the genre (comedy) 
• Typical Working Title production as it has a poor stereotype of working-class (but works as a comedy)
• The narrative enigma ended with a shock to the audience, as the intimacy was taking place in a store
• Sale (89.99 pounds) - cheap bed (working-class)
• Single mothers taking children out - stereotype that a working-class mother must be single + smoking a cigarette further hints at it + tracksuit (chav)
  
• Potential intertextual reference from This is England 
• 'Columbia Presents presents' - usually denoting distributor 
• fast-paced editing (short takes)
• Proppian archetype hero/protagonist achieved through more close ups

/// FILM OPENING EG2 Halloween

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Halloween film opening analysis L+J from LouisHodges3

/// FILM OPENING EG1 Pretty in Pink

EVALUATION

•  Pretty in Pink only has one company ident (Paramount) - it is a good idea to have 3 as it shows the understanding of the industry
• We must look very carefully at titles. If the titles are poor, an A grade is very unlikely.

TITLES IN ORDER 

(if bold, it is a larger font size)

• PARAMOUNT PICTURES PRESENTS - sans serif, black and white connoting drama, almost a social realist serious style, polysemic title
• A JOHN HUGHES PRODUCTION - Auteur, uses production but would usually see film, would usually see the directors name twice
• ESTABLISHING SHOTS - clearly presents working class (rusty car, broken up road, irregular plants, 'wrong side of the tracks'

SHOTS

• Exposition shot - narrative enigma.  Some degree of context - a working class area (grass growing over pavement, rusty car, broken roads)
• Panning shot showing both sides of the track - Born/from the wrong side of the tracks - One side is a nice area than the other.

/// SEMIOTICS2 applied to warp films

The research into these Warp movies has shown that the covers often already signify the genre as social realist. They often use quotes or awards from festivals as they are an aspect that attracts the audience and the audience would choose whether or not to see the movie depending on if its generally getting good reviews.

Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Ze

- Bright colours with title, stars, graffiti (not serious)
- Fat character signifies comedy in this case
- Wearing scruffy clothes, therefore not glamourising the upper-class
- Underwear hanging connotes a comedy genre
- Setting = covered in graffiti (connotation of rough area) + (typical warp)
- Intertextual reference of 'Spinal Tap'
- Stereotypes = short hair, relatively masculine colours
-  rule of thirds - centred on the cover (protagonist)
- more inviting as character is directly referencing the character with hand gesture
- Text = scruffy serif font
- Narrative enigma as we don't know who the character is + his eyes are covered by sunglasses
- Long-shot/extreme long-shot
- Mid angle
- Shane Meadows made clear on cover = denotes the auteur theory
- Small text showing the actors (not famous actors, therefore no need to have their names clear on the cover)
- Not a star vacuole + film ratings on cover
- Showing off film festival ratings
- intertextuality with name (Martin Scorsese)
- Two shot

Dead Man's Shoes

- Bubble font (would typically signify younger audience but not in this case - broken down by 'chilling')
- First warp feature film
- Auteur theory applied again
- Low angle connotes character is a threat
- red and axe signifies danger + clearly signifies genre of horror or drama
- No star power (even with Shane Meadows)
- Dutch angle
- Scary, vicious and violent is important

Tyrannosaur

Rule of thirds, centrally framed connoting this man as the protagonist

However, prop, lighting, mise-en-scene etc connote he could be the antagonist

Own binary opposition - creating narrative enigma

Serif font signifying a drama genre

Wrinkles - older man - older audience

Skin head, vest top - working class

Terraced houses on edge of poster - working class

Dark weather - drama

High key lighting on only one side - reflects his two different personalities - drama

Small 'a film by Paddy Considine' denotes auteur theory

2 awards won & reviews to lead promotion

High angle - surprising for protagonist

Bare tree - drama 

Violence - in this shot - violence to himself - self-loathing

Contemplating - not stupid like the stereotypical working class

Narrative enigma - what is he regretting?

Names but not big or bold

'71

Dark colours used in poster anchor the connotation that this is an action film.

Medium shot, showing facial expression as well as what is being held, further anchors action film

Dark colours also set the tone of the film, and the mind of the protagonist, setting the film as dark and serious, showing the protagonist as troubled.

Facial expression - Mouth slightly opened to show he is shocked.

This is England

This is England immediately signifies that its is a social realist production based in England. This is anchored by the title being the colour of the union jack.
Either side of the poster, two buildings are framed either side signifying working class characters. This is further anchored by the urban decay on the fence/ font. All males in the poster are skinheads which anchors working class
'A film by Shane Meadows' denotes the auteur film theory. 
Wide long shot denotes ensemble cast, Not a star vehicle. It also signifies a community relationship
The film is based in the 1980's, however nothing signifies that so it is polysemic .

/// ML1 Analysing cinematography of past coursework

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Past AS coursework analysis from LouisHodges3

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