Chase scene genre conventions

• Fast cutting speed. This creates an intensity and increases the tempo of a chase. It can also show when the climax of the chase is.
• Close ups that show the protagonists and the antagonists emotions
• Wide and establishing shots to show the location
• The location is normally busy with extras and moving objects such as cars in the background. Or an interesting landscape
• Shot at night to create intensity
• The camera rarely stays stationary. It can dolly, tilt and zoom
• Diegetic sound that creates a realism and connote different things. For example a siren would connote police
• The music usually starts off slow and then adds texture to build up along with the chase until it reaches climax
• The key is to make it appear to the audience that the escapee could get caught

The Bourne Supremacy chase scene

 

 

 

This chase scene is filmed at night and the darkness immediately creates tension. This is then re-enforced by the dark costume of the protagonist and other actors in the scene. The darkness also allows lighting to focus on the protagonists face which not only shows his emotions but makes it clear to the audience that he is the protagonist. In every shot there is lots of movement whether that's the camera, movement in the background, the protagonist or the chasers. This increases the tempo of the chase so it is more exciting for the audience.

 

The camera is never still. It is always panning, tracking or shaking and this adds to the tension. At certain points it disorientates the audience and I think this helps them to engage in the chase. The use of whip pans increases the pace of the chase and adds to the excitement for the audience.

A mixture of long shots and close ups are used. The close ups show the protagonists emotions and highlight that he is an important figure. The long shots show the location and set the scene of the urban location. The long shot of the bridge is shows the impressive structure and I think it's something we could replicate.

 

The use of diegetic sounds create a realism about the chase and convince the audience that the protagonist is in danger. His grunts show that he is desperate to escape. The sounds of sirens connote police and show that he is an important and dangerous person. The car horns and tire screeching also add tension.

 

Music start off with fast drum beat which starts the fast tempo and matches the action on screen. This indicates to the audience that the protagonist i in danger. Then the music starts to build with string instruments and staccato notes and continues to build to the climax. This builds up matches the on screen shots and adds to them to maximise the tension and increase the tempo. When the protagonist is safe, only then does the music quieten and slow down replacing the staccato note with legato. 

 

The editing used involves a fast cutting speed at certain points. This is used so that the tension is not a constant throughout the chase but has moments of high tension and then little. Usually at points where the cutting speed is slow then a long shot is used. At the  end of the chase the cutting speed is slow which shows that the chase is over and the protagonist is safe.

Roles of the group

We have made some changes as to our different roles so we could gain some more skills. I will do the sound, mise en scene but this will only include costume, the risk assessment and contribute ideas to both editing and shots. Jacob will create the storyboard, editing and brief narrative. Joe will operate the camera and contribute to camera shots and editing.

Action film idea

As a group we have decided to do a second title sequence. The genre we have chosen is action. We have also decided that we are going to do a chase scene. Obviously action films have a different set of conventions than comedies so I will do some research into those. We have an idea that their will be one protagonist running from one antagonist. The protagonist will be holding a box and this will create mystery. The antagonist will be some sort of professional but in the end the protagonist will give him the slip and get away.

Changes to the first draft

We made several changes to our first draft based on the target audience feedback we received.

The first change was to change all the titles in the first part of the sequence to diegetic. The title we changed was "photography by Jack Chappell" Instead of the text being non-diegetic on the wall we changed this to writing on the wall in chalk. We felt this matched the rest of the sequence and looked better. However it was difficult to write neatly and as a result it's slightly hard to read.

Another change was made to the long shot where the protagonist struggles to open the door. Previously we cut to a medium shot in because the original footage went on for too long so we had to cut. Our audience said this disorientated them so we have changed this to  a dissolve transition.

We also did the computer screen shot again as our audience said it was difficult to read. We made it a little smoother and slower in a slightly wider shot.

Target audience feedback

We showed our opening sequence to our media class to get some general feedback on things that worked, things that didn't work and suggestions to improve.

• The shots chosen show that it was well planned
• Character is easy to relate to
• Music blends well and flowed. Worked well with shots
• The close cuts work well except from the door shot
• Computer screen is hard to read
• Could use message similar to mission impossible to parody it
• Non-diegetic text doesn't work should use all non-diegetic
• Open up studios is good with the opening door

Editing

One thing we knew before the editing process was that the jokes needed to be supported by the editing to work. One technigue we used was to cut to a closer shot at the point of a joke. This makes it easy for the audience to watch and enjoy as they know nwhere the comedy is coming from. We also matched the comedy to the music which hopefully gives the same effect.









The titles are a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic and on reflection we think we could have made the titles in the first part of the sequence all diegetic but in the second part of the sequence have all non-diegetic text. This would show how the protagonist has changed.








The non-diegetic text we have used in the second half of the sequence is black font and we decided to use this as it matches the shots on screen as the protagonist becomes a spy. The end title is in a bold red font and we used this for impact. The effect connotes smoothness and reflects the protagonists thoughts of himself.

The montage of the protagonist suiting up has a fast cutting speed. We decided to include more shots while filming the scenes to build up the action and also the comedy as the end of the sequence finishes with a juxtaposition of Glen's mum mothering him.

First Draft Complete

This is our completed first draft. I will talk about the editing and sound later. We have already had target audience feedback which I will put on in the next blog post. We were very happy with our first draft but I think improvements can be made.

Mise en Scene

The mise en scene I have used connote different things about the protagonist. The colours we have used throughout are red, white and blue. I chose them to show the protagonist is proudly British and this leads on to the narrative as he becomes a British secret agent. However we didn't want to use too much red because it connotes death and although they may be some characters dying it wouldn't be filled with gory deaths.

Examples of blue, white and red mise en scene are on the right.The costume of the protagonist, white trainers, blue jeans, blue white and red England T-shirt also connote Britain. The glasses, school books, laptop that the protagonist wears adheres to the nerd stereotype I also tried to connote.

 

Film Title

Originally we had planned to put the protagonists name in the title on its own. The protagonist is called Glen and the film would focus on him throughout and we wanted to connote this in the title. Then we realised that this would not fit our research on genre conventions of British comedies. As the film is a parody we decided to denote this in the title. Similar to "Shaun of the dead" which is a parody to "dawn of the dead"

As our film is parodying the spy genre we wanted to change one word in an existing spy movie to Glen. Ideas were Live and Let Glen, From Russia With Glen and The Spy That Loved Glen but we felt that these titles didn't match the narrative.

We then decided not to include Glen in the title and came up with Live And Let Spy as our title. This parodies the James Bond film Live And Let Die.

Progress Update

We had originally planned two filming sessions as shown on our shooting schedule however we had to organise an extra shoot on Wednesday 6th. This was because we didn't film all the shots we needed and because some of the shots had errors. We also decided to add more shots with a view to increasing the cutting speed towards the end of the sequence. This would build the action to place more emphasis on the protagonists actions and hopefully increase the humour of the end joke. When we shot the extra scenes we didn't use a storyboard and instead improvised a few ideas on the spot.

We decided to include a shot of the protagonist gazing out of the window (right) before shot 15 however we couldn't get the lighting right and it will have to be done again. We chose this particular window because of the mise en scene of the red curtains. Except from this one shot, we have finished our filming.



We have started our editing. The first scene, when the protagonist is in his house has been put together. Jacob has matched the shots to music effectively but we may have to cut a few shots to keep the sequence under two minutes.

Filming Progress

Wednesday 30th - We had planned to do 19 shots however we underestimated the amount of time some of the shots were going to take to set up the mise-en-scene so ran out of time and will have to organise another time to film the missing shots. We had some difficulties with shot number 2 as it had a high angle and to position the camera correctly, Joe had to hold it and keep it still. Feeling that the end of the sequence needed to be built up further into an important part, we shot a few extra bits so that we could increase the cutting. This will hopefully make the last line more humorous.

Thursday 31st - originally we hadn't planned on filming but due to the shots on the previous day we thought we could get a couple of shots done. We filmed 5 shots however one shot couldn't be filmed because we couldn't use the props needed. Despite this setback we decided to replace it with a different shot we spontaneously devised.

The shooting schedule shows that filming was going to take place on Friday 1st but we didn't have the necessary equipment.