British films

It is important that I also compare my production to American AND British film openings to get a mixture of the conventions used.

One film that is set in the 60's is Brighton Rock, this is another gangster film for me to look at and this will closely match the conventions of the British films I have already chosen to look at.

Another film that I have been advised to watch is called The Krays, this film stars some very well-known actors and is a benchmark for most British films, the conventions used are similar to those used in most American films but the film can be clearly defined as being British through the use of the actors and the narrative.

I think I will need to compare the films to the American films that I discussed in the last Blog entry.

Other texts

For my essay I was tasked with looking in to other films to research and collect ideas from that were earlier than the two films I looked at, as mentioned before I did choose a more recent film as well, this was Layer Cake, because the film managed to take 11 million dollars at the box office, meaning they must have used some good conventions.

In terms of the films I chose that helped create and set the conventions of the crime genre, these being things such as the way they use lighting and the characters they used at the time and also most importantly the setting and how the film begins, these films were; Reservoir Dogs taking 22 million dollars, Good Fellas taking 55.1 million dollars, Scarface taking 65 million dollars, The Untouchables taking 76 million dollars, The Godfather Part 3 taking 136 million dollars, The Godfather Part 2 taking 193 million dollars, Gangs Of New York taking the same amount and Pulp Fiction taking in 213 million dollars.

These were some of the most iconic films in history and were all rated amongst the top 40 gangster films of all time, amongst these were also the two films I had already compared.

These film openings will allow me to see some of the conventions that began the crime genre and helped it to evolve and progress to create new conventions for the genre.

In my essay I will be required to compare these films with each other and to the 2 films I originally chose to look at also to use some references from reviews and media terminology to analyse the key conventions of these films.

Media essay

We have been given our media essays back,
these essays are meant to relate to the productions that we are currently planning,
For my essay i need to add more references to texts that i have researched in my planning, also when comparing the two films i have chose (Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch) i will need to compare them to more films of a similar genre that were made earlier and set the conventions for the genre i am analysing.
Also i need to make my essay less descriptive and generalised and focus more on the texts in particular and the specific genre that i am talking about, speaking constantly about the conventions, what they are and how they are used.
The deadline for this essay re-draft is due in for the beginning of October.

Idea

I have now begun to draw and create my story board that will help to create a clear plan for my ideas that i have put forth.
To help my ideas to match the conventions of the crime/ action genre i am looking specifically at the moment at the title sequences of the opening of the film Snatch, specifically the order of the titles the font and the timings that they appear on screen, and also the timings that they appear, meaning is it at the beginning or after a small section of action or at the end of the opening 5 minutes.
These timings and parts of the opening are all crucial to get my opening as close and similar to the conventions of the well known crime/ action films.

idea

My first idea is relatively basic but i am thinking of starting with a chase scene that will then go back to a safe house of sorts, i have yet to go in to the details of this plot...

Back To WORK!!!

First day back with media,

Will need to update blog weekly once again

And on week one I will need to update my blog twice.

I need to begin to think of ideas to begin to create my production plan,

I could do this by doing a story board or shooting script, I think this time I need to include some theories in to my production, such as the use of binary opposites, because this will be crucial in my crime/ action genre opening.

In the next blog post I hope to be posting the possibilities for my production that will be possible for me to create with low production costs. Hopefully the ideas will include a range of settings and narratives.