my film synopsis

Our film Lithium is based on an assasin known only as 3313. After the death of his wife and child this assasin is looking for answers and is hunting down the corupt comapany that lead to their death. We follow the role of the hitman as he goes on nemorous hits whilst fighting the harrowing emotions in which he cannot escape. The links between work and emotions pull the viewer into a deeply twisted film riddled with hidden secrets and lies. The hitman is fighting to seperate his inner self to seek revenge on an almost impossible mission to bring down the company that have betrayed him and killed his family in the most devastating cruel way ever to be shown on the big screen.

Layer cake first of three film openings

layer cake is a action thriller that follows a theme of drugs and crime. Layer cake opens with a narrative voice over of the main charachter explaining the plot of the film.we see very little action in the opening, we see the main charachter walking out of a privite door in an estate agents and entering a nice car, we see close ups and medium shots so far showing the man wears very expensive suits reinforcing his buissness man look. the opening uses very few pans but uses many fast cuts as the man walks briskly around seeming as if he has got somewhere to be, this is expressed in the frequent cuts.

The next scene cut to Daniel Craig (the main charachter) walking down a path and into a house, he is still wearing a suit but now has a black gym bag in his hand. The voice over now explains that the man is not infact a straight buisness man but is a cocaine dealer run by his own rules on not to get caught. The narrative voice explains that he is still a buissness man but his commodity happens to be cocaine.

the next scene is of the Daniel Craig walking into a room with another man smoking and cutting a white powder assumed to be cocaine. The man is adding powder from a jar and mixing with the cocaine, here we are told a simple rule, dont get greedy, 4 kilos will split to 8 kilos, the narrative voice tells us the man is  a sharp buisness man that knows how to make money and how not to get caught.

props and mise en scene are very important in this opening, the clothing showing he is a buisnessman, the large amounts of cocaine and there are wads of cash in the black bag portraying the success of this man. within the opening very litte music is played to enphasise the narrative voice which gives us the hard hitting rules on how not to get caught. the camera angles used without have been used cleverly to show the importance of each prop, the cash and the cocaine have had close ups on, the close up on the jar of white powder shows he is mixing another powder with cocaine and the medium shots used to show the dress sence of each charachter.

at the end of this opening the camera semmingly zooms out from the table of cocaine and through a window to the outside of the house as the sound of sirens sound outside the house. this is a hard hitting opening that strongly explains the storyline but leaves the questions of what happens after the sirens come, is he successful, where does the money go, who is the cocaine for and how does the whole operation work.

the film has helped me get ideas for my own film opening and has given me the idea to use little to no charachter dialouge and to possibly use a voice over throughout the opening to give the serious mood the film needs.

hermeneutic code and film openings.

The hermeneutic code is an unanswered question that the audience will want to answer. The code is, parts of the story that is not fully explained, they exist as questions that the audience wishes to be involved.The code will intrest the audience from the begining of the film and will keep the viewers wanting to watch to reveal the questions that they want answers to. Most detective stories are based and rely on these codes, the film openings are to be short and unrevieling this will keep the audience second guessing and asking questions. "less is more" within a film opening, a film opening must also use enigma codes and introduce the main charachters.

Preliminary task

I created my preliminary task a few weeks ago making a short film as the first part to my media studies filming, it went quite well i learnt to use all the equipment fairly quickly and it helped me to get an understanding of how my final film will be, it gave me some ideas on my limitations and what sort of film i would like to film. in my preliminary task we had a short film using the following criteria: charachter walks through a door, match on action, two charachters within the scene, dialougue used, shot reverse shot used, ensuring the 180 degree rule is not broken and the 30 degree rule ensuring i have invisible editing (continuous editing). using this criteria we made a short film in our group of three, this was my preliminary task.

my blog

Just created a new blog after my last one failed heres my first post, will be posting soon about my progress in media studies.