Coursework #1: The Beginning

I have decided to work with my friend Lewis. As of now, we have decided to do thriller but that's about the extent of where we are at, we are still very unsure about what sub-genre or what subject matter we are going to tackle. We are also undecided on whether we will edit together or not. The plan for now is that we will plan and act out the scenes together but we will edit the footage with our on vision of what the product should be like.

One thing that I think will be a very important part of our project is the soundtrack which will play a huge part in creating the mood and the tone. I have started finding royalty free music websites and looking around for suspenseful music. I am deciding whether to go for orchestral or techno base music, both of them would be used similarly but they with both be significantly different as you could imagine

I have always struggle with finding the right location that will support the narrative since the start of media. I have suggested our school's lake which would be perfect for our story. It is also much easier to be given allowance to use it. The other setting that could potentially be used is the headquarters of the detective, this would be fairly simple as we could just use our school offices. The last setting that is inconsideration is a dark alleyway, we were thinking that the detective could be doing some detective work there and investigating, it could also give us a great chance to explore lighting and camerawork.

This is the first idea that I had come up with, the genre is going to be thriller and the sub genre is crime. Here is how it goes:

1) Dead body on canoe in the middle of harrow late at dawn.
2) Someone finds the body at dawn.
3) Camera pans up to the sun and starts a time lapse with credits running over
4) Cuts to 2 detectives examining the dead body.
5) Detectives find clues and go back to their headquarters.
6) They talk over what these could mean.

After I suggested these ideas to Lewis he disagreed with certain parts of it. He didn't think that film openings should have time leaps and should be fairly close together. So I came up with a new take on the idea.

1) The victim is still alive and well doing their things
2) the victim is lured out by the killer
3) victim talks to killer who is in the shadow
4) the killer kills the victim quietly
5) puts him on the boat and pushes it out
6) smokes cigarette and goes back into the shadow

We then discussed a little bit more, Lewis then had the idea of the narrative following the killer instead. I was sceptical but decided to think of the story anyways so this is what I came up with

1) the victim is lured out by the killer
2) victim talks to killer who is in the shadow
3) the killer comes out exposing himself and killing the victim
4) killer puts victim in canoe and pushes it out
5) daybreak comes and its the killer taking the photo of the scene with the victim
6) he the walks away before the dead body is discovered
7) the killer walks away and watches the investigator from afar

These were the initial ideas that Lewis and I had.

American Sniper Opening Analysis

This is the opening scene of the biographical war drama film released in 2014, American Sniper. This is directed by Clint Eastwood and stars Bradley Cooper as the main character Chris Kyle who was killed in February of 2013.

This is an amazingly done opening scene that is suspenseful and tense. It perfectly teases us with a heart racing well crafted action scene and sets up the rest of the movie and especially Chris Kyle's backstory.

The first few scenes is shown to setup the threat, show us the setting, put us right in the action and build up tension with the extremely realistic portrayal of war. We firstly have a shot of a gigantic tank which immediately puts us on edge, it also shows us soldiers which tells us that they are at war somewhere. We then have a wide shot which shows us what kind of terrain and situation we are working with. We also see Chris Kyle and his spotter on the roof.

We are then shown Chris Kyle’s scope which is gives us Chris Kyle’s point of view and consequently his perspective. Putting us even more in his place. This is much more important later on. We see a man on a communication device who Chris Kyle has located. Chris asks for advice but is told to make the decision himself. He then goes to adjust his scope suggesting that he is considering shooting. But before then the man moves away

Right after that a (presumably) a mother and a child comes out of a building. We do not know what their motives are just like Chris in that situation. He then asks for advice on what he should do however, once again he has to make his own decision. The mother then pulls out something from her pocket and gives it to the child. It’s an RPG shell. He has to make the call whether to shoot the kid or not. Not doing so could mean harm for his comrades, doing so would be extremely unethical and hard to mentally cope for any man. This is where the first person POV looking through the scopes is so so important. It makes us ask ourselves “What would we have done in that situation?”. We then cut to Chris’ finger which is on the trigger ready to shoot, it slowly inches closer bringing us to the edge of our seat. Before the trigger is pulled we cut to the past, with us, the audience brimmed with excitement and intrigue.