Jak's producer research

Here is some research on some directors who have directing various action films

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino is well known for directing only a handful of films, but enjoying unlimited amounts of success with these films. Some of his films, including Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction and more recently Django Unchained. The content of his films are well known for being excessively violent and containing a large amount of blood and gore, while remaining amusing to the audience

what makes Tarantino stands out is his fearless nature towards controversial social issues. For example, the film ' inglorious basterds' is based entirely around Nazi Germany and the racist attitudes of them. Such controversial issues are prevalent throughout his films, and this makes him stand out from most directors, his willingness to explore controversial issues within his films.

J.J Abrams

Abrams is known mainly for his directory roles on films such as Mission Impossible (III) and two star trek films. Abrams also founded his own production company Bad Robot in 2001, and has also written many other movies and TV shows.

Under his production company Bad Robot, which he founded with Bryan Burk in 2001, Abrams created and executive-produced ABC's Alias and is co-creator (along with Damon Lindelof and Jeffrey Lieber) and executive producer of Lost. He later co-wrote the teleplay for Lost's third season premiere "A Tale of Two Cities." As with Felicity, Abrams also composed the opening theme music for Alias and Lost.

Michael Bay

Bay is known mainly for his work on the transformers series, especially the explosive effects in the films, which appear very frequently, which shows his intended focus in his movies. Furthermore, he directed the highly controversial Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was banned in numerous countries for its excessive blood, violence, and gore.

In 2007, he directed and teamed up with Steven Spielberg to produce Transformers, a live action film based on the Transformers franchise. The film was released in the U.S. and Canada on July 3, 2007, with 8 p.m. preview screenings on July 2. The previews earned $8.8 million, and in its first day of general release it grossed $27.8 million, a record for a Tuesday box office attendance.

Jak-

Quinn's Further Research Into Action Film Production Companies

There are many production companies who either specialize in action films, or have released many famous action movies, the three production films I am going to focus on are: Columbia Pictures and Paramount Pictures, and talk about the history of them producing movies.

Firstly I am looking at Columbia Pictures, they started producing films in 1924 and have produced 100's since, they do not just keep to one genre as they have produced a variety of films, although most of the films they produce are comedy's and of course action. Since 1989 they have been owned by Sony, this means that since then they have been producing more and more blockbuster movies, and because of their ownership by Sony, they often produce intellectual properties owned by Sony, such is the case in The Amazing Spiderman franchise. They have also produced movies related to other forms of media such as the Street Fighter movie, which is usually associated with video-games. They have produced a number of well-known action movies, as early as 1984 they were producing movies that people love even now, such as The Karate Kid, moving towards the present Columbia Pictures have produced many well-known films, producing all of the 3 most recent James Bond movies starring Daniel Craig, and remakes of classic films RoboCop and Total Recall.

The next producer I am looking at is Paramount Pictures, founded in 1912 Paramount has had lots of box-office success, as far back as 1972 they were making action films that will be remembered for years, The Godfather is a key example of this grossing over 134 million dollars, and to this day holding joint position for best film of all time according to IMDB. Again in 1986 they were making staggering amounts from box office when Top Gun was released, making over 353 million dollars internationally. More recent action movie successes include three of the most popular marvel superhero films including Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, together grossing over 700 million dollars.

-Quinn Nolan

The Heist- Final Draft

Final Film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_KHsAbalw

Quinn's Further Research Into Action Films Similar To Ours

There are many action films that have plots and story lines that have similarities to ours, these usually include other films that have a story line focused around a heist.

The first film I am having a look at is The Italian Job, two of the major similarities between it and our film is that firstly the intention of the characters is too steal gold using cars as a getaway vehicle, ours is similar to this but our characters are using bikes. Another similarity is the location, as a large majority of The Italian Job takes place in a garage, as does our film, the reason for this being that garages and workshops are associated with masculinity. Another similarity The Italian Job our film has is that the characters it follows are the thief’s rather than the police. In our film we also plan to use many of the styles of shots they use in The Italian Job, such as wide shots, which are used in this film to show all of the vehicles on screen.

The next film I am looking at is Snatch, it has many similarities which we hope to replicate in our introduction, some of the similarities include that the music is slow and builds up at first, and then evolves into action packed fast piece of music, like our film, also the characters faces are never revealed immediately within the first two minutes, exactly what we achieved in our introduction as the main characters face is never properly shown. Another similarity is that the main characters are mostly strong aggressive looking males, which is again the same as the character in our introduction, finally the films storyline is about groups of people who want to get money through stealing something valuable.

Lastly I am looking at the classic film Die Hard, although the people who are committing the heist are the villains, they are still similar to the protagonist in our movie, due to the fact they are trying to break into a vault, and also that they are all intelligent males , the main antagonist Hans Gruber is not a faceless boring villain, he is an interesting character with as much character development as John McClain, he is also very intimidating and is not afraid to kill people to  get what he wants, it is also shown that he has brains rather than brawns, which is the look we hoped to achieve with our character. The way they do the heist is also how our film planned it subtle, rather than loud, they sneak in undetected, and also use the method of hacking rather than explosions to get inside the vault, and were it not for the main protagonist they would have likely succeeded.

-Quinn

Quinn's Further Research into the Action Genre

From doing further research into the genre of action I have found out many conventions used within the four main categories of Sound, Mise-en-scene, editing and camera angles, through this I have found certain ways and styles that introduction action films are shot.

From the genre of action the sound is usually booming and intimidating, for the introduction of many films the music starts slow then gets faster to build up tension, there is almost always music and it is loud and fast to reflect the action that is happening on screen. The sound other than the music is almost always non-digetic other than the speech itself, most of the sound effects are added afterwards such as gun shots and doors closing.

There are many commonly used props in the action genre like weapons such as swords and guns, other frequently used props are things associated with action such as fast cars. Other action conventions within mise-en-scene is actors and costume, in many action films the characters are usually strong brave males, and they often wear dark clothing which give off a gritty look. The set in action films is again usually dark and not very colourful, and many scenes often take place in stereotypical masculine locations, such as ‘The Italian Job’.

In the genre of action the editing means that each shot is shorter than a usual average for other films because of the fast paced action scenes, another common editing conventions is that introductions to action films often contain a short fast paced action scene before the opening credits to set the mood and establish the characters. One of the most common editing tricks used predominantly in action films is slow-motion, this is often used to make a shot more dramatic, an example of this is ‘300’ which has a staggering 30 minutes of slow motion effects within it.

Finally there are many camera angles which are used very commonly in the genre of action, foremost the low-angle shot is used often, usually showing either the main character or main ‘villain’ in both of these examples it is usually an strong looking male, and the shot is used to portray this. There are also many close ups in action movies, sometimes of a gun or an object or a body part such as a mouth, these are usually used to draw all of the audience’s attention to this object.

-Quinn

Evaluation of Final Product - Quinn

Link to Prezi presentation via website: 

http://prezi.com/szusk9svwmaq/1-in-what-ways-does-your-media-product-use-develop-or-chal/

The Heist- Second Draft

This is our final and finished film: The Heist

or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jua2EmSKcNw&feature=youtu.be

-Jak and Quinn

Animated Storyboard

The Animated Storyboard for our film:

or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF4X2mvpQec

-Quinn Nolan

Original Storyboard

The original storyboard for our film:

or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Cb23JSR00

-Quinn Nolan

Audience feedback

Here is the feedback we received from our audience questionnaires  - Jak and Quinn

Evidence of Actors, Props and Location

Actors:

Location:

Props:

-Quinn Nolan 

Evaluation of Final product - Jak

http://prezi.com/vpfqqpjn4d7_/   A link of my evaluation in prezi format is provided, also a PDF version has been embedded if required  evaluation-of-media-film/media evaluation

Research of Action Directors and Their Filming Styles

In looking at research before our film I have looked at some of the top credited action directors, and the kind of films they film and how they film them.

Quentin Tarantino
Quentin tarantino is known for directing only a few films but almost all of those films being big successes, such as Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction and more recently Django Unchained, throughout these films he is known for his over the top action style scenes, usually having massive amount of blood and violence, he is known that he likes to shock the audience with gruesome and sudden deaths of major characters.

Unlike other directors he is not afraid to show blood spurts and generally uses real life things to show effects rather than CGI like other directors. Almost all of his films are controversial due to having excessive violence or racist themes, such as in Django and Inglorious Bastards.

James Cameron 
James Cameron is known for being ambitious rather than unique and like to try things other directors might be afraid of trying, he is also known as a director that, unlike Tarantino, like to use special effects whenever possible, films such as Avatar show this as he likes to show that he could make almost an entire film with green screen and special effects, because of this many of his films take place in the future and have a sci-fi theme to them, he originally became a director due to his sprawling imagination when thinking of movie ideas, and this still shows today.

Along with using many different special effects techniques he was also one of the first major directors using 3D filming in his film, while before it was very rarely used, James Cameron brought 3D back into the filming industry, he started of the 3D craze with Avatar, one the first films that could use 3D effectively and amaze audiences, now a days all most all films use 3D.

Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson is most famously known for the Lord Of The Rings series, and more recently the Hobbit movies, his style of action movies generally focus on a strong narrative rather than lots of action scenes, when filming action scenes he, like James Cameron, likes to blend a use of CGI while also using live action, he generally directs in the fantasy genre, but while they are fantasy they are also action.

His Lord Of The Rings movies are critically acclaimed, and as a directer he likes to tell a in depth storyline rather than overflow the movie with action scenes that don't bring anything to the movie, therefore you can learn from him that sometimes the story behind the action is more important than the action itself, if you use this in an introduction it means rather than actually showing action you just give the audience an idea of the genre to set up the action after the introduction.

-Quinn Nolan

Research of action films production companies

 To assist with our film production, conducting research on production companies who have produced action films will enhance our knowledge on the genre, and will also display that we can produce relevant research, which meets the criteria of AO4, which is marked on ability to produce appropriate research.


Lionsgate is a good example of a production company who produce action films. first major box office success was American Psycho in 2000, which began a trend of producing and distributing films too controversial for the major American studios including Lolita. Other notable films included Affliction, Gods and Monsters, Dogma, Saw, and the Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 which had been the studio's highest grossing film until the release of The Hunger Games in 2012. The hunger games films have been a huge success for the company, with the recent 'Catching Fire' instalment receiving rave reviews from audiences worldwide. In its first weekend, The Hunger Games grossed $152.5 million, making it Lionsgate's highest grossing film after just three days. This success underlined the companies glowing reputation which was further enhanced from the huge success of The Hunger Games.



Working Title are another example of a production company which have produced action films. Co-founded in 1983 by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe, Working Title have gone on to produce films such as the 2013 film 'Rush' which relives the intense rivalry between Formula 1 legends Niki Lauda and James Hunt. As of November 2013, the film has grossed $26,903,709, underlining the success the company has had in producing the film.



20th Century Fox is without a doubt the most well known company. Films such as Avatar, written and directed by James Cameron, has grossed a staggering $760,505,847 as of 12th November 2010. The success of this film underlines the huge status of the company, and secures its status as a giant in the industry.



With all these companies producing extremely successful action films, hopefully we can replicate some of the skills used, and use this research to our advantage, as we look to improve our film in any way we can.



- Jak