Representaion and Media Language in Children of Men

The opening scene to children of men starts with a news report before the audience sees anything. This gives the audience a sense of tension and action already in the movie. Furthermore the whole of the opening scene was shot in one shot without cutting which was used to create a natural effect and atmosphere. The titles to the opening scene are all in black and white which is plain and simple but still effective. In the opening scene diguetic sound of the cars and traffic of the city has been used to emphasis the business of the city and show that it is set in an everyday situation. Also right before the explosion goes off there is a couple kissing this shows the stunt team their queue to set off the explosion. When the character walks outside the shop there is a date that comes up on the screen which lets the audience know that the film is set in the future. Also the title of the film comes up just as soon as the explosion has gone of which would the keep the audience interested and curious to watch more.

In the opening sequence London is represented negatively as a very manic and busy city to be. London is also represented as highly unsafe and full of pollution. The opening of Children of Men also represents London as being an area where there is a lot of crime as a cafe has just exploded; this represents what the future could possibly be like in London. The opening of children of men doesn’t fit the usual conventions of thriller as we know that the man who walked out the cafe is important in the film but it leaves a sense of ambiguity as there is still the question of weather he is a protagonist or antagonist. This leaves the audience to feel a sense of curiosity. Furthermore just before the camera cuts to the name of the movie it zooms into a woman who is badly injured and struggling, this gives of a sense that women are meek and feeble and shows that throughout the film it will be the women who are in great distress and are struggling as we find out later in the film that they become infertile are unable to reproduce. The mise en scene is in a gloomy dark setting with cars driving past releasing at lot of heavy smoke from the engine. This again adds to the representation of an unliveable chaotic London in the future.

Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task we learned the 3 main rules of filming:

• SHOT REVERSE SHOT

Shot reverse shot is when the other character is shown looking back at the first character. which gives the scene a sense of continuity with the conversation between the two characters moving smoothly.

• MATCH ON ACTION

Match on action connects two shots cut together by having a character finish an action in the second cut.  We also included match on action in our preliminary this also allows the scene to move smoothly with correct editing.

• 180 DEGREE RULE

180 degree is when two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other.  

Thriller Director

We analysed  the different thrillers that have been produced by Quentin Tarantino and studied his different techniques that he used to produce his film. Quentin Tarantino is a famous thriller director. Some of his most famous works are Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction. We watched some of his movies and studied the opening sequence of theses movies  and analysed  the ways  he directed them. We looked at the editing lighting sound and  the mise en scene of Kill Bill, and noted how it fitted the generic conventions of a thriller.

Research and planning

We got our screen shots from the Pearl and Dean website who are a big advertisement company for cinema advertisement, so it means when you are in the cinema and you are waiting for those time consuming adverts to finish. For are research and planning to be successful we had to make sure we know what type of people to segment for our film such as there: class which how much people from different classes will spend on a movie, age is for what type of age will watch our film e.g. teenagers are likely to watch our film because they have free time and more freedom, rather than older adults who tend to be busy due to longer working hours or just people who do not like spending money, gender is basically out of male and female for example who tends to go to watch films more. However we had to make sure these criteria match our specific genre which is thriller.

This is a screenshot of the search criteria which allows us to search for a film that will be comparison to ours. Likewise thriller movies, which can be searched for by past release, or even expand your search on actors who are the film. The screen shot below shot below shows what came up for us when we typed in the film were looking for.

 This screenshot shows a comparable profile to our film, and the genre which is thriller. We researched   the audience for Paranormal Activity movie as our film is very similar to this movie and it is also the same genre. The image below shows that the percentage of people went to watch Paranormal Activity due to comparable research from other films which may have the same theme. Based on research males are more likely to watch this film than females. Furthermore our film is going to be targeted at the age range 15-24yrs as that is the average age of paranormal activity, also because they have the highest percentage for watching thriller movies, so we targeted this age range. Knowing the audience of our film will help us to meet the wants and expectations of our target audience.


Questionnaire

As part of our reserched we formed a questionnaire to gain more information about our target audience and peoples views and opinions about thrillers in general.


Questionnaire Feedback

Question 5: What would you prefer in an opening of a Thriller Movie? 

Finally the part chart results from our thriller questionnaire show that. 60 percent of people like to see no dialogue in the opening of a thriller movie. This is because research shows that it adds a sense of ambiguity to the audience and suspense when there is no dialogue. This is why we decided in our opening movie sequence there will be no dialogue.

Question 4: If selected Thriller what do you like about thriller movies

The results on the pie chart shows what people like to see in thriller are the blood and the suspense. This is what appeals to those who watch thriller movies. Unfortunately there is no blood in the opening of our opening sequence; we just decided to stick with suspense which as the second highest percentage.

Question 3: what is your favorite genre?

The pie chart from our questionnaire shows that thriller as the larger percentage than all the other genres. This is the main reason why we decided the opening sequence of a thriller. 

Question 2: how Old are you

This pie chart illustrates that age 12-16 and ages 17-25 are the one dominating the age barrier. The age mostly dominating the research is teenagers because they are more interested, also they are the one who go to watch films more. If you look at the older ages they tend to go cinema less because they are busier with things such as: work, trying to keep fit, or those who do not like spending money. This is why we decided make teenagers are target audience, because they have more time and more freedom these days. We finally decided ages 16-25 as our target audience mostly containing teenagers.

Question 1: Are you a Male or Female?

As you can see this is a pie chart of the results from my questionnaire. The pie chart shows that more male were interested than female, this is because female tend not to care about movies also when they saw the heading ‘thriller conventions’ they decided to pass. This is because research shows that female have a propensity to watch different film genres such as: Romance, Drama. On the other hand male tend to participate more because they like to get their point across when it comes to movies and they have more time, rather than female who prefer to socialise

Certificate Rating

The BBFC ratings rates film that are about to be released,our film is going to be rated a 12A. We checked the BBFC ratings which gave of guidelines for different film genres. . The 12A category exists only for cinema films. No one younger than 12 may see a 12A film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult, and films classified 12A are not recommended for a child below 12. An adult may take a younger child if in their judgement the film is suitable for that child.Our film is a 12A as it is a thriller and has suspense throughout the opening which may not be suitable for children under the age of 12 we rated our opening titles according to the BBFC guidelines. We did not rate our opening sequence any certificate rating higher that 12a, because the 12a BBFC guidelines matched our opening sequence. As you can see these are the content which matches 12a such as :  

• Discrimination - discrimination language and behaviour must not be endorsed by the whole for a 12A film.

• Drugs - Any misuse of drugs must be infrequent and should not be glamourised.

• Horror - Moderate physical and psychological threat may be permitted.

• Language - Moderate language is allowed the use of strong language must be infrequent.

Camera stand

 we used a camera stand for the shots which were not being taken hand held such as the estabishing shot.

Equiptment