Inspirations From Film

We gathered several inspirations that helped form the story and choices we used in our project.

This is a trailer for the movie The Cincinnati Kid. What particularly inspired us from the movie was the underground world of gambling that the movie use. It was also our primary reason for choosing our characters to have a costume of suit and tie. This would give the audience a sense of professionalism and danger.

This is a scene from the 1998 film Rounders. This scene gave us a lot of inspiration as it shows the final hand of the illegal poker game being played. It features only diegetic sound including minimal talking. This was why we made the decision to keep speech to a minimum during our poker game, to make the poker game seem more real to the audience.

Editing research

As the genre of our film was a thriller we had limited option in what kind of cuts we could use for our film opening. These edits are:

• continuity editing
• cutting
• dissolving
• shot / reverse shot
• and fading.

Continuity editing will be the basis of our editing. Continuity editing means editing in a way in which an action shown through several different shots runs smoothly. Most of our editing will consist of simple continuity cuts and our film opening will show different sequences of actions that require being shown smoothly for it to be effective.

The dissolve is a camera edit technique that suggests a passage of time. We could incorporate this into our project perhaps as the driver waits for the gambler to make his way to the car.

The shot / reverse shot shows the interaction between two individuals. This can be used in our project when the killer and the driver meet up outside the flat.

Fading to black also suggests a passage of time. This has been decided to feature in our film opening in two particular scenes. The first use of fading to black is right at the end of the poker scene. This will therefore show that the poker game has been over and something else is now happening at a later time. The second use of fading to black would be at the end of second scene when the driver enters the car. This will be edited in upon the sound of the car door shutting.

- Sharmarke.

Camera shots research

In preparation for the film opening we were to create we did some research into typical camera shots used. The various shots have different effects. The close up and its variations convey emotion to the audience. The long shot shows the subject fitting into the screen creating a true likeness of the character making it seem life-like. The wide shot, shows the subjects surroundings, giving the audience an idea of where he is located.

The close up.

Extreme close up.

Medium close up.

Long shot. 

Wide shot.

- Kausar.

Credits research

As we would have to include the typical credits found in a film opening, I had done some research into what the hierarchy of credits would be. After not too much looking into I found an article on Wikipedia which showed what the typical order is. Below is what the typical order is:

 After reading through that and verifying it with other sources, this is what we have decided to include in our opening:

• Name of the studio
• Name of the production company
• Producer name
• Director name
• Starring
• Film title

The initial plan is to place the studio and production company names at the beginning of the film, before anything is shown. The names of the producer and director come next during the poker scene. Characters who are starred will come throughout the rest of the film opening and the film title will be shown right at the end. We thought putting the title at the end of the film was a good idea because it allowed us to show the audience that the video they were watching was in fact an opening sequence. The reason for putting the studio and production company names at the beginning was to establish that it was a film and to follow the conventions of starting a film. We felt showing the producer and director names during the film opening was good because the placement was perfect for it and we didn't want to waste time before we actually started showing the film opening, therefore getting straight into the action.

- Sharmarke.

The New And Improved Story

After redrafting our initial story we had a new outline of what our film opening would be. The newer version of our story was this: a young gambler is in a poker game which he ends up winning. He then leaves but is killed by a masked man in his home as his earnings are stolen from him. It becomes clear that the killer is in fact the previous loser of the poker game who had left before the game was finished and is also working with his partner who is the hired driver.

-  Sharmarke.

Initial inspiration for the opening scene

As one of the problems we had was introducing the main character, we had to figure out how to go about doing this. As previously stated, our character is a young man who has come into some wealth so we had to find a way to not only show him, but to tell the audience that he is in fact rich. With the help of Mr McManus, we were pointed into the direction of a movie entitled The American Gigolo. This movie is about a male prostitute who runs into some trouble later on in the movie but we were not interested in the whole movie. We had our eyes on one particular scene which showed its main character getting ready to leave, as seen in the video below. We plan to use a similar scene to introduce and set up our character and his story.

- Aram. 

The Story - Problem 2

Within our initial story, there was another problem we faced. We had worked out how to sort out our first issue - by keeping the camera on the two characters - but now our story became a little confusing as there was no clear motive as to why the main character was going to be abducted in the first place. Our original plan was to have the whole poker game but to shorten the scene we decided to just use the end to show what was going on. This would then make the story clear as the film progresses. So we further discussed what to do about this and we decided that we would attempt to place a phone call or send a text message between the gambler and the driver after showing the initial scene to show the audience that something was up, implementing clearly what the gambler had done to deserve it and whether it is business or personal.

Through discussion we had overcome the two main issues we had with our story. This led to myself rewriting the initial story to create a new and improved version. Now I had to write up a shotlist with the new story.

- Sharmarke.

The Story - Problem 1

With direction of what we hope to accomplish, we set out to take some initial shots in order to see what our story would look like. We decided to shoot the first scene. The first scene was about establishing who was involved in the game all passing the bouncer. The problem we faced was establishing who the main character would be, as Mr McManus pointed out to us that it was unclear. To overcome this we considered the option of adding an additional scene but ultimately we decided to make the first character seen to be myself as I play an important role in the film, then show a lot of Aram first during the outside scene as he also plays an important and role and finally show the two of us right at the end of the sequence to show the audience that we're both linked together.

- Sharmarke.

The Story

After continuous discussion and endless debating, we had concluded with finalising what would be the story for our film opening. Summarising the story as shortly as possible, it was going to be about a young man who had recently come into wealth joining an underground poker game only to be killed at the end of it. So after sorting out the basic story we had to discuss locations, costumes, props, characters etc. The image below is our plans for the film opening. The bullet points along the margin show what we have sequenced and what each scene will be about. The writing to the right hand side show what kind of shots we plan to use and the writing scattered along the bottom of the page are of additional notes for the film.

- Sharmarke.

The Continuity Piece

Our continuity piece.