Influences On Production

Influences on production

So far, our planning has not been as accurate as it should have been and so when we came to start our filming, we discovered our plot would not work as successfully or effectively as we’d hoped. At the moment we are currently discussing different ideas for the ending, however the general outline of the plot still remains the same, it is just a few details we cannot decide on. The genre will continue to be based around ideas from action, thriller and crime films, and so we have been looking into both films and TV series, such as Taken and Luther in the hope to gain ideas and be influenced in our own production.

We gained the initial ideas for our plot using the film Taken by Pierre Morel as we liked the young vulnerable teenage girl gone missing aspect to the film, and we thought it would be something we would be able to reproduce ourselves. Using the film Taken, we learnt that to successfully build tension and make the film enjoyable for the audience, action was needed, especially violent fight scenes. We decided this would not be one of our strong points which is why we decided to add the crime thriller aspect to our opening two minutes as well, enabling us to avoid any fight scenes but also keep it realistic as it is only the first two minutes and so realistically, not too much should be given away.

Looking and observing the trailers from Taken, it is clear that due to the increase in action, it results in the increase of pace within the editing, in order to confuse the audience and make it unclear as to what’s happening. Different focuses are also used, such as a deep focus and shallow focus, to draw the audience’s attention to one particular thing, or the whole frame, depending on the effect the director wishes to produce. The opening two minutes of Taken is quite slow and hesitant without presenting any sort of action. This is because, generically, in an action film, there has to be a sense of reality portrayed in order to allow the audience to relate or understand the film with more enjoyment. Due to the lack of action and thrill inthe opening few minutes, despite the genre, the pacing of the shots are very slow and transform into one another smoothly, instead of sharp cut transitions. The non-diegetic soundtrack doesn't get used until the action begins, which is another hint as to when the action will begin and the build-up. At the beginning of the film it is all based upon diegetic sound, once again, adding to the realism.

From briefly looking at Taken the film, it has helped us become aware of what we will have to include in our film to make it as successful as possible. Highlighting the importance of the realistic features has become one of our key priorities to partake in, in order to be able to link it to reality. The most important techniques we have decided to focus on are the different shots and the pace of editing, especially as if we are making an action/crime/thriller film. Although we haven't been able to display the opening two minutes of Taken, from our previous experience of watching it plenty of times, we have come to the conclusion that it is a good film to base ours around. This is because it has a sudden effect on the audience through establishing the genre, targeting the audience and setting the tone and theme of the film.

Luther is a successful televised drama that has been running for a few years. Luther was one of the main influences on our production once we had decided on the basic outline for the plot, which as mentioned before, was gained with the help of the film Taken. Using Luther, we were able to grasp ideas, mainly for the antagonist, such as the location he should be introduced in, the use of camera angles and movement used around him and some ideas of the props we would need. Although Luther contains a higher horror content than we wanted for our particular genre, we found that the villainous characters contained aspects which we thought were very effective and so wanted to use them ourselves. 

From one particular episode, we learnt that an effective way to portray the antagonist to the audience as a creepy, unhinged person, through the use of camera movement and angles was to use painfully slow movements. This makes it clear the antagonist doesn't belong there, but also makes them look abnormal, which aids the audience and their discomfort. We also found that using slow movements when focusing on the antagonist, mixed with a lack of blinking, highlights the unlawful activities which are about to take place, which is something we found effective and would like to use in our production. By using painfully slow camera movements, we also discovered that a slow editing technique would also be needed, and we thought it may be effective in increasing tension as it would act as a contrast between the cuts from different scenes. We already had prior ideas for the location in which our antagonist should be introduced to the audience in before watching Luther, and to our surprise they were very similar. We were reassured that an antagonist such as ours, is often introduced in dark, gloomy surroundings. We had already planned to use pictures of young girls from newspapers in order to enforce the antagonist's dark intentions, however we learnt that by covering a large area with many pictures and cuttings from newspaper articles etc, instead of a few which is what we had initially planned,  really emphasised the premeditated, creepy nature of the film, helping to set an uneasy tone.