Welcome to my blog, at the moment I'm on my AS Media Studies course. This blog is designed to contain a record of all the research and planning, leading up to the production of our slasher film (tentatively entitled 'Red Christmas'...)
For our task, we chose to swede the film Taken, a 2008 action blockbuster starring Liam Neeson. We thought the action-orientated plot would be great to spoof, and we shot the video over an hour in lesson time.
We needed very few props, as we selected scenes from the first half of the film that were mostly dialogue based with some action scenes thrown in. We tried to vary our shot types, using shot-reverse-shot and over the shoulder shots for scenes in which two of the main characters were talking to each other. Later on in the video angles were used to show the power and vulnerability of the kidnappers and their victim.
After we had shot several minutes of footage, we took it back to the computers to use Final Cut to edit it. Most of the footage was cut out; this was mostly due to retakes and outtakes, but the trimming down of scenes and the use of different angles was also a major cause.
We hope the final version of the swede captures the key scenes of the film and will be instantly recognisable to those who have watched the original version; with of course deliberate variations for comic effect!
Director:Bruce Robinson Year: 1987 Box office gross: US $1.5m
UK £500k Budget: £1.1m
Synopsis:
Withnail and I is the semi-autobiographical tale of two young unemployed actors at the end of the 1960's; the egomaniac Withnail and the anxious 'I'. Living in squalor, they decide to escape from their depressing lives and enjoy a holiday in the Lake District, thanks to Withnail's Uncle Monty. But things do not go particularly smoothly, and the holiday is anything but idyllic.
The film's original poster
The logo for Hand Made Films, a British independent film company would suggest that the film itself has been relatively cheaply made. There are no other logos for production companies or distributors, backing up this theory.
This is a simple medium shot, with the character off centre to the right. The film title fades in in the bottom left-hand corner, making it easy to read and also to watch the opening scenes.
The producers name appears before any other cast or crew member, giving a sense of ownership.
The credits for the main cast start to fade in, and it could be inferred that the actor whose name appears first is the one the camera is focusing upon.
The shot has now become a close up, with the actor (Paul McGann) framed centrally as opposed to off to one side as he was before.
An extreme close up, and we get even more of a sense of the character and what emotions he is feeling.
A slow pan across the room allows for further cast and crew names to appear. A second function of the shot is to establish the characters surroundings through use of mise-en-scene. We get the idea of what kind of environment he's living in.
It's perhaps unusual for the production designer to recieve credit first, but as we're panning across a set he presumably designed, it's strangely appropriate.
Again, the camera operator has also contributed to the mood created so far, and we are currently looking through his lens.
The scenes add further background detail through use of mise-en-scene, we are given exposition about the character's surroundings.
The music that plays throughout the opening acts as a bridge to all of the scenes, as well as building mood. It's also an example of non-diagetic sound.
The second credit for producer Paul Heller, suggesting that he had a major part in helping the film get made.
The writer/director's credit is the last in the sequence before the film begins, and it's fairly inconspicuous, the same size as all the previous credits.
This is the first time dialogue has been spoken in the film, and it sets up the relationship between the character we have been following and his roomate.
This last bit of onscreen text sets up the film's location and time simply and effectively. It also dispenses with any narrative enigma the audience might've had about the setting.
A Fistful of Dollars(Sergio Leone, 1964)
Estimated $200,000 budget
It took $11,000,000 at the US box office
Length of opening sequence: 2:20
Idents: MGM 'Lion'
The famous MGM 'Lion' Logo
The gunfighter, riding into town...
MGM is one of the oldest American studios, and would've been responsible for distribution and marketing of the finished film, but not shooting as that was done by independent European filmmakers.
The name of the films star comes first...
... before the title of the film itself
The main co-star
The secondary actors
And the rest of the cast
Key production team members
More crew, and the copyright
In the corner, the films certificate
Production managers...
... and the producers themselves
Don't see this anymore...
Another theme, the shoot-out
The name of the film's main star, Clint Eastwood is in capital letters and very easy to read against the black background; so actually completely different from all the other titles in the opening sequence, which either use white or black on red. The filmmakers were banking on Eastwood's name, as he would've been the only really recognisable actor in the whole film.
Last of all comes the directors credit
The horseman
In this opening sequence, many of the title changes are accompanied by gunshots, richocet's and similar sounds, thereby establishing in the audience's mind exactly what kind of film they are about to see, if they didn't know already!
The heat of the sun expands...
... and with a fade to white, the film begins
The title changes are also accompanied by various strobe effects, almost like the flashing of the muzzle of a gun.
The cast names are never the same in each shot, sometimes at the top of the screen, sometimes at the bottom or the side. The names here are all in lowercase font as opposed to the capitals of the leads.
Inbetween the titles showing the names of the crew there are short animated sequences of typical western themes, cowboys, gunslingers and shoot-outs.
The music in this opening title sequence plays a large part in setting up the film; Ennio Morricone's iconic score is full of Mexican guitars and brass instruments and has helped define western film scores.
Technicolor and Techniscope (in the American spelling) were used to demonstrate that the film had been shot in colour and using wide-angle lenses. This film came out at a time when most TV shows were still in black-and-white, and even the cinema hadn't fully converted.
It's interesting that the directors credit comes last, even after you might've thought the list of names had finished. But perhaps it's a canny choice on the part of the director, whose name would've been the last people would've seen before the film began proper.
The hazy light here is a good stand in for the heat of the sun, famous in westerns. The expansion of the sun results in the screen becoming completely white, which then fades away to allow the film to begin.
My idea is that we should do a swede of the film Scream(1996, Wes Craven). As a horror film, there would be great opportunities to mess around with the genre; and as a satire of the cliches of horror films there are plenty of comedic moments that can be exaggerated to great effect.
Horror films are fairly easy to make as they don't require a lot of computer effects, and are usually based around practical effects and stunts that can be done physically. They also have a few main locations, most of which can be filmed around the local area.
It would be easy to shoot and quick to edit, and props and costumes would be very basic; so nothing that would be hard to locate in time. In terms of what scenes should be shot, I think the films most famous scenes should be included - the telephone call at the very beginning, the 'rules of a horror movie', and the action leading up to the climax.
So, what exactly is Sweding? Well, it's a kind of low-budget remake of an existing film; usually cut short so it only focuses on a few key scenes - often the scenes everyone remembers from the film. The idea of amateur versions of particular films has been kicking around for a while - but it was thanks to the film Be Kind Rewind(2008, Michel Gondry) that the idea really took off.
The plot of the film revolves around the two main characters who take it upon themselves to make low budget remakes of every film in their video store after all the originals are accidentally wiped. Amateur film-makers have shot their films in a similar way - usually in the same spirit as the original film, the films are done in a virtually no-budget, deliberately cheap and comical. Some use the lack of any money as a joke, others make jokes about the plot and spoof several famous scenes.
Sweding actually has nothing to do with swedes. In the film, a joke was made about the poor quality of the remakes compared to the originals, the excuse being that the films were the imported 'Swedish' version.
