The narrative of our film, sticks to the usual narrative
seen in many other films. We did veer away from certain genre and narrative
conventions, but it matches the typical formula quite well. You could compare it
to films like “The Godfather” and “Pulp Fiction”, while also being able to
compare it to TV series such as “The Sopranos”. All follow a crime related
plot. And all have similar narratives. “Pulp Fiction” served as our main
inspiration. The plot is essentially established within the opening sequence.
The story also revolves around that key event. So, by establishing the
storyline quickly as well as it being a key plot development which the film
stems from helps to create an interesting narrative and story. It leaves you
thinking throughout the film. The idea behind the film is that someone set up
Niko and Demarco (Main characters), but they aren’t sure who. They assume it’s
Lukas (The other drug dealer within the opening sequence). The sequence follows
a circular and disjointed narrative as opposed to be linear. With flashbacks
and flash forwards within the first 2 or so minutes. Screens which read ’30 minutes
later’ and ’30 minutes earlier’ are used to signify and emphasise the jump in
time.
The genres of our film are Crime and Thriller. With Thriller
being the main one. The locations (Alleyways, garages, back passes) are all
typical locations that you would see in a similar film with the same genre.
This is because criminals want to do their crimes in secrecy in less public
places. The colours are very monotone. Everything is quite dark and is set at
night, there are a few oranges and blues. Oranges and blues are typical of
action and thrillers. It is a favourite colour combination among many film
makers. The clothing is typical of the genre, the ‘Demarco’ character wears
quite rugged and unprofessional like clothing, which is something you might see
in certain crime films (ones not depicting suit wearing Italian mafia of course).
All this is typical of the narrative we have gone for and the genre/genres we
have chosen.
Like in most action-packed films, the camera tends to not be
on a tripod, especially for chase scenes, so our opening sequence and by
extension our film plot, would call for a lot of hand held shots, with the
camera moving erratically to increase tension. We tried doing it in our opening
sequence, and we feel that incredibly fast movement just doesn’t work, as it is
disorientating. We felt that slow but still quite fast movement was better. Following
the characters but allowing the natural shaking of the camera from running with
it just add to the tension. We didn’t purposely shake the camera while running,
as we wanted a nice smooth-ish shot. At first, the first few shots where all
joined up smoothly, continuity was constantly kept throughout and it was
perfect, but we felt it was a bit too slow. Shots lasted for a while and thus
wasn’t that exciting. We decided to use jump cuts from one scene to a next.
This sped up the action tenfold, and therefore led to a more intense scene,
which you might see fit into a professional film. The pacing was quite fast,
apart from conversation scenes, especially the drug deal, which was nice and
slow. We wanted it to be slow so that the characters seem methodical and
intelligent. They use their brain before they speak, instead of letting their
mouth do the talking. Which is what we wanted to emphasise. Slow pacing is what
we needed to get that impression across to the viewer.
The music choice was incredibly important. We wanted the
music to sound thuggish, something that a typical ‘gangster’ or crime oriented
group might listen to. We wanted to establish that this was a crime film. Our
original choice, which was Vince Staples ’65 Hunnid’ was unsuitable due to
copyright complications. So, we went with another song instead.
Iconography, such as guns and drugs, really helps to
establish a negative atmosphere, which is present in most crime oriented films.
It also helps to establish a violent connotation. Guns and drugs are typical of
crime films, with guns being typical of thriller films. A gun is present in
pretty much all the various shots.
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