Proposal Feedback

• Great presentation
• Good Idea
• Strong conventional features
• Clear target audience
• Strong Actors
• Will we be able to sustain the visual look of the action-thriller genre?
• Second half of narrative is not working.
• Keep 'Matt' on the first floor until the guy enters the house.
• Then cross-cuts between guy walking up stairs and 'Matt' running upstairs and trying to hide.
• This avoids issue of having 'Matt' looking scared in the upstairs of his own house!
• Develop chronological sequence. 

We were given the green light to move onto pre-production.
We received an A grade for our Planning.
We received an A grade for our Presentation.

Proposal Handout

Proposal Toms and Hugh

Our Actors:

MATTEO BRAGOLI 

Cast in our main role is an experienced actor of eleven years with two oscar nominations under his belt. Since acting from a very young age he has been very successful on stage. Known for his musical talents he finds time to play regularly with a band as well as appearing in sell-out performances popular plays and musicals. Matteo has gained many acheivements over the years, winning the hit childrens reality show 'Tiger's Wood', and most recently securing a distinction in his grade 8 drama. Nearly selected for the role as Alex Rider in the 2006 film, Matteo is still striving to win his first oscar.     

HUGH DONNELLY
Hugh has had a long and lucrative acting career.

He began aged just 10, with a brief stint on hit childrens reality show 'Tiger's Wood', but was quickly eliminated from the competition. 


He has been the star of many high grossing feature films and popular TV shows.

He appeared for a few seconds on 'The Football League Show' on the BBC late last year.

He has dabbled briefly in the modeling industry, appearing on the cover of the 2008 game 'Agent Recall'.

He has also become an internet sensation following appearences in many short films on YouTube.


He truly is a living legend, with many awards and accolades. He looks forward to being able to put something back into industry that has given him so much, as the executive producer of this film.

He will be wearing a balaclava.

Brief Film Synopsis:

Matthew Lockwood is 19. He doens't know it, but his father works for MI5. Taken hostage by a mysterious armed man, Matt learns of his fathers job and of how he is wanted by terrorists for the capturing of one of their leaders. Faced with his only sons life in one hand, and the freedom of a terrorist leader responsible for the death of thousands of innocent people in another, Agent Lockwood must make the choice between the two, even if means breaking the law to save his sons life...       

Practicalities of our Idea

• We have one good location that we can definately use fo our project, which allows for good lighting, and is the the only location we are shooting at

• We have two good, reliable actors, one of which is in our group

• We do not have any explosions, car chases etc and dont need any CGI: we have kept thing as simple as possible

• We have access to a car, and access to a fully licenced driver

• We all enjoy the genre, which means that we all know the conventions have a good idea of what our sequence should look like

• Our sequence will be filmed during the daytime, so lighting will not be as much of an issue

• Due to the location, we will easily be able to film in one weekend

• There is no dialogue in our sequence, so as to keep things as simple as possible, and because we don't want to reveal much information about character at this point

Revised Proposal:

The narrative centres around an innocent young man whom at the start we see running into his house through the back. He has a few minor injuries and is frightened. He enters his house and makes his way upstairs in a hurry. He enters one of the front-facing rooms on the upper floor and cautiously looks out of the window.


At this moment we see a car pull up outside his house and a man steps out. He is carrying a gun and quickly puts on a balaclava. He carefully scans the street for activity (of which there is none). From the window the innocent man tries to get a closer look, but as a result the armed man notices him and stares straight up at the window.

Alarmed, the innocent man makes his way to the top of the house, desperate for an escape route. He reaches the top of the house and on inspection realises he cannot escape through the window on the roof. Suddenly he hears the sound of the door closing, telling him that the armed man is in the house. There is no way out.

We then follow the armed man through his search of the house and gradually up the several flights of stairs. The house is silent as neither of the men are eager to give away their position. The armed man then enters the room of the innocent man.

Ending:

As the armed man enters the room, the innocent man is hiding and jumps at him in an attempt to disarm and overpower him. This however fails, and in a few quick movements the armed man is holding the innocent man against the wall with a gun to his head. He then knocks the innocent man out.

Genre Research: Thriller

Genre in film helps both institutions and audiences. When films are grouped in Genres they are placed according to similar characteristics or features. This allows audiences to pre-empt which films they may enjoy watching and allows institutions and film makers to make films relevant to a specific genre so that it will definitely find an audience. Genre is usually broken down into 4 main categories as shown below on our brainstorm:

The aspects highlighted in a white oval are those which are present in our opening sequence. Since most of the aspects are highlighted our openign sequence does follow the normal convention of an action thriller.

Audience Profile

Here is a typical member of our target audience.

- His name is John
- He is 20
- He is a student studying at the London School of Economics
- He has a girlfrined, also 20, who is called Amanda, also studying at the London School of Economics
- He enjoys going out to bars and nightclubs with his friends
- He enjoys watching football, and is a chelsea fan
- He enjoys a wide range of pop music
- He will typically go to the cinema about once a month, and will watch a blockbuster, and particularly enjoys action, explosions, and gun-porn
- He doesn't enjoy Rom-Coms

Target Audience

 Primary Audience

• Male
• Aged 15-30
• May not necessarily be a film fanatic, but enjoys going to the cinema
• Enjoys going out with friends, partying, gaming, sport, and social networking
• May have an averagely paid job
• Or be a student

Secondary Audiences

• Girls of the same age range, either that enjoy action films themselves or are going with their boyfriends
• Older/middle aged males who still enjoys action films, gaming etc

Genre: Action Thriller

Here is a small mood board that summarises how the genre of action thriller has influenced our opening sequence

This mood board shows a mix of guns, knifes and running stills. The movie Taken is prominent since it is one of my favourite action thrillers and has been a massive influence on my perception of our opening sequence. The Strangers is also shown since it is a very good movie at building tension which is what we aim to do in our sequence. 

Possible Opening Shots:

This short extract is from Season 6 (Episode 5) of the US drama HOUSE. I really like how the action is done in this scene but I was most inerested in the first 3 shots used. After showing this clip to the group we saw that this could be a potential way to film our character running through the metal gates around the back of his house.

Note: Interest is only in the very first 3 or so shots of this sequence. Ignore the police car and other characters. Focus on shots of man-running!

Posted By Tom A

Initial location photography

22 Jan 2010

Here are some shots of a possible location that we could shoot at.