Journal entry 4

Today our group put together a rough edit of all the footage we have filmed so far. It was a reasonable success with everyone that watched it. However, we did notice that a few of the shots were a bit slanted because of a slightly broken tripod. Because of this our group will have to go back up to London next Saturday in order to capture the few shots that had this problem. Only a few shots will have to be redone and these include; the briefcase exchange shot and the Big Ben and Houses of Parliament shot. We will also have to choose a filming day which has similar good weather to the original filming day in order to keep the lighting consistent throughout the whole piece.

Agent X film pitch

Agent x pitch from james Covill

Class research

Here you can see a few of our spider diagrams we produced when we were researching different genres. You can then see in the second picture our spider diagram when we settled on the spy genre.

Audience profile

This is our audience profile for our film 'Agent X'. As you can see the main target audience is white, British males from 18-29. We felt this was an appropriate target audience as we felt the genre brings a lot of excitement and action, which a lot of younger people are interested in. Therefore this will be the main group of people who go to the cinema and watch our film. If we target this demographic and use a lot of marketing techniques which would appeal to them then they will be more likely to see our film and we will therefore generate more revenue.

Location shots

Here are some of our location shots which we took over 2 days of being up London. These are some of the key locations that we filmed our shots at.

Journal entry 3

Today 3 members of our group (me, Ghanshyam and Thomas) went up to London to film our establishing shots of the landmarks. The shooting went well, the weather was perfect and so was the lighting. We managed to film the majority of the shots on our storyboard with relative ease. Some of the shots came out blurry but we made sure that we filmed each shot at least 2/3 times.
 There was one issue with the Houses of Parliament show however. We didn't know beforehand that there was construction work on the Houses of Parliament. This meant that we couldn't get the shot we wanted to get originally and meant we had to improvise and change the shot when we got there. We weren't able to find out when this construction was due to be finished so we will have to go back at a later date and re-film the shot regardless. We managed to film in all the locations we wanted to including; the Houses of Parliament, Mi6 building and the River Thames. We also filmed our time lapse shot in Trafalgar Square with relative ease.

Journal entry 2

On the 16th of February in half term our group has planned to go up to London in order to take pictures of our locations and start filming for our title sequence. We will film our establishing shots which open our sequence. The locations we will go to in order to film these are: Vauxhall Bridge (MI6 building), Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and the London Eye. There may be other places where we decide to get a shot of during the time we are there but the places stated are locations we will almost definitely visit.

Storyboards for title sequence

These storyboards won't be our final completed sequence. There will be shots added in and shots taken out as we go along the production process. However, the basic shots and most important shots are there on the storyboard for us to look at whilst filming.

Journal entry 1

Today we started creating and printing off props for our title sequence. A couple of our shots require newspaper clippings and articles. Because of this, one member of our group created some using Photoshop. Here is an example of these newspaper articles:



We also wanted to create an investigation wall for one of our shots. To do this we had to print off lots of different pictures off the internet of key characters and locations. We then got the permission of one our teachers to use one of their classroom walls to create this for our shot.






This is how the wall looked after we created it. We still had to remove the blue borders around the edge of the wall but other than that this is how it would like as the final product. When it came to actually shooting this scene we turned all the lights off and set up a studio light just off shot. We also experimented with shooting the scene with a Go Pro and a steady cam to see what gave us the best results.

Soundtrack options for title sequence

Soundtrack 1:

Soundtrack 2:



Soundtrack 3:
https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk/production-music/all-to-play-for_28071.aspx

Our group has chosen soundtrack 3 as we feel it suits the pace and genre of our film. The buildup comes at an appropriate time which suits our sequence well.

Title sequence idea

As a group we have come up with a clear idea an concept for our title sequence. We have created the whole narrative for our film "Agent X" and have casted the main characters in a way we feel will suit the film and the genre.

Our sequence will combine a use of longer establishing shots of key iconography and British landmarks with fast paced and shorter shots. These shorter shots take inspiration from Se7en and will accompanied by an increase in pace of the soundtrack.

The sequence won't regularly show our main characters faces. We only see the characters faces once, Agent X on the wanted poster, Michael Caine and Daisy Ridley on the investigation wall and Morgan Freeman will be seen to be looking at the wall. However we won't see Morgan Freeman's face throughout.

The sequence will begin with a wide angle shot of our protagonist (Agent X, Josh Bowman) and his helper (Michael Caine). The sequence will then go on to show off the landmarks around London, showcasing the British side of the film and reinforcing the genre and conventions of this genre. The pace significantly increases once the title of the film itself appears. From then on, the cuts are quicker and more frequent as the suspense continues to build.

From this point the sequence will take on two different perspectives: from the protagonist Agent X and from the antagonist Morgan Freeman (character name still to be decided.) This will give the audience a slight insight into the narrative of the film and hopefully be able to increase the suspense even further.

Spy Genre- codes and conventions

The codes and conventions for our chosen genre for our title sequence could also be linked to action movies. This is because the spy genre is actually a sub-genre of the action genre and our title sequence is of a film which combines the two. The codes and conventions are:

• Gun fights
• Explosions 
• High speed chases 
• Heroes and villains 
• Sidekicks
• Women 
• Excitement, suspense and tension
• Rescue missions 
• Military themes
• Love interests
• Relationships

These are the key elements which apply to most spy films and will feature predominantly in the films. The James Bond franchise will show the majority of these because it is undoubtedly the most conventional spy film in the genre. Therefore it looks to use as many of these elements as possible in order to convey the genre effectively.