We wanted the idea of an introduction to a film that would be at a high tempo and the use of a voiceover set the scene. The problem is we could not express a high tempo and a voiceover in our drawn storyboard. We decided to put the word voiceover underneath the picture to highlight a voice is speaking over this scene. We wanted to try and get all of our generic conventions and iconography into the opening of our film and included people at the pub, singing and violence. These are few of the iconography and genric conventions in a football hooligan film.
The opening to this film is set in November 1979, at a time when hooliganism was at its peak. Carty wears what all the other hooligans tend to wear. A typical hooligan tends to wear Stone Island and Fred Perry clothing and a hooligan usually wears white trainers and jeans, which is very typical of the late 70s, early 80s fashion for hooligans and has carried on in today's hooligan films and characters such as Tommy Johnson and Matt Buckner also wear similar clothing to Carty. At the very beginning of this sequence, it is very ironic that Carty is grieving for his mother but then comes out of his funeral clothing and into his hooligan wear and getting on the train and looking for trouble. Carty is late for the train and has to sprint to get there. This is simlar to Matt Bucknern Green Street running after his hooligan firm, the GSE, as they meet up for a fight with the Millwall hooligan firm. Like Matt Buckner in Green Street, Carty is seen as an outsider at first and copies what the other hooligans are doing. There is already a division just like in Green Street and Football Factory between Carty and another youth which is apparent when the thug asks Carty 'What are you starin' at?'. This is similar to Billy Bright and Harris in the Football factory although these two are fighting for the leadership and Green Street when there is a hatred from Bovver towards Buckner.
There are several typical generic conventions in Away Days. There is the use of drugs and drink on the chain and fighting on the football terraces. Carty sees the thug who doesn't take a liking to him stab a rival firm member. Blood would normally appear from a stab wound and this could represent danger and that the youth, whose name we do not know, can be seen as a threat to Carty and the firm known as The Pack, who Carty becomes fascinated with. Another convention also includes swearing which was very common on the train. Linking this to the train, many hooligan firms tend to take trains on match days to away grounds and this is apparent in Away Days. ICF, West Ham United's hooligan firm, stands for Inter City Firm and is named after the use of InterCity trains for away games. As I have already mentioned, fashion is a huge part of hooligan life and Carty's sister mocks him when she says 'Who do? The local anglers club' after Carty says 'This is what they wear'. Like Matt Buckner, Carty copies what the hooligans wear. Another convention is many of the hooligan firms tend to walk around in large groups. This could represent intimidation as well as togetherness.
Both scenes I have looked at are fight scenes from both the Football Factory and Green Street. I have chosen these two scenes because they are both similar but they do have their differences. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFRiP3eA7WY
The titles at the beginning of this opening sequence of Football Factory are very graphic and show what hooligans have done in the past and also shows us what is going to happen throughout the film. The pace of the titles builds up to show the life of a hooligan is at a high tempo, backed up by the non-diegetic sound which is also at a high tempo. After the titles, it shows the main character, Tommy Johnson getting kicked in the head repeatedly. This a typical generic convention of a hooligan film, the use of blood and getting beaten up. Tommy is then seen walking down a street and is walking down a street. He describes his life and talks about the typical iconogrpahy within hooliganism - drugs, sex, alcohol, violence. It then cuts to 'Tottenham away' and shows police horses, who tend to be an agent of disruption in hooligan films and also shows a group of people coming out of the train station. In many hooligan films, hooligans tend to walk in a group to show that they are intimidating but to also be protected by his fellow hooligans. In every hooligan firm, there has to be a leader. It is hard to realise who the leader is at first, it could be Billy, Zeberdee or Tommy because they are communicating with each other on their phones. Tommy later explains Harris is the leader because the other potential leader, Billy Bright, is not seen as mature enough. Hooligans tend to meet up in a pub and fighting takes place outside the pub, where the Tottenham hooligans are situated. There is a lot of swearing and there is lots of bloody vioelence and the sounds of punching, kicking and the breaking of glass emphasises how violent the vioelnce really is. Women can also be seen as an influence and another agent of disruption, normally asking for the fighting to stop, as is seen in the opening the scene when the woman with the pushchair labels the hooligans as animals. After the fighting, they are in the pub, joking around, reflecting on past fights. It seems the hooligans have two very different personalities. They can joke around and be very kind but come matchday, they are brutal thugs. These hooligans have been brought up to fight and take part in other activities. In Tommy's younger days, he enjoys casual sex and being influenced by his father by becoming violent. Billy's father was always violent and grew up in rough areas, like Tommy has done. Zeberdee's main influence is drugs, beating up people to get drugs but also used to live in a rough area. It shows Billy in the present day with a nice house and a family. It is strange that a violent person can have such a nice house and loving family and could be possible that he used his violent ways to get what he wanted and uses this house and his family to cover up what he does at the weekend.
The opening to Green Street has its similarities and differences with Football Factory. Football Factory did not have any football chanting unlike Green Street where West Ham hooligans chant 'West Ham til' I die' and Tottenham hooligans chant 'Yid Army!' The two hooligan firms meet unintentionally and the location is at a train station where the group in Football Factory also appear from. Like Football Factory, there is a lot of swearing but there is no 'banter' in the opening of Football Factory, just giving a brief overview of the story to come. Green Street 'banter' involves where West Ham are in the Football League, the Spurs thugs saying West Ham are no longer 'top flight mob.' Like the Football Factory, there are leaders but in Green Street, a former West Ham hooligan firm leader is called 'The Major'. Pete is now the current leader of West Ham and argues with the Spurs leader, whose name is unknown to us. This leads to bloody violence which has the same iconogaphy and convention shown in the Football factory fight scene. There is a lot of bloody violence and you also hear the sounds of constant punching kicing and the breaking of glass as heard in Football Factory but Green Street has no agent of disruption, like the woman with the pushchair in Football Factory. Both fighting scenes show us awkward camera angles, the quick movement of the camera and the quick cuts which increase the pace of the film and emphasise the violence shown. There is then a transition to peaceful Harvard University. The main character, Matt Buckner, is kicked out for having drugs with him, although he is innocent and his room mate hid his drugs in Matt's room. Matt calls his Dad who is not there to answer. Like Football Factory, Matt could also be seen to having a bad upbringing like Billy and Tommy, his father is not there for him and is seen as a bad influence on Matt. Like Football Factory, the main character does a voiceover but Matt sounds more educated and is seen to get an A grade for a piece of work to highlight his intelligence. The music is much more slower than the music in Football factory. The slower music represents the innocence of Matt and the sunny Harvard also represents innocence unlike London at night, which can be viewed as dangerous because of the darker picture. Matt happens to arrive in London at the scene of the fight and meets his sister. The Americans sound very upbeat and positive but the British tend to be very negative, looking for violence and the people walking past Matt and his sister were very quiet and negative.
The genres I have chosen are gangsters, action, war and hooliganism because they all link in with the film my group are producing. As well as generic conventions, I will also be looking at the iconography in the different genres. A generic convention is a feature of a film that is expected to happen. For example, in a fairytale, you expect everyone to live happily ever after at the end. Iconography can be defined as object or image representations that are associated with a specific type of genre. For example, the iconography in Westerns in cowboy hats, saloons, guns and horses.
The link above shows a scene from The Untouchables, a gangster film about the life of the infamous Al Capone. In this scene, Capone jokes around with his colleagues but there is an awkward silence and Capone hits a colleague round the head several times with a baseball bat. In a gangster film, you would normally expect to see violence and the gangsters themselves normally end up getting killed or sent to prison. Another generic convention is you would expect the gangsters to go about their business quietly and is normally out of public view. In most gangster films, you would normally expect the gangsters to be Italian-American as many of stories are based on true stories such as the life of Al Capone in The Untouchables. Gangs tend to fight with other gangs with the police being an agent of disruption, another typical generic convention. Another convention is may of the gangsters are respected by the people of the area they live in, possibly because the people are scared of them.
The iconography normally associated with gangster films are the Mafia type people, who dress very smartly and normally wear a hat when they are outside so they are hidden and have an unknown identity. Many of the gangsters, especially the leaders tend to be rich and live in nice houses and have expensive dinner parties like the scene provided above (see link). Guns are almost always used in gangster films which are used to shoot down police or rival gangs. Many gangster films are located in urban areas and gangsters often meet in warehouses for alcohol and often deal in alcohol as there was prohibition in 1920s America. The gangsters often wear dark clothing to hide themselves fro public and shows they are up to no good, the colour black can represent mystery or even death.
The link above is about the action genre. The most common action film series is James Bond and the link above shows a tank chase scene through Russia in the film Goldeneye, part of the James Bond series of films. The main generic conventions include the action normally being centered around a male protagonist with women normally portrayed as a sidekick or a love interest for the main male protagonist. Their sidekick is normally in trouble , struggling against incredible odds. Other conventions include the protagonist being in many life threatening circumstances, an evil villain or antagonist and you would normally expect to see chase scenes like the tank chase in Goldeneye. Another convention includes expecting the protagonist to claim victory over the antagonist which is normally achieved after a gun or fist fight.
Iconography in an action film includes lots of physical stunts, the film is usually at a high tempo, chase scenes, rescue acts, battles, disasters and fights which tend to happen at the end. The pace of the film can be slow or fast. In James Bond, the pace is slow when James Bond is in a casino or is with a woman but is very fast when he is involved in a chase scene or in a fight with the antagonist. Women are normally seen as sidekicks to the male protagonist or even a romantic interest.
The link above shows a brief battle scene from the Battle of The Bulge in the seventh episode of Band of Brothers and is in the war genre. Typical generic conventions include the protagonists tending to be British or American (especially in WW2 films) who are fighting against the antagonists which are either Nazis or the Japanese. Another convention could be escaping, The Great Escape shows many attempted escapes from a POW camp. There is often tough trench and infantry experiences and many of the men become friends which is common in Band of Brothers. A typical generic convention is an underdog within the film, who is normally afraid of fighting in the war. A good example of this is the typewriter in Saving Private Ryan who is afraid to shoot at people or even be involved in the war and normally carries equipment. These type of characters at the end normally end up shooting people and become war-hungry.
Iconography in war films include blood, a common feature and seen in almost every war film. The blood normally appears when someone has been shot and this can represent danger and death. There is also the use of guns and other weapons which are normally a dark colour which also represents death. Tanks and 4x4 vehicles are also included in many war films and these can be seen as intimidating. The soldiers tend to fight in bad conditions such as snow and heavy rain but when they are not fighting, the weather is normally sunny or fair.
The link above shows the iconography and conventions in the hooliganism genre. The film is called Cass and is based on a true story, a black boy bullied at school soon becomes a respected leader of a hooligan firm but leads to severe consequences. A typical generic convention of a football hooligan film is the hooligan firms normally fight just before or after a match, to show they have bragging rights over them. The protagonists are more focused and tend to be West Ham or Chelsea with Millwall being seen as the main antagonists. Another convention is fist fighting and little use of guns. There is normally a division within a hooligan firm. For example in the Football Factory, Billy Bright and Zeberdee along with his mate Raff, do not get along because Billy wants to be leader but Zeberdee looks up to Harris, the firm leader. The main fight is normally towards the end of the film and normally have less people and are seen as the underdogs hence they are given the protagonist tag.
The iconography of hooliganism is they are normally brought up in a working-class society and tend to wear the same clothes brands such as Stone Island, Sergio Tacchini and Fila. There is often a lot of drinking, use of drugs and dealing of drugs casual sex and lots of violence. There is a lot of swearing associated with hooligans. Despite this, they are still portrayed as protagonists because of the humour they give out to the audience or seen as nice people who have nothing else to do but fight. For example, you feel sorry for Cass at the start and is already seen as the protagonist and you support him when he is fighting because he used to be inferior and is fighting back.
Before creating our logo, we had to research into other company logos just in case we had not copied other company logos. Many of today's companies use animation and would be very difficult to include animated logos into our movies. We wanted to keep our logo simple because we wanted to avoid editing the logo for a long time due to time constraints.
With the research completed, our group thought up logo ideas and the idea of a cow as our logo as our company is called Beef'ed 'n Co and beef comes from cows.
Most of the logos created were simple and either had a black or white background. We added a cow cartoon to our logo because beef comes from cows and thought that this type of humorous logo would attract a wide range of audiences. After much thouht, we felt the logo with the white background was the most suitable because it stands out from the rest and was very simple in design.
I have looked at two studios and have researched their history and the logos. To begin with, I have looked at DreamWorks:
The logos are both simple in design but are very hard to produce or make because at the start of most films, the company logo appears and normally appears in the form of an animation like DreamWorks does when the boy is guided on to the moon by the balloons for DreamWorks Animation and the boy is fishing whilst sitting on the moon in a normal DreamWorks film.
There is a difference in the colours too. For the animation logo, the colours are very light to poissibly show the film may be light-hearted. The colours are light blue and the font colour of DreamWorks consist of the colours blue, orange, purple, red and green. In the normal Dreamworks logo, the font is a plain white colour but has the same font type as DreamWorks Animation. The colours are dark blue or purple to highlight the seriousness of the film. In common, they have the same fonts and the same characters such as the man and the moon in the animation.
DreamWorks is an American film studio which distributes films as well as video games and television programmes. It has produced more than ten films with box-office grosses totalling more than $100million each. DreamWorks most successful title has been Shrek 2.
DreamWorks began in 1994 as an ambitious attempt by media moguls Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen (this is where the SKG originated from) to create a new Hollywood studio. In December 2005, it was sold off to Viacom, parent of Paramount Pictures. In 2008, it decided to end its partnership with Paramount and signed a deal with Reliance ADA Group from India. DreamWorks Animation SKG was created in 2004 and remained independent of Paramount. On February 9th 2009, DreamWorks signed a deal with Disney for a long term, 30 picture distribution deal where the films would be released with the Touchstone Picture banner over the next five years.
In 2000, DreamWorks won an Academy Award for Best Picture for Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe. In 1996, DreamWorks was emerging as a animation studio rival to Pixar creating some of the highest grossing movies of all time such as Antz, Shrek, Shark Tale, Madagascar, Flushed Away and Kung Fu Panda. In recent years, DreamWorks has scaled back. It stopped plans to build a high-tech studio, sold its music division and produced few television series. David Geffen admitted DreamWorks had gone close to going bankrupt twice. Under Katzenberg, DreamWorks made a $125 million loss on Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas and overestimated the DVD demand for Shrek 2.
In 2005, Paramount Pictures bought out DreamWorks for $1.6 billion. In June 2008, DreamWorks was looking for finance to continue operations as an independent production company once its deal ended with Paramount. Most of the finance came from Reliance ADA Group. The DreamWorks trademarks are owned by DreamWorks animation and the new company would need their approval to use their trademarks. In September, DreamWorks closed a deal with Reliance to create a stand alone production company and end its ties with Paramount. On 12th March 2007, DreamWorks Animation announced it would release all of its films beginning with Monsters vs Aliens in 3D.
Famous DreamWorks films include Saving Private Ryan, starring Tom Hanks, Gladiator, Chicken Run, Shrek, Road to Perdition featuring Jude Law and Daniel Craig, Catch Me If You Can starring Leonardo di Caprio, Meet the Fockers where Ben Stiller appears, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Transformers.
The next company I have researched is Paramount:
Both the logos are simple in desgin, showing the top of a mountain and the skyline as well as the stars arching over the word Paramount. On the other hand, there has also been some changes. Firstly, there is a change in colour. In the older logo,the mountain is orange and the clouds are yellow. This can suggest at the time, filming and animation was not technologically advanced as it is today when almost anything is possible. The modern logo looks far more realisitic but not entirely simplistic. There is a better use of light and shade and you are able to tell what time of day it is in the modern logo (sunset) whereas it is hard to tell what time of day it is in the older and outdated version. The text has also changed. In the older version, the text is placed over the mountain and the font size is bigger, making it easy viewing for the audience. However, in the modern logo the font size is a lot smaller and says Paramount just above the mountain and not over it. It just says Paramount rather than A Paramount Picture because over time and due to Paramount's success, audiences have become more accustomed to seeing Paramount and is instantly recognisbale because they have made so many films.
Paramount Pictures was created in 1912 and was founded by Adolph Zukor. He felt movies should appeal to working-class immigrants and planned to offer feature length films to the middle classes. Zukor believed in stars, he signed and developed many of the leading early stars, including Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino, and Wallace Reid. With so many important actors and actresses, Paramount was able to introduce "block booking", which meant that an exhibitor who wanted a particular star's films had to buy a year's worth of other Paramount productions. It was this system that gave Paramount a leading position in the 1920s and 1930s, but which led the government to pursue it on antitrust grounds for more than twenty years.
By the early 1960s Paramount's future was in doubt. The high-risk movie business was wobbly, the theater chain was long gone, investments in DuMont and in early pay-television came to nothing. Even the flagship Paramount building in Times Square was sold to raise cash. Founding father Adolph Zukor (born in 1873) was still chairman of Paramount. An old and retiring Zukor was incapable of keeping up with the changing times, and in 1966, a sinking Paramount was sold to Charles Bluhdorn's Gulf and Western Industries.
Paramount's successful run of pictures extended into the 1980s and 1990s, generating hits like Flashdance, Terms Of Endearment, Footloose, Pretty In Pink, Fatal Attraction, the Friday the 13th slasher series, as well as Raiders of the Lost Ark and its sequels.
On December 11, 2005, Paramount announced that it had purchased DreamWorks SKG (which was co-founded by former Paramount executive Jeffrey Katzenberg) in a deal worth $1.6 billion. The announcement was made by Brad Grey, chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, who noted that buying Paramount's large amount of pictures is a "key strategic objective in restoring Paramount's stature as a leader in filmed entertainment." The agreement doesn't include DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., the most profitable part of the company that went public the previous year. The first completed under this deal was Over The Hedge.
Paramount's most famous film is most like to be Charlie and the Chocoltae Factory, made in 1971, based on a novel by Roald Dahl. Although Warner Brothers took responsibility for making this film, Paramount had originally made this film. Other famous films include Beverly Hills Cop, Cloverfield, Crocodile Dundee, The Godafther and Indiana Jones.
After completing our preliminary task, we had to think of a genre or an idea for our main task. The original idea was that of a James Bond/gansgter genre. After thoroughly discussing this idea, we felt the idea on the whole was unrealistic as many James Bond films are filmed in areas where it would be impossible for us to film and many James Bond films include explosions and the use of guns. Instead, we developed on the idea of gangsters. Our group felt this would be more of a successful genre because we would be able to film in suitable locations and would be easier to act out. Our group had a lot of knowledge of football hooligan films such as Green Street and The Football Factory and we built on this.
The film begins at a game involving Dover and Folkestone. The protagonist is Harry Wall, son of the Folkestone's firm leader. A member of the Dover firm, Shane, describes what happens with the use of a voice over and describes the atompshere of the crowd and fights that maybe occurring. There are many shots of the Dover and Folkestone fans with the cuts getting quicker every time the camera switches from the Dover to Folkestone fans.
After Folkestone win, the fans get very arrogant including the hooligan firm, now thinking they are superior over Dover. Harry comes up to Alex and Shane, members of the Dover firm who are minding their own business walking along an alley way. Alex and Shane are seen as the antagonists in the film. Harry gives the Dover hooligans verbal abuse and the Dover thugs retaliate by punching him and Harry eventually manages to escape only for the Dover firm members to be right behind him.
The scene then cuts back to an office, where Harry works. Out of nowhere, Shane enters the room and hits him hard with blood everywhere. The next scene then cuts to the pub with Alex and Shane walking towards it with the voice over describing how these are the first steps to becoming a respected firm leader. There is then a fading transition into the titles which explains why Dover and fans are fighting. The tension between the two firms is reaching boiling and the real hooligans belong to non-league football. Further on in the film, there is constant fighting between the two firms and a lot of tension between the two but also some fighting internally in the firm, especially in the Dover firm as they fight to become the next firm leader.
