Question five!

Target Audience (Question 4)

This is my target audience dude. He is an American, eighties throwback. He still wears his old leather jacket and big gold belt buckle. His favorite TV programme was Starsky and Hutch and he still listens to his old 80s rock records on his record player. He prefers to shop at little independent record shops as opposed to high street stores. He has kids and is married and is pretty much a typical middle aged man who likes to re-live his youth.

Evaluation Question 3!

We decided that our film was more than likely to be distributed by Warner Bros, as Starsky and Hutch was also distributed by them. Our production company was to be Red Hour productions, as they produce a lot of comedy and action films, and looked into using the same budget and locations as us, as well as costume. The distribution company being the ones that actually, physically sell the film and the Production being the creators. I have only included the actors name's in order of appearance, to show that they are the main characters, and not to confuse viewers with minor roles. The production company would sort out the private investors.

Evaluation!

Our film was a throwback to the 80s action films, like 'the Expendables' and 'Starsky and Hutch'. We decided to follow the American 'cop' film closer, and attempt to re-create our own. We named our film 'The Retro Rejects', to add a slight hint of comedy, but also to make it clear when the film was set. The setting was a rather urban area, with cars and buildings, as we wanted to almost imitate a city where a film like this would have been set. E.g New York, etc...

The female role was indicated by her character being a bit withdrawn from the action, she wasn't very upfront or diving into the action headfirst herself, she acted more like a chauffeur for the two males. Dan's character was a typical male lead, with the big guns and the suit. He was to represent the typical action film role of the Hero, racing in to save the day and killing all the bad guys.

His sidekick, Tim, was represented as a much more shady character. He doesn't speak at all throughout the whole film, but is there at the beginning and end, as a support to the hero. Obviously if I were to create the whole film he would have a bigger role, but because it was just the first two minutes, we used him only to establish that he was the sidekick. He has a cigarette in his mouth, a typical male hobby for the time it was set.

As you can see from the above screenshot, Dan's character is in the middle, as the center of attention. My character is on the right hand side, out of view, as a female role is considered 'lesser' than that of the hero. Tim's character's face is never clearly in view, and is always concealed in shadows to give him that mysterious feel.

I used two special effects throughout the entirety of the film. One was when Dan was cocking the gun, and another was the 'peephole' effect, to give the watcher a voyeuristic view, as well as show that the 'cops' are also watching the two.

The gun scene was a slow motion version of Dan shooting the gun, this was to add tension as well as draw attention the the 'phallic' symbol that the gun represents.

Commando Textual Analysis

Commando was filmed in 1985, which is suitable to our film choice as we are also setting ours in the 80s. In the first couple of scenes, we see a lot of the basic conventions of Action films. The big guns, the element of surprise and the huge explosions and flashy cars, which lets us know what the film genre is.

This is then contrasted when we are first introduced to the main character. (Matrix/Arnie)

We believe that when the cleverly planned shot of someone's reflection in his axe, that it is immediately a bad guy but later discover it's his daughter, Jenny.

This is then followed by a montage of all the loving things that a father and daughter do together, which contrasts with action altogether and begins to make us believe it is a nice family film, even though we have already seen the first killings, and that Arnold is a generic action character.

The mis en scene includes Arnold dressed in a very tight vest showing his sexy abs and butch frame.

To be continued

Film Production and props.

February 15th : We began our filming today and got 3/4s of the scenes finished. It was raining, though we decided this would be good for mise en scene and dramatic tension.

Red Hour Productions & Warner Bros

Our film is likely to be produced by Red Hour Productions, who have made films like Starsky and Hutch and Tropic Thunder. The company that distributes Red Hour Production's Films is called Warner Bros, which is also a major company in the film industry.

Red Hour Productions spent $60 million on the Film's production (budget) and amassed a total profit of $170,268,750.